Dust Warfare: Basing Materials Review

Ready to base!

OldHat here from Dust-War.com and this week I am going to be taking a look at some hobby products for use with Dust Warfare (and other games, too, I suppose).
My Allies are a long-term project I have been plotting out, including how I want to base them. For that, I have turned to Secret Weapons Miniatures and their fantastic line of basing materials.

So, I have taken some shots of some bases I am assembling to test out these products and see how they will work for my Allies. That being said – I am impressed! Both elements really, really add to the flavor for the Weird World II setting of Dust.
First off, what are we dealing with?

Secret Weapons Miniatures Scale Sandbags

The Sandbags
These are tiny, little squishy bags with a texture. You can push and pull and crush them into shape and they look fantastic. Now, I haven’t had a chance to paint them up yet, but modeling with them was a breeze. I just shoved them into place and layered them up a bit. In the future, my hope is to incorporate them into a display board in larger amounts than can be done on your average base. They seem suited to piling up and are not a terrible value – you get 20 of them for $9.99 + S&H.

Secret Weapon Miniatures Scale Bricks

Scale Bricks
Precisely as advertised – these are miniature bricks. I took some tools to crush and scrape edges and make them look ruined, which was easy. Adding crushed bits to whole bits and burying them in the dirt and rubble, I think, made them look pretty convincing. Toss in a few pieces of broken scale lumber and you can make an impressive diorama or really, really decorative base for the larger models. You get a whole slew of these little tidbits for $9.99 + S&H as well.

Both products are worth it – for both the spot on look and ease of use.

With all that being said, here is a look at some work I did (pre-priming, obviously). For these bases, I just put down some glue and dusted them with sand and ballast. Then, I broke up some bricks and shoved them in all around, as well as piled in some sandbags. After that, I put some more glue down and added some more sand and ballast.

Large and Small Base

You could add small details at this point – scale equipment, shells casings, debris, etc. After adding anything else, going back in with a bit more sand and ballast wouldn’t hurt. Once these are primed and painted, you can go in and add any mud, water effects, weathering powders, or grass tufts, etc. This will add even more depth.