Scrutiny: Dragonforge bases

My severe liking for all things bases popped up again a while ago. I ordered some cultist miniatures from Otherworld miniatures. I would need proper bases for those, so I searched the web and decided on some pretty looking ones from Dragon Forge Design. I had already heard of their stuff and the talk was good.

So I ordered their new(ish) desecrated lands line multipack. That's 2x10 25mm, 2x5 40mm and 2x 60mm. The ordering proces was nice and quick, the site clean and clear. I would love to see some alternate paintschemes on the preview pictures, but most sites don't do that so I certainly won't hold that against them. It should be said that the guy running the place was behind on sending out orders by three weeks. This was clearly communicated on the main page so you'd know what you were getting yourself into, so bonus points for that.

Well then, they arrived in nice plastic baggies in a shipping envelope. Those are especially nice because they just fit in the mailbox

Here are the beauties all unpacked

First thing I noticed was the good quality of casting. There was hardly any casting left overs, the ones I did find were easily removed. The bottom of the bases is not sanded, but that is also not at all required. Where Micro Arts sand all their bases, the Dragon Forge ones seem perfectly flat on their own. Bonus points there!

Very slight casting mistakes, most of this is actually part of the design

These bases have something I have not seen on bases before. They have sections where you are meant to put some water effects (or lava effects if you want I guess). That is sheer genius! I will definately be adding this to those bases.

Notice the top section for water effects

Money and shipping wise they are a bit cheaper then micro arts, but not as cheap as for example pk-pro. The combined pack of bases was also good value.

Best of all they paint up quite nicely!

Fully painted desecrated lands bases

Verdict: Very good bases, fair pricing. Even really large base sizes are supported in some of the lines. I'd buy again for sure.

Scrutiny: Micro Art bases

Ha I am back from being sick for over a week. That was one seriously nasty fever.

After the disappointment that was the TK-PRO bases a few weeks ago my girl decided she needed a nice jungle base for a PC monkey of hers. This gave me the option to order 'a few extra' bases as she ordered from Micro Art Studio.

I decided to go with 2 packs of 25mm forest bases, a pack of 40mm and both of the 60mm designs. I have a lot of Reaper Bones coming after all. As the bases arrived I was happily surprised. Not only did the order go through rapidly, the shipping was also very fast. Before you knew it I had the bases in hand. Good stuff, extra points. This might have to do with the fact they are based in Poland, so non-european buyers should expect longer delivery times.

Let's talk about the 'bad' things first. On their site it does say that they will select five bases at random when you order some. It is unfortunate that what they mean is they grab a package of 5 pre-selected bases. I happened to get the exact same package twice. It would not have hurt that much to select two different packages. This does not matter to me all that much, but I figured I'd mention it.

The second 'bad' thing is that they are not cheap. You pay 4,92E per package + shipping. I want my miniatures to look good and I do not want to spend forever on the basing, so this is worth it to me. And they do deliver on that quality.

So on to the good. There is a lot of good! Their bases are just the most detailed I have ever seen.

 Primed forest bases

 That is just nuts. These beauties will take as long to paint as the miniature to be used with them. Very impressive quality indeed. Even better the casts are a very durable resin and they have already sanded the bottoms for you so they are perfectly balanced and straight. This is a real big plus, the mark of quality.

It also happened to be my birthday a week or two ago and the people at my job gifted me some of the Micro Art wood bases. Once again I was impressed by the quality and decided to immediately paint one of them.

Top left: Micro Art base, Top right: Ironhalo cobblestone base

Bottom: Wooden base, mainly painted on

The dungeon and wooden floor ones are nice, but the Micro Art Studios base just jumps out at you. I have ordered even more of their bases, their wastelands line specifically, for my demons.

Verdict: If you can afford these beauties, do so! Keep an eye on their site, new bases get added all the time.