My last post involved re-based four heavy cavalry style bases for my Sassanids and a new unit of Classicial Indian Javelinmen.

Guess what? This post does too…but they are different cavalry and different Indians.

These are the Sassanid Clibanarii or Savaran: the next one down from the Cataphracts we saw last post. Again, four units. It’s actually that I’ve got too many cataphracts rather than too many clibanarii!

Incidentally, someone asked me the best way to get figures off existing bases.

Well, there’s no easy way to do it.

One way is to anticipate having the problem and to spray the bases with an undercoat before you mount the figures on them. That way, if you do ever come to need to re-base, the glue has bonded with the paint rather than fully with the base, so the figures are comparatively easy to pop off, even if superglue is your chosen adhesive.

Leaving that aside, however, I have found the best way to get figures off bases is to soak the bases in water for a few hours before making the attempt. I use half of one of the plastic blisters you get tufts in i.e. a plastic tray that is long and shallow.

Put the base to be de-nuded of figures in there and trickle water into the half-blister until the water just comes over the top of the base. Leave for at least four hours. Then use a sharp screwdriver (not a Philips head!) to find the edge of each figure’s base and slide it in with a chisel-like action. Never try to pull the figure off the base: you’ll just break it off at the legs or bend it well out of shape. The figure should be popped from the base, not pulled.

Touch wood and all that, but I’ve just re-based 80 cavalry that were superglued onto either MDF or metal bases and not lost a single one.

And here’s another unit of Classical Indian javelinmen. Just one more unit to go and then I'll have painted all the Indians in the lead mountain.