For over a year now, I’ve been working on a way to put a rigid base under the cardstock Dropzone Commander buildings. This would be used to keep them more square instead of bending and give them some weight so they don’t slide around as much.
I grabbed one of the smaller buildings in the ruinscape set and measured out the dimensions. I used the measurements to cut out a four-sided base out of foamcore. Before assembling the sides, I cut jagged edges in the side pieces to give the sense of a ruined structure. These bases could then double as rigid support and rubble terrain for buildings that are removed by demo units.
The base was a little bland so I printed off building images from Hawk Wargames’ site and pasted them to the sides.
Next I trimmed off the excess.
And tested it to make sure it fit.
The result was what I was hoping for: stable, squared base; more weight to keep the buildings in position; and a pseudo-rubble terrain piece.
To really complete the base, I’d want to make the interior full of debris as well. Unfortunately, this process was a bit labor intensive and only completes one building. For most games, we use from 12-16 buildings so all that foamcore cutting, printing, trimming, and assembly seemed a bit much.
At the last Dropzone Commander event, the event organizer had made building bases from his 3D printer. While I don’t have a 3D printer, I liked the execution of his bases enough to try it myself on my CNC machine. I have the prototype file ready in CAD so all I need to do if figure out the routing paths and get cuttin’.
