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I am beginning to paint up a storm with my army! and with that i would like to finally start basing. On the GW website they show some pretty sweet examples of bases and i already got the basing set sans ...sand! I play word bearers Chaos Space Marines who have chainmail trim and scab red/dark burgundy color scheme, Initialy i thought a desert base might contrast well... then urban.... then death world... then ice! what would contrast best? opinions? thoughts?

From experience keep the base light coloured. It shows off the model quite well. I have made the decision to base all of my models from all systems with a sandy soil/desert type base as this will match the boards I'm making.

I think you should go for something that is both contrasting but also exemplifies the theme of chaos. A sand base painted black and then drybrushed in various shades of grey, then sporadically flocked with green grass would looke quite nice. I think a base like that would capture everything you need.

there are so many types of basing examples its hard to narrow your choices down. From my experience though, the more you add to a base the better it looks (i.e. colors, textures, bits). I have an army and i themed their bases on the idea that they are patroling an abandoned air base. So I have Brown gravel, static grass, grey runway, fencing, yellow caution stripes, large painted numbers/letters on the runway, and elevated ledges. I personally think that you can be a mediocre painter or even bad, but you put a poorly painted model on a elaborate base that took lots of time/work to create nad the model suddenly doesnt look so bad. Best of luck on your decision!

hmmmmmm.... Maybe light desert? would i need to drybrush the legs, make it looks like a dusty feel?

All of your ideas look great when done well. I don't think you could go wrong with any.


If you do urban, you're going to need either a lot of premade bases or spend lots of time putting bits and stuff on your bases. It will look kick-ass, but I don't know how much time and $$$ you want to invest in this project.

+1 for desert sand with random static grass. Simple and it looks great with every army.

IronfrontAlex wrote:hmmmmmm.... Maybe light desert? would i need to drybrush the legs, make it looks like a dusty feel?

If the desert is what your into, go for it! I think a light drybrushing on the legs could only add to the realism and detail so i would recommend that. If you have a pic post it soon.

i will post pics no worries! im painting the models first tho but i will post on this forum and my P and M!


I decided to go with a desert ancient battlefield. so mainly desert with clusters of grey ruins, maybe a SM helmet here, maybe a guardian one there... get the drift?

kronk wrote:
If you do urban, you're going to need either a lot of premade bases or spend lots of time putting bits and stuff on your bases. It will look kick-ass, but I don't know how much time and $$$ you want to invest in this project.

I don't think an Urban theme would really me that hard to do, especially if you do a primarily ashphalt sort of look, modeling sand with black and an occaisional yellow dash or white stripe (especially on the leaders and models you wan't to draw extra attention to could work. or even a grey basecoat with light grey overbrush to represent like concrete or something could work too with a bit of some exposed regar or crumbled building piece here and there.

Here is the final product!!

looks great dude

It was standard sand, then ontop some rubble, then painted the rubble dwarf bronze or red gore.


Lastly I washed the sand in Devlin mud and the rocks in babab black

Nice, I especially like the dull off white for the base edges, sort of continues the base style while also unifying the army a bit.