There are some things in our hobby that become so familiar we stop seeing them.
One of those is the humble plastic base.
As the Warhost miniature range has grown, I’ve had to make a decision I never expected to spend much time thinking about. Do we move to the traditional 4mm thick plastic base, or continue with the thinner bases we’ve used so far?
At first glance, it seems like an odd thing to spend time considering. After all, it’s only a base. The more I looked into it, though, the more I realised it opens up a much bigger question about miniature gaming and how much of what we accept today is simply inherited from the past.
I’m old enough to remember when Citadel introduced Slotta bases. Before then, most metal miniatures stood on thin puddle bases. The Slotta base solved a genuine problem. It securely held metal figures with cast tabs and made assembling an army quicker, easier and more consistent. It was an elegant solution, and one that helped shape the modern hobby.
Games Workshop then grew to become the biggest name in miniature gaming.
As its influence spread, so did the Slotta base. Other manufacturers followed, new gamers entered the hobby expecting deep plastic bases, and before long they had become the accepted standard.
Very few of us ever stopped to ask why.
That only changed for me when I started buying miniatures from other manufacturers. Some arrived on much thinner bases. The difference wasn’t dramatic when you picked them up, but it changed how they looked once they were on the table.
The figures felt connected to the battlefield instead of standing above it.
Roads met their feet naturally. Buildings looked the right height. Rivers and bridges felt like part of the same landscape rather than scenery sitting below a row of black cylinders and squares. The miniatures no longer looked as though they were walking around on little plinths.
Once I’d noticed it, I couldn’t unsee it. What surprised me most was that I’d spent nearly forty years in the hobby before I’d ever stopped to ask why.
That experience forced me to look again at the decisions we’re making for Warhost. Choosing a base because it’s familiar didn’t seem like a good enough reason. So before deciding how future releases should be presented, I wanted to understand why the industry had settled on this design in the first place.
The obvious answer is manufacturing, but I’m no longer convinced that’s the whole story. Modern plastic kits routinely include large flat parts, shields, weapons, vehicle panels and even thin puddle bases without issue. Manufacturing has moved on enormously since the 1980s.
The historical explanation feels far more convincing.
The original Slotta base needed enough depth to accommodate a metal tab. That dictated its proportions and solved a real engineering problem. As one-piece plastic miniatures became the norm, that particular problem disappeared.
The base, however, stayed exactly the same.
Perhaps familiarity became more powerful than innovation. Perhaps compatibility across manufacturers became the priority. Or perhaps nobody saw a reason to revisit something that had worked perfectly well for decades.
Whatever the reason, the design outlived the problem it was created to solve.
None of this is intended as a criticism of Games Workshop. Quite the opposite. The Slotta base was an elegant answer to the challenge they faced, and its influence on the hobby is impossible to overstate. I’m not questioning whether it was the right decision in 1985. I’m questioning whether we’re still making the same decision today simply because it’s become the convention.
For me, that’s a question worth asking.
One of the guiding principles behind Warhost has been to challenge assumptions. We aren’t making fantasy miniatures because that’s what fantasy is expected to look like. We’ve built a world that feels grounded, believable and rooted in the same visual language as historical gaming. The figures, armour, weapons and poses have all been approached from that perspective. It seems only right that the bases deserve the same consideration.
This isn’t an announcement, and it isn’t a campaign to change the hobby. It’s simply a question that the development of Warhost has led me to ask. Forty years ago, Games Workshop solved a genuine problem, and the hobby quite rightly followed. Today, I’m wondering whether it’s time to ask the question again.
I'm not saying that 4mm-thick bases are wrong. They’ve served the hobby well for decades, and many gamers genuinely prefer them. Compatibility matters too, particularly for those of us with large existing collections.
But I do think it’s healthy to question the assumptions we’ve inherited.
If you were designing the modern 28mm miniature hobby from scratch today, with no knowledge of Games Workshop or Slotta bases, would you really choose a 4mm thick base?
Or would you design something different?
I’d genuinely like to know what you think.
17 comments
Interesting topic and thinking about it I thought production too at first but I’m inclined to agree its most likely about habit these days. For the system I’m building I have chosen flat ones, like those from Renedra. Both because of production (printed resin figs), but also because it keeps the minis at the ground.
I dislike the look of thick bases and usually use thin steel bases with figures glued directly on with a bit of filler to hide the moulded bases. I appreciate that the thicker bases made of mdf etc are easier to pick up but I prefer the bases to blend in as much as possible.
Theres a problem in (video) gaming design called the uncanny Valley. The closer something becomes to looking real without quite making it the more the human brain finds it off putting.
A smaller base only really works if your miniatures are always staying on terrain that matches the base.
A miniature on a base built to resemble a flowery meadow is never going to look quite right on a castle rampart and the suspension of disbelief goes straight away.
Better then to design a base that is a work of art in its own right, that can be admired in its own right as part of the overall miniature, and rhen move on.
The same applies to home decor. Trying to match shades of blue, for example, fails. The human eye prefers a difference thats obvious enough that it is accepted as intentional. As opposed to an attempt at matching that is always going to come across as a failure.
Id argue that the larger diorama style base reflects this quirk. Suspension of disbelief works better the less you try to get the base to match the terrain.
Accept it as its own individual piece of art and craft, the gamers or onlookers will acknowledge it for what it is, and then it sort of disappears as a distraction and we all live on. Thats essentially what suspension of disbelief is. Its not real, but it is cool, so I like it and will be captivated anyway.
Dear Andy,
I’m very glad you came up with this question because I ramble about this point now for over 20 years or so on every occasion. :D
Thick bases are absolutely great for displaying minis or to have kind of a pedestal for the glorification of the “work of art” you painted (which is not really a work of art because it serves a purpose when it is painted for the gaming table instead of the display and therefore just design at best).
Selling / painting minis for the gaming table serves the purpose of immersion and the pedestal base is a contrary concept to this goal as you very well recognized.
There is a product marketing thought for every producer, though:
If you sell minis to 10 year olds that need some “official” system the slotta base and double priced paint pots with funny names are surely a helpful thing but as s a seasoned gaming mini painter I found it always helpful if minis are cheaper without a base because every adult gamer is capable of using the bases of his own liking and many of them (including me) do. I cut off every mini directly under the boots and glue them on my very own bases of various types.
So if someone needs GW style plastic bases, just sell them separately (many producers do this) but don’t force them onto players that don’t need them. Reducing plastic is environmentally not a bad thing, too. I got a box full of GW slotta bases here which I never needed. It’s just surplus.
Just my 2 Cents.
Btw. being a games author and producer in Germany I’m very happy with your stuff and your dedication to the hobby. So, keep up your good work, Andy.
Kind regards, Markus
I always use 3-4mm bases. I like the flexibility they give for applying unit or squad color markings, character nameplates, and for the added weight at the bottom of the figure to help keep it upright on terrain ( add lead shot or use to use quarter sized washers as the base on metal figures, now wooden bases add enough weight for plastic figures) plus it can give a diorama type look to a model when added to a larger base with terrain for display.