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Hi.

I'm a little torn here... should I base my Imperial Guardsmen stylistically, and spend money and time decorating them? Or should I stick with a clean, pure black basing aesthetic (which I personally like anyway)?

So far I've been inclined to go with the latter (I'm a woefully cheap b*stard), but I'm worried that doing so might exclude me from (winning) painting contests. I'll stick exclusively to whichever option I decide to run with (no mixing and matching), but I really want to hear your own opinions on this one first. I'm a bloody slow painter as it is, though I'm fairly good at it.





Also, kinda unrelated, I was wondering whether or not it's legal to base my heavy weapon teams on separate 25mm bases? I realise that they need to be placed on whichever sized base they come with, but as I understand it, different HW teams are packaged with every variety of base.

So, could I legally take advantage of this lack of standardisation, and place them on whichever sized bases I want? Or do they need to be used in conjunction with whichever sized base they come packaged with?



Thanks in advance.

Hi.

I'm a little torn here... should I base my Imperial Guardsmen stylistically, and spend money and time decorating them? Or should I stick with a clean, pure black basing aesthetic (which I personally like anyway)?

So far I've been inclined to go with the latter (I'm a woefully cheap b*stard), but I'm worried that doing so might exclude me from painting contests. I'll stick exclusively to whichever option I decide to run with (no mixing and matching), but I really want to hear your own opinions on this one first. I'm a bloody slow painter as it is, though I'm fairly good at it.

Always base your models. It makes a huge difference in the appearance of the army as a whole, can be as cheap as free, and doesn't need to be any more complicated than painting glue and dipping them in sand.

I based my son's necron army after a family trip to the beach resulted in an applesauce jar full of beach sand. A little glue, a quick dip, and 20 minutes to dry:



If you want to get fancy, visit the local hobby/graft/model train shop for a bag of static grass. A few dabs of white glue, a pinch of grass, and a wrist flick and you're done.

Last year, I was gifted a bag of GW basing sand and GW static grass - I would not shell out the $$$ to buy the GW-brand stuff myself, but it was given to me by a friend. I decided to use it on my marines, along with a little bit of Woodland Scenics long grass and here's the result:




The long grass is a nice touch - grab a pinch, snip it in the middle, dab a bit of super glue gel on the trimmed end, and poke it on the base. Hang the model upside down until the glue takes and then trim the longer ends with small scissors. Make sure you paint the base edges to clean things up. A little more monetary investment, sure, but the results are pretty nice.

To base

If you are looking for ideas, you should try a snowy urban base... or my favourite a daemonic arctic urban world (Lava, Snow and city ruins )

I second the sand option - simple, quick and cheap.

lol, i was going to do the sand bit with some SM and have them looking beat up like they just came back from a desert planet (i blame the weed for my imagination) but yeah, sand, or dirt, heck toss on a few pebbles for the mountainous look.

Thanks for the replies guys!

I've come up with a backstory for my regiment, and if I end up basing them I'll almost definitely want to use sand. No shortage of that in Western Australia.
More importantly though, I'd want to change its colour (from reddish to grey-black). Like the sand seen here:
http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~jenny/photos/2006/icelandn/sein/slides/black%20sand%20near%20Dyrholaey.JPG

How would I get that effect? Obviously, grains of sand are a lot harder to completely recolour than flat plastic surfaces (and I have enough trouble with them).

I'm guessing, maybe, pour some sand into a container of heavily-diluted black paint, glue the sand to a base, and then drybrush it with grey(s)?



I'm a little worried about how the bases will look when juxtapositioned with grassy or desert terrain though...



EDIT: Oh yeah, how would I go about crafting obsidian pebbles and larger rocks to supplement the black sand?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/ObsidianOregon.jpg

Pieces of glass maybe?




PS: Gavin, your bases look incredible!

I'm not even about to assume I'm right on this, but you might want to look into using a dye instead of paint.

I've used the GW washes and paints to color sand before to great effect. Here's sand from the necron bases that was painted with Chaos Black, drybrushed with Codex Gray and then Fortress Gray, then washed with a little Devlan Miracle, I mean Mud.




As far as the obsidian goes, visit your local secondhand store or market and find something made of black glass. Take a hammer to it (SAFELY!!!! Wrap in a bag first, wear safety goggles, etc.) and store it safely. Glue it to your bases using white school glue.

Basing is always a good idea, it can turn a good model into a great one.

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:
Also, kinda unrelated, I was wondering whether or not it's legal to base my heavy weapon teams on separate 25mm bases? I realise that they need to be placed on whichever sized base they come with, but as I understand it, different HW teams are packaged with every variety of base.

So, could I legally take advantage of this lack of standardisation, and place them on whichever sized bases I want? Or do they need to be used in conjunction with whichever sized base they come packaged with?



Thanks in advance.

Steel Legion, and some of the other metal ranges either use two 25mm (how I tend to do missile launcher teams) and model the ammo grunt as such or even 40mm bases. I haven't had anyone complain about it yet and I have been using missile teams like this for a good while.

Glass definitely seems to be the best substitute for obsidian.

You guys have really inspired me to base my guys.

alphaomega wrote:

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:
Also, kinda unrelated, I was wondering whether or not it's legal to base my heavy weapon teams on separate 25mm bases? I realise that they need to be placed on whichever sized base they come with, but as I understand it, different HW teams are packaged with every variety of base.

So, could I legally take advantage of this lack of standardisation, and place them on whichever sized bases I want? Or do they need to be used in conjunction with whichever sized base they come packaged with?



Thanks in advance.

Steel Legion, and some of the other metal ranges either use two 25mm (how I tend to do missile launcher teams) and model the ammo grunt as such or even 40mm bases. I haven't had anyone complain about it yet and I have been using missile teams like this for a good while.

Have you been playing in tourneys though, or just casually?

I don't want to play illegally, but I really hate those 60mm bases. They're impossible to set down on uneven terrain or within ruins, and they look ugly when placed within an infantry section. I don't know why GW decided to rule HW teams as single models.

I use sand I gathered from a local beach with some white glue, then just primed it along with my models and painted that. The white glue is the surplus stuff from school supply stores (which is dirt cheap) so I never found basing to be a problem. However since I'm lazy in actually painting the sand a different color, most of my models are now home to ashworlds.

I used to tell myself that my models looked good unbased. They didn't. None do. Basing your models makes them look 10 times better for something as simple as a coat of paint on the basing grit and a single drybrush of a lighter color. I spent a combined $10 at an art supply store and hobby shop to get a bottle of PVA glue and a bag of basing gravel, and that was two and a half years ago. I still haven't run out. The amount of time, money, and effort is negligible, and your work looks so much better.

I'd actually have to say...don't base them. If you prefer the plain black base, do that. The reasons I don't do it are fairly simple.

1. I don't have time for this nonsense!

2. I use all different kinds of terrain, and it just bothers me if we are playing, say, a snowscape, and my guys are lugging around desert rocks and little tufts of grass, it just..annoys me.