Japanese Guns: Basing!

After assembling and painting, it´s time to base the guns. The command and observer teams can be based exactly as infantry teams. The gun bases, however, require a little extra work. Due to the lack of holes for the men, if you glue the guns and the crew directly to the base, the own man's base will be visible. So we will need to add some plaster filler before gluing the guns.

First step is to place the guns and crew on the bases, in a position that looks cool and realistic. I tried to place the men in different positions for each base, and also switched a couple of men between types of gun. Remembering the setup, glue the crew to the base, leaving place for the gun (but don't glue the gun yet!).

Place the gun and crew in a nice position before gluing the crew to the base.

Now cover the base with plaster filler, to the level of the soldier's base. Once dried, paint the filler with some brown color.

Bases with glued crew and with plaster filler.

Then add the sand to the base as explained in the infantry basing post. Apply as many sand layers as desired.

With the plaster filler and the sand, the ground is leveled to the soldier base level.

When the sand is ready, then glue the gun to the base.

Type 92 Battalion guns glued to their bases.

Type 41 Regimental guns.

At this point, I decided to add a few extra details to the base. For the Type 94 Rapid-fire guns and one observer team, I gave them some cover behind a three log, by just cutting and gluing a wood stick I found in the garden.

Type 94 anti-tank guns with wood logs. 

Type 92 observer team hidden behind a log.

I also placed the Type 41 Regimental Guns behind some sandbags, as they are going to be my heavier artillery pieces and I wanted them to have a more defensive look. I made and painted the sandbags as explained in the HMG basing post.

Type 41 Regimental gun covered behind sand bags.

I placed the Type 41 observer team with its radio covered behind some rocks, just by gluing a couple of stones from the garden.

Type 41 observer team in a safe position between rocks.

Then I added the grass and finished with a layer of Mate Varnish to all the miniatures and basing stuff.

Type 92 Battalion gun.

Type 94 Rapid-fire gun.

More detailed pictures for every type of gun in next posts!

Banzai!