To base or not to base that is the question (vehicles)?

I am wondering before I start what is the consensus of opinion when it come to basing vehicles. I did base all my 20mm collection as many were rather delicate plastic kits ,not really designed for War gaming. Basing them gave them protection when transporting them to the club. I am now upto the stage of basing some of my 15mm desert collection. However these are more robust and for my home use only. So should I base them or not ? Or perhaps just the smaller vehicles ?

Personally I base all my smaller 6mm scale vehicles to make them easier to pick up. But when I start my 20mm (or maybe 15mm) Stalingrad collection I don't think I will base them. I'll probably add magnets to the bottom of the vehicles though, so I can store/transport them safely. Also the models I plan on using for Stalingrad will be from PSC so they should be sturdy for gaming.

I base all my 6mm and 15mm vehicles, easier to pick up for my sausage fingers. I haven't based my 28mm ones though (sausage fingers OK for them!).

Paul

I base all my 20mm vehicles. As Gun-Pit Paul says, easier to pick up.

Since I find basing a bit of a chore, I dont bother with vehicles, 1:72 kits or resin - but then I play at home so transport isnt an issue. I also find it aesthetically pleasing that vehicles don't transport incongrous grass lawns onto roads....

Suasage finger comments noted, with the more 'delicate' kits, I dont fit parts like wing mirrors, as reflecting real life, they tend to dissapear at some point.

I'm more or less a pragmatist where it comes to vehicle basing - fragile things, like wheeled plastic kits, are high on the list, whereas robust tracked vehicles can do without for the most part. In any case, I like to keep the bases of larger vehicles as small as possible while providing protection to stuff like cannon etc.

I did do a whole collection of vehicles based for a Post-Colonial Africa project, including all tanks and wheeled vehicles, since in this theatre you would have a lot of open country and few roads, so the visual discrepancy of a based vehicle on a road is less jarring. I'm currently doing 1/72 Cold War stuff, and since there'll have to be a lot of metalled roads in that, I'll leave any 'tracks unbased and only use it for fragile items (S-Models M151, here's looking at you).

Aircraft, including helicopters, get flying bases all the time, though.

I base everything in any scale. Not just to protect fragile tracks etc, but more so they don't slam into each other in storage and to fit in my carrier bags for travel, and to mark the undersides to protect against theft. My bases are 1.5mm-2mm thick so picking them up is not really that feasible so I don't do it for that. I never got the "but they are now carrying a bit of landscape with them and this looks weird on a road". You are playing with toys, playing war. You play with toys the way you like. There is no right or wrong in this aspect....basing always brings up a ton of (overblown) discussion so expect to get a ton of opinions.

Interesting how many people here base their vehicles. On other forums the factions are more balanced.
I do not like bases on vehicles, especially tanks and if possible i don't base them, even on a smaller scale like 6mm.
Stability and transporting is not a problem for me as i use mainly Battlefronts 15mm models which are quite sturdy and i transport them using Feldherr bags. So no need to base them in order to protect them, with a few exception like vehicles with trailers, horse drawn vehicles and motorcycles.


Greetings
Wolflord

Thanks guys for your opinions .

I think for now I will just base the small and wheeled vehicles. I think these are perhaps the most vulnerable when it comes to handling in 15mm . Some of the trucks like the British CMP already come with a base on the resin models , so it makes sense perhaps to match them with my other wheeled vehicles.

It's mixed as to whether or not I base. For some of the more delicate vehicles, I put them on a base - lessen the chance of things getting broken and lets the other players know which items are more fragile. Sturdy vehicles (like PSC's tanks), I can leave unbased. Even with bits-n-bobs attached, they're a more durable lot.

j

I'd base things like horse-drawn limbers. Small vehicles are easily based, though the Flames of War bases don't make picking things up by the base easy.

I'm basing the Schwimmwagens and Ford GPA Jeeps for my Soviet Engineer-Sapper battalion, since I don't expect to see them on roads too much. I haven't decided about their armored support (up to 20 T34s).

My Weird War Germans use Forged In Battle E50s and Katzchen APCs, which have cast-on bases. I'm still working out how to base them for Nachtjager night fights.

My Vietnam stuff could be based, since even the tracks and tanks tended to stay on dirt roads. I haven't decided yet. Still have to deal with 9 platoons of infantry, and a crapton of helicopters.

I base all my tanks etc on mdf bases with magnetic strips cut and glued to the bottom. They are in a metal toolbox, so it just helps keep them in some kinda order.

Personally, I don't base tanks or trucks simply because they look better on a road or urban set up without dragging their own patch of dirt along with them I do base things that have a trailer attached like the Italian flame tankettes and Churchill croc as well as horse drawn wagons. Most of my artillery pieces are based in fours with a command post, ammo stacks etc as a little mini vignette, again for aesthetic purposes - tactically they perform like the two gun sections in the game lists.

I am with Stuart (mainly). To me vehicles with bases look pants and totally ruin any suspension of disbelief - why bases under figures don't I can't tell you, don't look for logic here. It is entirely a matter of taste. I don't base anything unless I have to (basically anything that cannot stand up on it's own or is too fragile like horse-drawn vehicles) and that includes guns, as it makes it more difficult to place them in cover convincingly. Bases are metal or have metal strips on the bottom. Vehicles etc without bases I build stiff paper boxes for which also have metal strips on the bottom. I then use Really Useful boxes with magnetic sheet (if travelling by car) or light plastic toolboxes which come in different hights and clip together to form stacks (if on foot) to transport stuff in.