50 Fighter Groups

I'm in the middle of basing 50 groups of fighters for the Sci-Fi
Crossover
game I'm running at GenCon.  With the recent talk on fighter bases and
now
carriers I thought I would share what I am doing with the list.

First off, Sci-Fi Crossover is a scenario where ships from your favorite
TV
series and movies get to do battle.  Basically its the Empire from Star
Wars
(Micro Machine Star Destroyers) vs the combined might of the Star Trek
Original Series Federation (Gamescience minis), Earthforce (AoG minis
plus
the small Whitestars sold on the web), a Battlestar (the Comet mini),
and a
SCVN from Space: Above and Beyond (the Ark Royal miniature from
Stellardyne,
a local friend).  This game got lots of looks last year (the guys from
AoG
wandered by and said "It has to be Full Thrust, no other game can do all
that") and I hope for more this year.  Most of these popular ships are
carriers so that results in a lot of fighters to deal with.  Last year
the
Empire walked over the combined forces.  This year I'm adding the
Battlestar
and the SCVN along with some other ship modifications.	I was able to
playtest the changes with Indy, Noam, and Keith Watt when I was in the
Baltimore area a couple months ago (thanks for the game guys).	I had
overcompensated and the Empire (me) got kicked.  So a few more changes
and
tests and now its time get the minis ready.

I need about 50 fighter groups for this game so first I had do decide
how to
base them (last year at GenCon I used counters -yuck-).  I kept all of
the
posts on basing fighters and looked at the painting FAQ for ideas.  I
like
the Battletech hex base filled with putty except for a spot for a die
but it
would be pricey to do 50 groups this way.  I wanted to make them small
and
transportable and hopefully inexpensive.  So I decided that I would base
3
fighters per base to keep the size down and decrease the number of
fighters
I need.

So I ended up using 1" fender washers glued to 1" wood discs from a
craft
store ($1 for 7) as the bottom of the base.  I used earring posts to
mount
the individual fighter minis ($2.99 for 72, 4mm round disc at one end).
With a pin vise I drilled small holes in the bottoms of the fighter
minis
and superglued the fighter to the post and the disc end of the post to
the
top of the wood base.  The 3 fighters are mounted in a V formation,
point
forward, and there is enough room for a small die or two in the back for
numbers and endurance.	I have completed (but not finished painting)
about
half of what I need and they are pretty sturdy.  Now I am waiting on an
order from Brigade to arrive so I can mount the hoards of "Fighter with
Hex
Solar Panels" that I need.  So far I have a lot of GZG 'Star Tiger'
groups,
a few 'Star Sabre' groups, some 'Hammer' fighters.  With no good minis
for
Vipers from Battlestar Galactica, I'm using Terran 'Comet' and 'Meteor'
fighters from Superior's Star Fleet Wars line.

To transport this mass of fighter bases, I'm using some
compartmentalized
plastic boxes, the type used for fishing lures or misc small stuff.  A
strip
magnet is stuck to the bottom of each compartment which keeps the base
(with
washer on the bottom) from bouncing around instead of trying to pad
everything.

I'm bringing my digital camera to GenCon and Mark Siefert has agreed to
put
up pictures daily from the con so you can all see what these fleets (and
the
rest of the con) look like in August.

Dean
dean.gundberg@noridian.com

P.S. Does anyone else 'borrow' lots of crafting stuff from their wife's
supplies?  My wife had a good selection of the crafters acrylic paints
and
brushes along with some funky glues and stuff.	When I started painting
more
(rather than collecting a bunch of silvery minis) I just used her stuff
and
bought a bit here and there as I needed (though she is not happly that I
bought some brushes that I won't let her use).