My chosen Dropzone Commander faction, The Scourge, use skimmers. According to the fluff these sit about 2-3 feet above the ground levitated by some advanced alien technology that no one really understands (Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”). As Dropzone Commander vehicles are not based I have, like most others, been resting them on the ground. This is not very satisfying and while a few others have based them up and levitated them I’d rather not base my miniatures unless absolutely necessary.

I’ve been pondering whether there is anything I can do about this and a little while back I came up with a possibility that I have been meaning to try out. I have a short length of 3mm clear acrylic rod lying around that’s been used on a couple of other projects (my JSTARS for one). Could I hide 4 short posts underneath that would give the miniature some height, but not be too visible?

I stared my Scourge force with a couple of the plastic starters (OK, a plastic starter that I traded off the UCM for more Scourge) and so I’ve got a couple of Invader APCs about the place that probably won’t see the board anytime soon. A few minutes later I’d cut 6 2.5mm (1/10 of an inch) lengths of acrylic: 4 were in my hand and 2 have disappeared to far flung corners of the room. Another couple of minutes with PVA and I had the following.

I’m pretty happy with the result. As you get lower and lower the posts become more apparent and if you do get down to eye level then they are pretty obvious. However, that’s not the perspective we get when gaming. It’s mostly a top down view (like the 2nd picture) where it’s very difficult to see the posts. The mini is also pretty stable and still rights itself onto the posts (any closer to the middle and I this will start to be an issue as it will want to rest on the posts and one side).

One thing I am tempted to try is a shorter post, it feels ever so slightly too high. Maybe 2mm would be better? I’m not sure. One thing I have learnt is that it’s quite tolerant of slight errors in the length of the posts. It;s not really possible to sand and level them as they are so small, but from my first effort where they are all close, but by no means perfect this doesn’t seem to be an issue.

Update: I’ve received a request for an underside photo, which is not unreasonable as that really is where all the action is in this case.