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Hello all,

How is the GW Basing Kit versus 3rd party's? Value wise that is. How far will that $25 go?

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat470007a&prodId=prod1400002a

The grass is more expensive than you can find at model railroad shops but I've yet to see anyone selling slate chips.

Concerning Hobby Goods i would seriously recommend considering GW "3rd party".

I bought the basing kit and I like them. I also have a lot of other stuff to do basing with, but these give me some nice extra bits to use (the resin bits and the brass etch, specifically).

One night at work (probably in response to a thread just like this) I was looking for slate chips online, and I simply could not find any, with nearly 30 minutes of searching. I suspect if I had actually gotten off my butt and gone to Lowe's I probably could have found some, but I didn't. Anyway.

That said, I paid $16 for mine. I absolutely under no circumstances would buy this kit for $25. A trip to a home store could get you a lifetime of basing stuff for $25, and the resin bits are not that nice. It doesn't come with either sand or flocking.

They sell the sand here, $8 for 100g. You can (and should) buy a bag of play sand instead at a home store, it's $5 for 18,000 grams. Even if you through out 17 thousand grams it's still a better deal.

The resin bits aren't anything spectacular, you can quite easily make decorations for the base by using pieces from other kits and a dremmel/scalpel.

The slate is pretty mediocre too, for my basing I was given a broken roofing slate, put it in a bag and smashed it with a hammer for a while. You get all shapes and sizes and it looks great too. As for stuff like sand? You can get that anywhere, varying grain sizes for next to nothing (usually in lifetime supplies too!).

The brass cut outs are again, average. Unless you're doing a cityscape type base then they won't come in use very often. Most items like that can be cut from plasticard anyway.

Overall, not worth the money. It's far cheaper and easier to craft your own, and comes with pride and knowledge of your personal home-crafted bases.

Hope this helps

I'm not sure if they ship to the US - but I recently got some slate chippings from Antenocitis' Workshop here: http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/

I can't comment on the rest of the stuff in the GW kit, as much as I would like to try out some of the bits, the resin pieces look nice, as does the brass etch...

I could have sworn I had just seen GF9 selling slate basing stuff.

The slate is pretty nice as it's already pre smashed for you and are pretty uniform in the fact that they have flat surfaces making them easier to glue onto bases than smashing them yourself in my experience.

The resin bases are sort of nice, but nothing that you can't make yourself if you have a nice variety of bitz (but are actually nice if you don't have the bitz yourself to make them).

The one thing that really shines in this kit is the etched brass that comes with it.

darefsky wrote:I could have sworn I had just seen GF9 selling slate basing stuff.

Cause they sort of do.

http://www.basecrafts.com/index.php?route=common/home

Can't recommend these guys highly enough, one basing kit should do an average size army, plenty of variety and not too expensive.

Currently using their winter basing kit for my Raven Guard, really working well.

That said, I do have a 40k basing kit and the smaller slate pieces in that have been useful too, I believe it's sold as "stone dust" in diy stores.

I recommend both, in my experiance you can never have enough basing options.

The GW kit does come with some nice stuff, I've gone through a few of them.

Woah, thanks for the link to the basecraft website. That woodland basing kit looks perfect for me. I've been trying to recreate a temperate, mulchy, leafy woodland base for my Tau for ages now, unsuccessfully. Defo going to give that a go for £10.

Any link for something similar to basecrafts but for US people?

Meh, pass on the GW Basing kit. Nothing a handfull of garden stones and a decent bits box cant solve.

I had one for Christmas, glad really, because i'd have been very annoyed if i brought one.

I've been tiling my basement with slate tiles- I can tell you I've got more than a lifetime of slate chips now. 1 ft x 1ft tile, costs less than $3 apiece, you can pretty much break it apart with your hands.

mould2k wrote:Woah, thanks for the link to the basecraft website. That woodland basing kit looks perfect for me. I've been trying to recreate a temperate, mulchy, leafy woodland base for my Tau for ages now, unsuccessfully. Defo going to give that a go for £10.

You're welcome! I got a bottle of water effects too, so some of my models will be stepping over/into streams with snowy banks, it's a little thinner than I'd like from a modelling perspective, but it certainly dries wet looking, and it's 2 quid!

Good product should be rewarded I feel, and my experience so far suggests these guys have quality stuff. They shipped quick too.

leohart wrote:Any link for something similar to basecrafts but for US people?

None I know of, sorry, dunno if Basecraft will ship to you, the box is fairly light, and not massive, so charges might not be too bad.

I got mine out of a bargain bin and was happy with it. Would not pay full price though. There are better options.

just paid for the GW basing sand. $10 (after tax) was too much, I should have bought a bag of play sand, except I have no place to put it, and wanted uniform size...
I also have a bag of flocking grass a friend gave me. I think its the GW stuff and it works fine, but I know you can get terrain supplies at regular train-set hobby stores, almost always for cheaper.
I've seen the basing bits from the GW kit and they are nice for picking out special characters, but seem expensive for what you get.