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I have recently begun a new commission for an old friend and his younger brother. This is going to be an imperial guard army that is going to be wasteland based and all of them are going to be of different detachment colorations. That however is not the real problem I am facing.

The soul issue that I am having at this current moment. Is that I cannot find a suitable replacement for my citadel brand (sand) basing.

I ran out some time ago and have just been putting it off to get it replaced. Unfortunately now I am caught between a rock and a hard place, because I really want to get a medium that is of good enough quality to be used and one that is not going to break the bank, so to speak.

I have tried to find other replacements nearby. Though the only kind that I can find is from a nearby hobby store that carries train modeling supplies. Though with some trial and error I have learned the bag I purchased is not at all fine enough to be used for GW models. It doesn't hold well enough and is even prone to excessive clumping.

At this point I would have better chances at using the last of my static grass and spray painting it to match sand.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

drive to the beach and get some sand, wash it and let dry. buy 'grog' from any ceramic shop, a fired pottery that's ground down to sand like particles. GW sand to me look medium grade or larger, not fine sand for modeling scale.

If you're on a budget like i am, go for Aquarium sand / bird sand. It's cheap as chips, comes in a plethora of qualities & colors and the usual bag lasts for an eternity.

Dollar stores usually have a jar of sand by all the candle stuff. That's what I switched to and it matched up really well.

there should be plenty of fine ballast available from a model train store

How are you putting it down? The best way is to use 50/50 PVA/Water and let it dry before moving on to priming/paint/db etc. (unless of course you're leaving it its natural colour)

As others have said, check around hobby and craft stores, like Michaels, Hobby Lobby, HobbyTown, or dollar stores. Also, if you do get beach sand be aware you need to bake it at low heat (about 250o iirc) for about an hour, to kill microbes.

Some people have found kitty litter works well, more for larger terrain projects though, it doesn't tend to be really fine.

Another good option, that takes a bit of effort, but lasts a long while, is to pick up a bag of Playground sand - it's precleaned etc, but you will have to sieve it to sort it into sizes for use in basing.Once you're done though you'll have enough sand for forever, unless you plan on doing a lot of tables of terrain