The wrong side of the track - resurectionsts in Malifaux

My basing ritual differs from that used by S&M and GO. I light the candles in the hand, then use compression and a mould to shape my greenstuff on bases.
You will need to dig up the following items (probably wait for dark before heading out with your shovel):

• Compression Mould (push pad)
• Something to push hard against (the floor works for me) (not the same as something hard to push against).
• A shaping tool (in this case a knife with a flat surface)
• Greenstuff
• A model base

My mould came from Basius in their first KS. You can get one here I guess.

Step 1
Put greenstuff on the Malifaux 32 mm base. You don't really need to cover the slotta-hole, but you can if you want.
The trick is not use too much. You add more and push again if it goes wrong and/or you added too little. Less trouble then cleaning up your base if you splurged too much.

Sprinkle water on the part of the base you will use.
If you don't the mould gets gunked up, and the greenstuff will adhere to the mould and not the base.


Step 2
Push the base with the green stuff on it against the push pad/mould.

Leave it for about 90 seconds then lift it off vertically.

Take care not to touch any green stuff and to lift it off vertically.


Step 3
I blow the water off at this point, then look at what I have. If it looks crap, do it again. If its passable I will finish it by hand using the knife.

Overhang on the base's rim is cut off.

Some of the flagstones will be artificially flattened further with the flat of the knife, and the boundaries between paving stones made sharper so that they wash well with ink.

The mud and overgrowth is also finished by hand using the sharp point or end of the knife to make little V's or poke holes.

Parts I am not sure about are flattened into flagstones or dimpled into overgrowth or soil.


Ritual complete I wave the raven's feather over the base and the job is nearly done. There is normally some work to finish these bases off. Its not onerous, but it does need to be done with care. You can see the result of tidying up to the right.

Compression moulding bases is clearly a little slower than just slotting in an insert or using a solid resin base, but nearly of the same order of magnitude of time (e.g. 4-5 mins a compression mould base vs 1 min of cleaning a resin based with soap and water); in my experience both metal inserts and resin bases need cleaning, and tidying up. But its defiantly cheaper and if you need a lot, you don't need to worry about lines going out of production, ordering 20 bases when you need only 11 etc.

I wouldn't use the method for speed - but the results look good to alright, each base is different and they paint up ok. They would also be easy to fit around models needing funny or odd attachment. I suspect the results you get are highly dependent on the push mould that you choose. Moulds that yield casts that could not be easily tidied up with a knife would rapidly become a chore if you based 100's of models. But 4 or 5 at a time, that can easily be finished by hand is fine - I think.

I would definitely use a mould like this to make bases again, but I would make sure the design was one that could easily be smartened up, and simple to cast (e.g. can remove base from mould easily/no undercuts and design that can easily be tidied up).