Frankly I hate scenic bases. great for diaramas, in fact mandatory for diorams but counterproductive for normal gaming miniatures.
I know I am going against conventional wisdom here, particularly from GW's own standards of what makes good basing, however I am firmly of the belief that less is more. All my bases are either sand covered with brown sides or green flock with goblin green sides. The only exceptions (other than spaceships) are the odd character model with a rock to stand on and the odd bit of rubble uneven ground or trivial detail tobreak up very large bases such as chariots and dreadnoughts.
Let me explain my reasoning.
1. If you add casualties or broken wargear to a base it looks odd if you are not fighting that army. The same applies to activities. It looks off if a miniature is standing over a dead space marine, or worse holding one aloft in a dreanought power claw if you are fighting orks at the time. You can get away with one type of opponent, or obvious kept trophies. Also it is good to add the odd fallen wargear from your own army, or something generic like arrows, broken swords etc (though I leave those for large bases).
2. The more specific the terrain the harder it it to fit in with the terrain you arer playing on. I use goblin green and flock for fantasy miniatures, Battltech and Epic because I play on those surfaces, its also nice and simple. Though if my mech is on a road the plain green still blends in because it is low key. Sand is even better, as sand can appear anywhere. It is my preferred base for my Warmachine and 40K miniatures as it fits in with any terrain easily enough. Good if you want ash wastes orpen ground or cityfight. Though I find brown a less pleasing background colour than green and sand looks odd for fantasy/medieval bases for some reason.
3. I beleive that having as neutral a background as possible helps a ranked up unit stand out. You notice the unit, not the basing. You also more easily notice the colours on the unit.
4. I beleive that every unit and model should be based identically as a uniform part of the army. As its the base even ireeegular troops can be uniform this way. If there is any detail at all on the base either the base is very big, or the figure atop is a character.
Whwn I actually manage to paint a full army (rare enough) one of the reasons it looks so goosd is because of the neutral basing. My painting skills themselves are only average.
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