Affordable Miniatures Bases ( 25mm / 30mm & 40mm ) by Impact Miniatures kickstarter

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/impactminiatures/affordable-miniatures-bases-25mm-30mm-and-40mm

During Covid Impact! had trouble sourcing bases for our miniatures. We had a large supply and had other miniatures companies in the USA reach out to us to ask if we had an extras to sell as they were running out.

This lead to discussions about sourcing for very affordable miniatures bases that could offer both having the items in stock and very fast delivery.

Unable to find any sources, Impact started in 2020 the process to try and become an affordable mass base supplier in the USA that can ship out orders in under a week.

So we are at the final step of the process and looking for backers to assist us with the extremely high cost of the molding to start this new product line.

We are starting with 3 different bases.

25mm slotted bases

30mm flat bases (with pre marks for slot or circle cut outs)

40mm flat bases (with pre marks for slot or circle cut outs)

The bases are firm plastic ... they are solid designs that should not warp, bend or break easily. The bases have a textured top to make it easier for glue, paint and flock to stick to the surface.

The 30mm bases work great for Heroscape customs and also work really great as an affordable substitute for models that normally come with 32mm bases.

The KickStarter is very simple. 3 different bases in either $10 sets or 1000 base sets and free shipping to US addresses on everything.

ADD-ONS
(you can add-on as many extras as you want by just increasing the amount you pledge for the reward level you pledge at)

$10 - An additional pack of 125 25mm slotted, 100 30mm or 50 40mm bases. You will be asked in a survey after the KickStarter which pack you want. Get as many packs as you'd like.
$40 - An extra set of 1000 25mm slotted bases
$50 - A larger additional pack of 600 30mm or 400 40mm bases.
$75 - An extra set of 1000 30mm bases
$80 - An extra set of 1000 40mm bases
STRETCH GOALS
For every $5000 the project reaches, we'll add in an extra 1% rounded down of bases to each order.

Looks more geared to small mini producers than individual consumers, but if you need a bunch of normal bases to redo an old army for example (especially if your based in the USA) this may be of interest

Impact! are a generally helpful and reliable KS bet

**Gallahad**

Great prices and US based. Good company I want to support. I backed.

**Kid_Kyoto**

Are bases that hard to get? It seems I see them all the time on Amazon.

Honestly I would be all over someone making GW style raised bases with texture. Cobblestones, pavement, some rocks, whatever.

I hate flocking bases but painting something with a texture I can do. Rezolution/Champ Industries had some good ones but them seem gone now.

**Kalamadea**

I've gotten hundreds of bases off ebay and amazon in every size GW makes (including 28.5mm), maybe it's hard to find wholesale somehow? I've never had any issues ordering from Chinese sellers or US resellers, I've probably got a stockpile of close to a thousand different sizes at this point for my various projects and the prices aren't much different than what Impact lists. Plus they're already available. I don't know who this KS is targetted at, but regular plastic bases styled to match GW are super easy and cheap and have been for a few years now, at least for us end consumers. Again, for wholesalers and miniature manufacturers that may be a different story.

Now, if they wanted to make stone-textured or deckplate/sci-fi styrene bases in the beveled GW style, THAT would be something. i love Renedra's stone textured styrene bases, but they're 1mm flats and take some work to glue and trim to blank GW-style bases for my dungeoncrawler minis, Impact should be lookng to make some of those

**ImpactMinis**

Kalamadea wrote:
I've gotten hundreds of bases off ebay and amazon in every size GW makes (including 28.5mm), maybe it's hard to find wholesale somehow? I've never had any issues ordering from Chinese sellers or US resellers, I've probably got a stockpile of close to a thousand different sizes at this point for my various projects and the prices aren't much different than what Impact lists. Plus they're already available. I don't know who this KS is targetted at, but regular plastic bases styled to match GW are super easy and cheap and have been for a few years now, at least for us end consumers. Again, for wholesalers and miniature manufacturers that may be a different story.

Hi @Kalamadea

The major focus is wholesale and miniature manfacturers.

I fully and completely agree that Amazon and Ebay is filled with the ability to get 100 to 200 bases at a time.

However ... the companies that you could order 2000 to 10000 at a time. Those companies had severe supply issues. Impact! and several other companies that talked to me found it nearly impossible to get these at prices that allowed us to use the bases as a supply item instead of a retail sales item. I had to wait 5 months just to get 5000 bases for my company at one point and was down to my last 80 when they finally arrived I had other companies reaching out to me asking if they could have some of the bases I still had during the last 2 years due to difficulty getting them. This lead to discussions and my pursuing these products.

So that is who I was aiming at when I pursued getting into this market. I priced the bases on the KickStarter so they would be a good deal for retail customers as well vs prices I saw on Amazon and Ebay. But I wanted to answer your question since you asked who I was targetting.

Tom @ Impact!

**BobtheInquisitor**

Tom, what kind of plastic will you use for these bases? Will they work with plastic glue?

I ask because the bases on Amazon do not melt with plastic glue.

**ImpactMinis**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Tom, what kind of plastic will you use for these bases? Will they work with plastic glue?

I ask because the bases on Amazon do not melt with plastic glue.

I'm honestly not sure. Tell you what ... its a good question ... email your address at impactminiatures@gmail.com and I'll send you one of each immedaitely and you can let me know the answer.

Tom @ Impact!

**Kid_Kyoto**

Thanks Tom!

I hope I didn't come off as harsh or dismissive. If the KS does well I really do hope some generic pavement or ship deck or whatever bases can be made. Those I'd buy by the bucket.

**ImpactMinis**

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Thanks Tom!

I hope I didn't come off as harsh or dismissive. If the KS does well I really do hope some generic pavement or ship deck or whatever bases can be made. Those I'd buy by the bucket.

Not at all. There are bases all over Amazon ... so I get the confusion since my reason for investing was bases was more aimed at companies than individuals.

I will admit ... I'd be nervous in investing in textured bases. Since base size is so important to people and the mold is so important. A wrong mix would essentially be money down the drain. I've had 3 companies I've worked with that made textured bases go under in the last 3 years. The rise of 3-D printing has made this type of a product one with a reduced market. That's why I went high quality and super affordable when working on this project as that mix still currently has buyers.

I like the idea ... and I'm not against it ... but it would probably need to be a project I pursued after I have some core bases nailed down.

I would need around $4700 in order to make a base like that and produce enough to get it to have a price point that worked. As I said ... making just these 3 bases was a big financial risk for my company that I hope pays off. If it does and demand is good ... I definitely would be interested in trying to make more ... and I could see trying to add a 25mm non-slotted round textured base at one point.

Tom @ Impact!

**Kid_Kyoto**

I hear you.

You do cobblestone bases and modern/sci fi players say they can't use them. Do modern pavement and fantasy/historical players shake their heads.

Do 25mm and lose a good chunk of the GW market, do 32mm and lose the other half. To say nothing of the 28.5mm bases and other oddballs GW is making now. Plus Reaper is about to do a base Kick Starter.

But I'm just planting this idea and if it is possible I know I'd be interested.

3D printing is certainly a rival but if there are simple texture bases available in styrene I think a lot of players would rather get those than spend their printing time on bases.

**bbb**

How closely do the 25mm round bases match classic GW 25mm round slotted bases?

I'd love to see some bulk 20mm round slotted bases. Every once in a while I can find some on ebay, but they're not really out there widely available.

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

ticking on slowly for those who haven't seen tiks yet

**timd**

bbb wrote:
How closely do the 25mm round bases match classic GW 25mm round slotted bases?

I'd love to see some bulk 20mm round slotted bases. Every once in a while I can find some on ebay, but they're not really out there widely available.

Reaper makes 20mm bases, although they re a bit taller at 4mm: https://www.reapermini.com/search/bases/latest/74041

T

**bbb**

timd wrote:
bbb wrote:
How closely do the 25mm round bases match classic GW 25mm round slotted bases?

I'd love to see some bulk 20mm round slotted bases. Every once in a while I can find some on ebay, but they're not really out there widely available.

Reaper makes 20mm bases, although they re a bit taller at 4mm: https://www.reapermini.com/search/bases/latest/74041

T

Thanks. Looking for slotted 20mm bases. Armskeeper in the UK used to make them and they pop up on ebay occasionally. Looking to rebase a lot of WHFB 20mm metal minis and don't want to cut the tabs off.

**Irbis**

Why 30 mm tho? That is kinda useless for the biggest potential customer base, GW players, as it sits right between two potentially desirable sizes, 28 and 33 mm, while looking wrong for either. Who exactly is supposed to be a customer here?

Same with 25 mm, maybe there are systems doing slotted minis, or these could be useful for people buying old GW stuff, but new GW miniatures moved on and the slots aren't really that desirable here either. Maybe you should do size/slot poll before you commit?

**ced1106**

> Who exactly is supposed to be a customer here?

Not GW. GW, of course, already has their supply of their own bases. (Ditto for boardgame companies and their integrated bases cast with the figure.)

The KS is for small miniature companies, I suspect those which primarily cast in metal and resin, whose miniatures are separate from the base. These companies buy their bases in the *thousands* and Impact Miniature's experience is that these manufacturers can't buy them at an inexensive price at those quantities. These bases aren't even meant to be sold to individual players.

In ye olden days of KS, one of the reasons you supported a KS was to make a project reach its fruition, not to get stuff. This is such a project, but I don't think it's practical to only have pledges requiring you to buy thousands of the same base and restricting it to miniature manufacturer. Impact Miniatures has its existing customer base, but I doubt they'd want more than a few hundred of the same base.

**ImpactMinis**

Irbis wrote:
Why 30 mm tho? That is kinda useless for the biggest potential customer base, GW players, as it sits right between two potentially desirable sizes, 28 and 33 mm, while looking wrong for either. Who exactly is supposed to be a customer here?

Same with 25 mm, maybe there are systems doing slotted minis, or these could be useful for people buying old GW stuff, but new GW miniatures moved on and the slots aren't really that desirable here either. Maybe you should do size/slot poll before you commit?

Easiest answer ... 25mm slotted, 30mm flat and 40mm flat bases are what my company uses for all the miniatures we sell to our customers. And we use thousands of each of these bases every year. We found it very difficult to get an order for 10000 of one of these types of bases that anyone could deliver to us in less than 5 months in the last 2 years. So we started with these 3 bases because manufacturing our own supply for these bases would reduce our costs for this vital supply item and allow us to never worry about running out (frequently the last 2 years we've had to pull selling these bases from our stores just to make sure we did not run out to use them to go with out own models).

So I started with these 3 bases because it was a product that Impact! desperately needed a reliable cost effect high volume supply with a high product quality.

And what pushed me over the edge to spend the money to make them was other companies reaching out to me the last 2 years begging to buy any extras we had since I've always ordered large quantities when I ordered them as they could not find anyone to supply them at the price points and quantities needed in a time frame that was reasonable.

So that was why we started with those 3 ... I know they don't match GW ... but they do match the ones that our company uses. Future ... I plan to moving into producing bases that match up to other company products which will have no cost effectiveness to my company ... they'll just be a product to sell.

Hope that makes sense why I started with these 3 ... but to be clear ... I didn't start the research into making molds for these until I had other companies come to me hoping I had some to spare.

Tom @ Impact!

**timd**

I put all of my figs, including ones from other games on GW style bases so that crossovers are posible without looking odd. Adding up bases for Shadows of Brimstone, WWX, some War Machine and stuff from a bunch of other random figure lines comes to fairly large numbers, so I'm always looking for more...

**BobtheInquisitor**

I received a sample set of bases from Impact!, and started testing some plastic glue.

I’ll include pictures. I labeled the Impact! bases with an I, the cheap bases from Amazon with an A, and the GW base with a GW.

The first test I conducted with a bit of sprue and plastic glue, smooshing the glue into the base to melt the sprue and base together. You can see some of the black plastic melted from the GW base onto the sprue. The same did not happen with the Impact base.

I’ve glued some minis to the bases with plastic glue and will try to pull them off in an hour or two (phase one) and a day or two (phase two). The mini at bottom fell off his base with no effort after a few months.

**BobtheInquisitor**

After about two hours, I tried pulling two of the minis off their bases. The one on the Amazon base came off first. The mini on the Impact base was harder to pull off the base, so hard that white plastic-stress marks appeared in his ankles.

They both left behind a similar mark on the base, neither showing the line of scarring I would expect from a melted join.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Does anyone have any tests they would like me to use the bases for?

**ImpactMinis**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
After about two hours, I tried pulling two of the minis off their bases. The one on the Amazon base came off first. The mini on the Impact base was harder to pull off the base, so hard that white plastic-stress marks appeared in his ankles.

They both left behind a similar mark on the base, neither showing the line of scarring I would expect from a melted join.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Does anyone have any tests they would like me to use the bases for?

Thank you for this! Very glad to see that so far ... it appears Impact > Amazon > GW. That is the type of thing that is really happy news to hear.

Also I am curious ... when you say cheap bases from Amazon. I "think" (I could be wrong) ... but I think the bases I have in the KickStarter are less expensive than the cheap bases on Amazon.

Tom @ Impact!

**BobtheInquisitor**

I’m afraid you have that off slightly. It should be GW>Impact>Amazon. GW bases melt with plastic glue, which means they form better bonds with the minis, making the minis less likely to fall off the bases. The Amazon bases surprised me because I thought Inhad melted my minis to the base, but instead had only weakly glued them. Over time, the bond becomes weaker and weaker until the gentlest of flick will knock the minis off their bases (as had happened with the Numidian in my picture. I found this out the hard way with dozens of miniatures, some of them already painted, falling off their bases when I handled them.

This is why I am waiting a few days for the next test. So far, your bases had a much stronger bond to the minis…but if the bases did not melt with the plastics they may suffer the same weakening bonds over time.

The cheap bases on Amazon are something like $10 for 100 25mm rounds or $10 for 40-50 40mm rounds. I am not sure their price is consistent. The larger bulk options you offer are better deals, and tempting. GW bases may melt with plastic glue, but they are financially unviable when compared to your bases or Amazon’s and a bottle of Loctite.

I believe Renedra and Proxie still sell bases that melt with plastic solvent glues, but neither of them sell bases with that classic look.

**ImpactMinis**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The cheap bases on Amazon are something like $10 for 100 25mm rounds or $10 for 40-50 40mm rounds. I am not sure their price is consistent. The larger bulk options you offer are better deals, and tempting. GW bases may melt with plastic glue, but they are financially unviable when compared to your bases or Amazon’s and a bottle of Loctite.

Ah okay ... thanks for the clarification. And if those are the Amazon prices you are seeing ... mine are less than those prices so that is a plus for me if I'm currently in the middle for your testing.

Tom @ Impact!