Re: Bases

Jim Bell wrote:

 >The hex base is the standard black plastic base (which I use now only
 >for fighters) and the Evil Empires round clear base.

That's pretty much what I suspected.

 > My collection of ships started with a large number of Silent Death
 >miniatures and I found that some of those miniatures fell on a regular
 >basis if the table happened to get bumped.

Similar to my experience... though several of my original SD miniatures 
(particularly the Hatchling ones) didn't have the mounting holes
directly 
under the centre of gravity, which aggravated the problem considerably. 
However:

 >The diameter of the Evil Empires base is only slightly larger than the

standard
 >hex base (less than a 1/16" point to point).

30.5 mm point-to-point vs 32mm in diameter means a 5% shorter lever -
but 
the point-to-point direction is the *longest* lever of the hex base, ie.

the one direction it is *least* likely to tip over in. As you noted hex 
bases almost invariably tip over the *side* instead, and there the 
difference is 5.5mm (17%) which is quite a lot given the size of most 
miniatures. (Another  way of comparing the sizes is the table area
covered: 
the hex base only covers 75% as much table area as the GW circular
base.)

So, well... I agree that you're comparing as close to apple to apples as

possible without making your own bases, but it's still not a very close 
comparison; the GW base is a fair bit bigger than the standard hex base.

Most of the difference in stability between the two comes from their 
different *sizes*, not from their different *shapes*.

My own basis for comparing base stability is that I did make my own 
experimental circular bases at the same time I made the small hex base
(now 
FT004). (Since I measure in cm the GW hex base is slightly too large to
use 
in play; three ships side-by-side in base-to-base contact end up with
the 
two on the ends 6.4mu - ie. outside ADFC range - of one another; thus I 
needed something smaller than that.) The base sizes I tried were
diameter 
30mm (allowing ADFC to *just* reach ships two base widths away, and
0.5mm 
less than the point-to-point width of a hex base), diameter 27.5mm (same

table area covered as the standard hex base but different shape) and 
diameter 26.5mm (same as the *side-to-side* width of a hex base). Of
these 
three, only the 30mm one was comparable to the hex base in stability.
While 
the others were as stable as the hex base is *over the side*, I orient
the 
hex base so its point-to-point (30.5mm) axis coincides with the ship 
model's longest (and thus most tip-prone) axis which meant that the
smaller 
circular bases lost a lot of stability in that direction :-(

'Course, as Dean mentioned base weight comes into it too - glueing a
weight 
into the bottom of each base (or making the base out of solid metal from

the outset) also improves the stability considerably.

 >I have superdread's from the Galactic Knights line that I have yet to
 >base just due to the fact that I don't have bases that I believe is up
to 
the
 >job for those monsters.

I use the Silent Death "Warhounds-style" basing for my Victory-class
SGDNs, 
ie. two hex bases rather than a single one. (The Victories are so big
that 
I can't measure from post to post anyway, so I have the centre point
marked 
on the top instead). I use metal posts though; plastic ones just snap
(even 
the old GW Space Fleet ones :-( ).

 >Hope this information helps Oerjan.

It does indeed :-)

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry