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Is it generally cool or awkward to do the basing for one's army as being specific to fighting a specific foe? For example, habing an ork army that specifically has dead crimson fists on the bases, burned out hulls of crimson fist rhinos, that kind of thing.

Would it then be strange to have them on the table fighting against Non-crimson fist armies? or am I over thinking things?

Well it's no more illogical than an army on snow bases fighting an army on cobblestone bases, all on a grass-covered battlefield

That said, I'd probably only put specific enemy bits on bases if that's part of the army's fluff, e.g. their most famous victory/campaign.

General enemy bits (i.e. battlefield detritus from many enemy races) are an easier way to go, for most armies.

I love basing my armies to match my other armies!!

My Orks and Marines are based with bits from the other army.

My Eldar and Necrons are the same way.

Its fun for me, cuz I like seeing them on the table together. But I agree with the previous poster..its really a matter of choice..if you dont mind, who cares what the other guy thinks!!

Go for it!!

Andyman

Nothing strange about it to me, I think it can add a lot of character to an army.

I always base my army to tell its own story.

The game table may be set up in any number of different ways, so that's not really my concern. I just try to make sure that my models are coherently based and could potentially all go together on an Armies on Parade-style board.

Personally, though, I am reluctant to put dead enemies on my bases.

I have recently thought about doing the same with my winter imperial guard. I ran into the same problem, but have been overcoming it by thinking they are facing a different foe, they are just fresh from fighting the dead enemy on the base.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-64918-30213_50%20Shades%20Of%20Guard.html <-- if you're interested in seeing the start of it (no basing done yet)

In addition to basing your minis with the body parts of a traditionally hated foe, it can be fun to base them with parts from a frequent adversary's force. For instance, my most frequent enemy is an ardent Thousand Sons player, so it was no surprise when the shattered remnants of a Rubric Marine ended up on Captain Lysander's base.

You use the basing to make the model look good, not to play any part in the actual battle, so go wild

if its a display diorama or something then sure.

for gaming minis i really dont like it. it would add tons more work to paint all the extra bits and then it ends up just looking goofy in a majority of gaming situations anyways.

i also dont like how the grey knights have options to be holding demon heads either. i would never use those bits personally.

if you want to add character/more work to a base i would add skulls, broken pavement, etc. stuff like that is not specific and it looks great.

once upon a time when doctrines existed, some armies would have the preferred enemy special rule, which would be represented with the casualties and trophies strewn about across your army of the preferred enemy....

that said, that rule is mostly gone now, and all it has going for it is the cool factor. I say if you are fine with the extra time, effort and cost, by all means, go for it.

I do this, and its fun!

Usually, I pick the armies that are either;
Used by annoying players in my area
Codexes of common armies.

Mostly, I put marines on em...

(xenos all the way baby!).

Of course, there's always the option of making them swappable...

I did these for the base of a converted Flyrant a while back, so that the owner could just swap in the appropriate marker depending on who he was fighting against that game...

 Aspartame wrote:
In addition to basing your minis with the body parts of a traditionally hated foe, it can be fun to base them with parts from a frequent adversary's force. For instance, my most frequent enemy is an ardent Thousand Sons player, so it was no surprise when the shattered remnants of a Rubric Marine ended up on Captain Lysander's base.

I do the same thing. All of my 40K armies have something from my most frequent opponent's Space marines modeled somewhere.

 insaniak wrote:
Of course, there's always the option of making them swappable...

I did these for the base of a converted Flyrant a while back, so that the owner could just swap in the appropriate marker depending on who he was fighting against that game...

That's quite awesome.

I have no problem with it. It can look good, and is no less ridiculous than ruins moving with the models, etc. (Partially why I've been basing most of my armies in a 'simple' terrain, like snow wastes, urban jungle and lava fields) So go nuts.

I used to have various bits of Dark Angels among my Necrons back in the day (A head ripped off here, a blown out power armour there, etc) mostly because it annoyed my friend who played Dark Angels at the time, but it was all in good fun.

I have a friend who's using undead to make a Chaos army for WHFB. It's clear and obvious what he's doing and he's making cemetary based unit filler so his stuff looks awesome.

Unmatching corpses is way more explainable and better looking that unmatching bases. It's hard to explain why you have 40 snow bases playing on a verdant green map.

For things like bodies, you can just think of it as your army just conquered one army when another one attacked, or you just wiped out half of an allied force, or interrupted two other factions who were fighting each other.

I say do it.

My regular gaming group is a set of five lads and we all have the same theme to our bases - dead Dark Angels.

Scottie is a Dark Angels player so we kinda all ganged up on him and have dead DA spread over our bases, banner poles etc.
We have an Avatar holding the eviscerated corpse of a DA tactical; my Howling Banshees Exarch is standing on a DA helmet and there's the CSM Terminator Lord who has something like six DA helmets on his trophy racks.

It's irl trolling but it's mega fun.

The real question is, which army/faction would piss off the most people?

well thats all up to you. ive seen people pull off imperial gaurd units on tyranid bases like a tyrant hacking at guys but its up to you if you make it look good or not i like everything clean and nothing too deathmatch for me i dont like any addition of bloody space marines or rocketlocker mods.

My Marines are finally getting painted and based after a few years sitting dormant. Given my newfound love of all things Tyranid, they are getting dead Nids on their bases and lots of claw marks and acid or fleshborer beetle craters carved in their armour before painting, along with lost eyes, bionics here and there, that kind of thing. It's really helping to pull them together as a force and give them some history/narrative. When i buy some more Stealers and Nids any spare limbs and heads will go towards souping up bases, particularly on Veteran squads.

My Genestealers are getting scaffolding and walkway plates to match the Space Hulk ones that will form the bulk of the force.

My other Tyranids are getting Marine bits added to their bases.

It's a great use for spare bitz from the 'other army's' kits.

Ends up being a matter of personal preference.

The basing purists on one side of the spectrum will only base figures on clear plastic bases (no paint, no scatter, no flock - just clear plastic). When they put the figure on a table, whatever is under them is what it looks like they are standing on. They can look pretty good if you have a detailed board - especially when you take pictures since the bases fade into the background.

The other end of the spectrum are people who do very specific bases involving bits and pieces from a thematically chosen enemy and terrain under that which is also chosen to tell the story.

In between you have a variety of options, including the most common brown dirt with a bit of green flocking or static grass.

I like the thematic bases myself. When I start a new army project, I usually design and build a display board for them as well. Each figure in the army has a small section removed from the board that their base fits in and the terrain and features of the display board matches up to what is on their base. They do stand out a bit though if I am playing on a board which is significantly different than what I have based them on (urban bases on snow terrain for example) but I like the look when they are on the shelf.

In this example, I take basing with enemy bits to the extreme :-)

i think a models base is just as important as the model itself and think about basing as much as my models pose or paint job your bases can help tell a models story and i think a bad base can really ruin a well painted model

for example when i did my 40k ork army i wanted to do a cities of death army, hence lots of rubble and barbed wire. my skaven also have cobble stone on there bases which is broken and patchy to represent one of the old dwarven tunnels or part of the under-empire they are commonly found in.

as far as all one enemy is concerned with mine i like to add little sneak peaks as to what im gonna do next my orks have bits of imperial fist and death guard on there base cause when i was making them i was planning on doing one of those armies next.

Do you have any issues in play with that marine on such a tall base? Really cool though and would go well with my SMurfs as I am basing them to oppose my nids that just happen to have green chitin.

I've done this with a couple of my Tyranid models, I like to go a little Saving Private Ryan on them...

BOOM! Headshot!


Can't see it very well in the pic, but he's gripping his entrails... GRIMDARK.

I saw a BA assault marine w jump pack coming down on an orc with his boot on its jaw, perfect 45% angle, and orc neck was obviously snapping. Looked great.

Having said that I think less can often be more with this. I trialled a dead orc on a dread base, didnt look good, removed it.

No-one dressed in bright red armour is looking to get a cover save anyway... Rule Of Cool led with the modelling, I'll just have to cope in-game!

I painted the SM helm under the foot of my CSM Lord as Imperial Fists yellow, just because I thought it was a nice contrast...no one in my FLGS group plays them, but, oh well.



OTOH there is a Space Pups player, and I am looking forward to see if he notices the trophy rack...