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My VC army is going to have an Arthurian-knights-chivalric theme to them and I wanted the bases to reflect the english moors or french countryside. My question is this; would you put the flock strait onto the base, or would you give it that sand base first and the flock on top of that to give it a more natural look?

I'd put sand down, paint the sand, then put the flock on. I feel like straight flock never looks right, and any bare spots are always obviously black instead of having a realistic, earthy texture.

Tend to agree...unless...

I want a really grassy look.

I did some zombie type bases where I wanted the grass to look like it was almost putting green manicured. For those, I went ahead and took the grass sheet material that they make. Cut circles, applied to the base - then carefully cut out the "foot prints" so that the foot set lower in the grass.

You don't necessarily need to use sand though - and often I won't use that in particular since it can be a little too coarse. Pumice paste works fairly well for scale dirt, is easy to apply and if you mix it with some pigments or paint...you can skip the painting process.

I have to agree with BrotherSRM. No matter how much flock you want to use to represent a grassy field, I think it looks best with regular sand flock first and painted brown. Why? Flock just doesn't look right when it covers the base. No matter how well done it just looks fake. Real grass has dirt under it anyway. It's just a little extra effort to make it look that much more awesome. If you don't want to go through all the effort, just get the Citadel textured paint, slap that on, wash it, and then cover with flock. I think it'll look best with a few larger stones painted to stick out.

http://www.beastsofwar.com/painting-and-hobby/unboxing-flockbox-warpainter/

This might be your thing if you want to do whole bases in a grassy field...