I’ve recently gotten into Infinity, it’s a game with some gorgeously sculpted models.  The problem is, plenty of these models are in poses which make their connection between feet and base so bad, it makes Strife’s “Angermeans” seem like a masterpiece.  Read on to find out my easy solution to the problem.

Nomads Hellcat w/ HMG

Check out this guy above, whilst he’s packing a pretty nifty HMG and can drop in behind enemy lines to lay down some hefty fire, he only touches the floor with his toes on one foot.  If you’re like me and you’ve splashed out on resin bases to recreate your desired look (mine is urban tri-hexed) then you’ll probably be snipping off the base tab and pinning the models down.  Probably not a bad idea, but these Infinity things aren’t plastic like their grimdark counterparts, you’re working with metal, so it’s much tougher to drill and you’ll be using superglue which is a bit brittle.  Plus, the models are top heavy and prone to exploding when you drop it a couple of inches onto a table or hard floor, I speak from experience.

You can get away with pinning the models with their feet firmly on the ground, or ones that have their foot on a rock (of which there are loads) but once you get to the fairy poses, and female sculpts, that’s where you’ll be wishing you’d though of tab pinning like I’ve recently discovered.  Tab pinning (I’ve literally just named it as I was typing this) is a revolutionary technique that I didn’t read about on a blog or hear someone talk about on a podcast, no, I came up with this idea on my own and it’s pretty useful.

This is one of the Nomad Alguaciles from the Operation: Icestorm boxset, it’s not the biggest case for tab pinning but it was the next one in my pile of shame that I had to put together, so it’s going in this post.  As I mentioned above, I could just clip off the tab and either glue or pin him to the resin base with minimal effort, in fact I did just that when I assembled and painted the Nomads half of this box last year.

I busted out the razor saw that I bought for a Dreadknight conversion in 2012 and have never used since.  I probably could’ve done with a table vice to clamp the model in actually, it’s on the list.  Just a couple of cuts in the tab gets most of the tab out of the way and what’s left is the basis of the tab pins, the good thing about this is that the tabs are actually moulded to the models feet, so it’s nice and sturdy.

A quick file down with a flat diamond file gets the tabs nice and round, this makes them much easier to fit in the holes you’ll be drilling in the base.  If you’re putting together metal models and aren’t using a diamond file to get rid of sharp edges and mould lines then you’re missing out in my opinion.  You can pick up a set of 10 on ebay for less than a tenner, so they’re not expensive, and get rid of flash in a, well, flash.

Next up, I drilled out the holes in the base, I used a battery powered hobby drill with I think a 2mm bit, to be honest it was just the same diameter as the tab really.  The holes needed boring out a little to fit snugly, but it didn’t require much work at all.

If you made the hole too big, you can just fill it in with green stuff, this will make it a little more sturdy too. It’s a quick and easy process that requires a little bit of prep work and the sturdiest connection to the base that I’ve come across in my brief time setting up Infinity models.  Let me know in the comments below if you’ve tried this, and hopefully you’ll joining the tab pinning hype like Corehammer’s joined the N3 hype, we ain’t gonna stop, yo!