I just finished building and basing the Rail Crew and Guild's Judgment plastic sets plus Willie the demolitionist. These are my first Malifaux models and my first time customizing bases. I went a malifaux crazy for Christmas buying these minis the M2e mini rule book and the four first edition books (for fluff) plus all the first wave arsenal decks. I played my first demo game on Thursday run by a local Henchman (I played another brand new player and lost, though I killed his master with a red joker flip which was exciting). I'm excited to play with these 40 ss crews once they're painted (or at least primed)
Below is my experience with these models so far. Let me know what you think.
Building:
I used plastic cement to get the best bond between the plastic parts. I'm using Plastruct liquid cement. It is very thin and dries and evaporates quickly. I learned to be very careful with this cement as it could melt delicate parts in seconds. When holding parts together it takes a gentle touch to avoid deforming the joint. All models were super glued to their bases. If the two surfaces were too smooth the glue wouldn't set, I would rough them up with a needle file. The leaping Death Marshals were impossible to simply glue to their coffins. I had to get a very small drill bit and pin vise to pin with 28 gauge steel wire. I drilled tiny holes in the hand and foot of each marshal and coffin and then super glued the pin and the parts. Now they have a strong bond. Both leaping models needed weight added to their bases (a metal washer) so they don't tip over. As others have suggested you need to remove a single model's parts from the sprue at a time and keep them organized. Eventually I would glue two models at once, alternating connecting limbs while the other model's glue dried and the plastic bond hardened (the plastic cement temporarily softens the plastic around the joint). Having a flat cutter to cut the pieces from the sprue really helps clean up. I cleaned up mold lines and sprue nubs with a combo of razor scraping, diamond needle files (only to reduce large nubs, the diamond files are very rough on the plastic), and plastic needle files. The plastic files were the best for precise clean up where I didn't feel like I was going to destroy detail. Lady Justice's sword and scabbard were very difficult to attach. I may have to remove the sword blade to paint her face. I will pin it when I put it back on. The kneeling Death Marshal and the Judge seem too big compared to the other models.
Basing:
Each crew has their own base theme: Malifaux city for guild and soul stone mine for the rail crew arcanists. For the rail crew, I looked up railroad track dimensions and tried to scale them down to 32mm. I started with a layer of cork, then cut balsa for railroad ties with plastruct polystyrene I-beams for metal tracks. The 30mm bases aren't wide enough for both tracks. I flocked the bases with pva glue, dollar store sand and crushed mirror pieces for soul stones. Mei Fang is mounted on a few layers of cork with a broken rail, like she is ripping up the ground around her. The emberling is also on a few cork layers with some broken wood. The third rail worker with the construct leg and sledge hammer didn't have a wide enough stance to straddle the rail like the other two so I made a little platform out of cork chunks Each guild crew member began with a plastruct textured stone sheet cut to the base. The judge's stance was too wide for the 30mm base so I extended a sidewalk curb with a polystyrene rod and lemax brick flat textured vinyl. I perched lady justice on a wall to give her some height (the model I played on Thursday was just on the normal base and was difficult to pick up). The wall is a few layers of cork topped with a filed up polystyrene rod to look like stone. The most ridiculous base was for the kneeling death marshal to accommodate his spread out duster. I expanded the base with cork topped with textured stone and a curb. Not sure if making the base so big affects any tournament rules.
image by geekwithfamily, on Flickr
image by geekwithfamily, on Flickr
image by geekwithfamily, on Flickr
