Slottabases

It's hard to believe it, but slottabases have been around for 35 years.

There are still companies who produce miniatures with integrated bases, but the separate, plastic base is a comparatively new item. They are so common now that we often take them for granted. Before the ubiquitous base arrived, wobbly model syndrome was rampant, and ranking up nigh impossible.

To get around those issues, there were all sorts of innovative and ingenious methods used. For stability, models were epoxied to coins, low denominations, but worth more in real terms back then, when comics were priced in pennies, 2000AD launching at 8p an issue. For ranking, when it was needed, squares or rectangles of card were the norm, but card base got tatty really quickly.

In 1984, something revolutionary happened. The slottabase, and the tabs or pegs to secure the models, made things so much easier. Suddenly wobbly models were less of an issue, and ranking up your regiments just required them all to be on similarly sized and shaped bases. Citadel Miniatures jumped on the bandwagon and rushed to get things converted over so quickly that half the original rereleases lacked a copyright.

The slottabase came out standing 3mm tall for the standard ones (there were display plinths and such that were taller during the first 5 years or so). This wasn't arbitrary, even if it seemed so: a model with an integrated base glued to a penny stood on a mound roughly 3mm tall. It's funny how these things work out.

Nowadays the ubiquitous slottabase is falling from favour. Warlord and Perry are shipping their models with 1mm solid plastic bases, for Bolt Action, round bases, to which plastic models are attached directly, while metal models have an integrated base that's then glued to the base, a clear nod to the early days of hobby gaming. Citadel, and many others, are transitioning to solid, flat-topped bases, to which the model is glued without anything to secure it, and yet, because of the many years of the slottabase's reign as the default base for gaming models, these bases remain 3mm tall. Those companies that are still embracing the wonder tech of yesteryear, still producing models with tabs and pegs, seem ever fewer as the years go by.

I have to say that, for reasons far beyond nostalgia, i like the slottabase. The modern bases are fine for their purpose, but they just don't have the same functionality.

Aside from balance, decor, appearance and such, a slottabase or peg base doesn't rely on straightforward surface-to-surface contact with adhesive, on a single plane. The tab or peg prevents lateral movement along that plane, and significantly increases surfaces in contact. It could take a bit of pressure and fiddling, but a model could be secured to a slottabase or peg base without the need for glue. I have models from 27 years ago that haven't been glued to their bases (i was too young to buy cyanoacrylate adhesives, and 2-part epoxy was far too much faff, and smelt terrible), but have never come free. Given a number of them have spent the last 20 years or more rattling around my bits box, that says something about the design's quality.

Beyond that, and because of that, a slottabase model can be taken from its base temporarily time and again. With the level of detail on modern models, especially with the shift from brush-on to aerosol primers, that can prove invaluable. I love being able to pop the models out to get primer up weird crevasses on the underside, and to do so again and again while painting them. There are times when, with kits that don't have slottabase compatibility, i have been known to pin a 20×3mm strip of 2mm plasticard to a model's feet, so it's easier to paint.

Here's to the slottabase: it changed hobby gaming forever, and, without it, who knows how many current gamers would have thrown in the towel in frustration years ago, and gone back to counters.

(Note, the date isn't significant, it's not that this is the anniversary of the launch or anything, it's just something that popped into my head tonight.)