Skirmish Tray

We had a bit of a family crisis this past week but it seems everything is getting back to normal again.

On the plus side, it meant I stayed at home if I wasn't working and I got quite a bit of painting done - kept me from bouncing off the walls.

Anyway, this is one of the things I managed to finish:

When I started the WOTR project, I intended to use the figures for my Strandhogg games. When the guys started going into Warhammer Fantasy, I had to make a choice between styling my army as a Bretonnian army, or an (The) Empire army. Eventually I decided to go with the handguns and cannons, and so went for a (The) Empire army.

The down side to this, however, was that I lost the longbow effect - (The) Empire archers are strictly skirmishers, which meant no deep ranks of archers.

Under the 8th edition, skirmishers have to be deployed in a rank-and-file formation and the end of their movement, but rather annoyingly, the figures have to be 1/2" apart. This created a market for "skirmish trays", which are specialised movement trays with slots for square bases at 1/2" apart.

I got mine from Back 2 Base-ix. These come in two pieces of 3mm MDF (the top one with the slots in them, and the bottom as a base) and all the little slots that were cut out, which you can use as bases.

I didn't want my figures to look like they are standing on a platform, so I replaced the bottom with a paper-thin sheet of plastic - the top piece provides enough strength to the whole construct. To make the formation look less sparse, I added a couple of stakes and bundles of arrows from the Bretonnian archers set. It was when I was going to glue the stakes into position when I realised I don't actually know where to put them, or to put it in another way, where the archers stood in relation to the stakes. Behind? In front until they are charged? Beside? In the end practicalities prevailed and I placed the stakes so that they don't jut out off the base.

I also found out that the bases I based my archers on were a little bigger than the slots - I ended up filing the slots AND the bases to make them fit.

I'm quite happy with the outcome.