Hollow Bases Range - Wargaming 3d Printed Bases (OBS System)

A standard base is a stage. A hollow base is a pool. Instead of a flat top, the interior sits 3–5mm below a raised perimeter rim, forming a shallow watertight basin across the entire footprint of the base. That single change turns your base into the most striking technique in the hobby — a model wading through a swamp, sinking into a tar pit, or striding across a frozen lake — without the fiddly, leak-prone dam-building that resin basing usually demands.

The rim is the dam

Pour two-part epoxy, UV resin or water-effect gel straight into the recess. The raised lip contains the pour and it self-levels to a clean, flush finish. The single most failure-prone step of resin basing — building a temporary dam from tape or plasticard and hoping it doesn't leak — simply isn't there. And because the floor is a closed, watertight 1.4mm plate, there's no sealing step and no resin creeping across your desk. It is leak-proof out of the box.

What hobbyists make with them

The recess is a blank canvas, not a pre-cast scene. Glue your model to the floor, paint the basin, and pour:

• Swamps & bogs — murky green-brown tinted resin, model sunk to the ankles. The classic.
• Rivers & coastlines — clear or blue-tinted resin with gloss-gel waves on top.
• Lava & magma — paint glowing cracks on the floor, pour orange-red tinted resin over them.
• Toxic sludge & tar pits — fluorescent green or gloss black, with a few bubbles left in on purpose.
• Ice & frozen ponds — clear resin over a cold blue floor, snow paste banked against the rim.
• Deep mud & texture — thick basing pastes, ballast and snow contained at full depth, finishing flush with a clean paintable edge.

Larger sizes (100mm and up) double as self-contained mini-diorama trays for display painting, RPG centrepieces and scale-model vignettes.

Specifications

Exact dimensions for the size you choose are shown in the technical drawing in the product gallery.

The full range

The widest hollow base range available anywhere — 53 size and shape combinations, from 20mm troops to 200mm display monsters. Theme a single hero or an entire army.

Available from single pieces up to 50-packs on common troop sizes — choose your size and quantity above. Larger packs carry a better per-base price.

Part of the Open Basing System

Footprints follow OBS standards and the classic 5mm bevelled profile, so Hollow Bases are full members of the ecosystem — they rank up in OBS movement trays, work with OBS converters, and sit on OBS display extenders. From the side, a hollow base looks like any other base on the tabletop. From above, it's a scene. No hobbyist should be locked into one base size, one shape, or one manufacturer's idea of what a base should be.

Which game does it fit?

Footprints follow industry-standard wargaming sizes, so they slot straight into the games you already play. As a quick guide: 25–40mm rounds suit infantry in popular 28–32mm sci-fi and fantasy systems; 50mm-plus rounds and ovals suit characters, cavalry and monsters, with ovals matching standard large-kit footprints; 20mm and 25mm squares and the rectangle sizes suit rank-and-file fantasy (Kings of War and similar) and historical wargaming; 25mm and 50mm rounds cover Dungeons & Dragons and RPG grid play (a swamp-sunk troll makes an unforgettable encounter piece); and 100–200mm sizes work as display bases, dioramas and scale-model vignettes.

Pro tips for the perfect pour

• Pour thin layers. Two-part epoxy cures with heat. Keep each pour shallow and let it cure before the next — you avoid trapped bubbles and protect the PLA from cure heat. One or two pours fill the recess.
• Scuff the floor first. A light sand of the recess floor gives resin a mechanical key; cured resin can pop free of very smooth surfaces. Paint the floor before pouring — the colour reads through the resin.
• Expect a slight meniscus. Resin in a lipped basin sits fractionally higher at the walls. That's physics, not a fault — a thin final gloss layer or water-effect gel levels it perfectly.
• Two-part versus air-dry. Two-part epoxy gives the result in one go. Air-drying water effects shrink as they cure and need several applications to fill the recess — both work, just plan for it.
• Tint with inks and washes. A single drop of ink or hobby wash colours a whole pour. Build depth across layers — murky swamp green, cold lake blue, sickly toxic yellow.

Honest, like always

These are FDM 3D prints. Fine layer lines are visible on the rim and sides — they disappear under primer and paint, and the recess interior ends up covered by your resin or texture anyway. Hollow geometry isn't possible in our injection-moulded ABS range, so if you want a glass-smooth finish on a flat base, the ABS bases are the better pick; for a resin pool, this is the tool for the job.

PLA doesn't love heat, so deep single epoxy pours can soften it — thin layers avoid this entirely and give better results anyway. Each base is printed fresh to order, which is how we can offer all 53 sizes without compromise.