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Not as much a basing question about the actual models, but the theme of the bases.

Finished up 1000 points of Gebirgsjager and made all the bases to look like mountain terrain. I have about 1500 of Fallschirmjaegers that I have done nothing with. I was looking at including a unit of Fallschirmjaegers into the GJ and I am wondering about basing them. If they are fielded together with the GJ I would think they would look better if they share the same style of bases, but then if I base the rest of the FJ differently they would look out of place with them.

Long story short: if you are playing different forces from the same (or allied) nationality, do you base them the same to make it easier to interchange them?

I try to base mine by nationality, helps me pick them easily. I think having the FJ and GJ on the same base style will create a more cohesive looking army

 d-usa wrote:
Not as much a basing question about the actual models, but the theme of the bases.

Finished up 1000 points of Gebirgsjager and made all the bases to look like mountain terrain. I have about 1500 of Fallschirmjaegers that I have done nothing with. I was looking at including a unit of Fallschirmjaegers into the GJ and I am wondering about basing them. If they are fielded together with the GJ I would think they would look better if they share the same style of bases, but then if I base the rest of the FJ differently they would look out of place with them.

Long story short: if you are playing different forces from the same (or allied) nationality, do you base them the same to make it easier to interchange them?

The answer, unfortunately is *it depends*. I have a great love of the desert campaigns so started my British force there. Between the crossover in EW, MW and LW units for the British I have minis that I originally bought for MW desert forces that I also use for EW or LW and when I added more minis for those forces I painted them all in desert colors too to keep them consistent. Beyond that, though, any units that do not cross over that much I do not paint to be consistent with my desert forces. My british paras and all the later model tanks for the Welsh and Irish guards armoured forces I also use are painted in appropriate late war colors. This has lead to my desert painted guards household cavalry force having desert painted armoured cars while being supported by green/olive cromwells or shermans, but I am not really too concerned about it.

In your case I would recommend basing them differently. If you base them the same as the gebirgsjagers you will constantly be squinting closely at stands to remember which are gebirgsjagers and which are fallshirmhjaegers. You don't want a stiff back or a cricked neck from doing that every game you use them together. So base the FJ slightly differently, nicely, but not with similar mountainlike terrain. You'll be happier once you are playing and you'll find if your forces are painted and based nicely they will still look good together on the table despite terrain differences on the bases.

Skriker

To be honest I base most of my armies for lots of different systems the same way, often with some minor variations. grass with patches of mud, small bushes and occationally stones. The only excption has been my BFG stuff, some 28mm Heer Grendiers on snow bases and my Tau on desert bases.

I find that it makes all my collection look more 'mine'.

I made a bad choice, in painting my German Army Lehr Colours (Green uniforms etc) so when I proxy them for other Wehrmacht forces people say "Why are you using Green painted Germans". I should have just painted them normal Field grey and used them as other forces. So with this in mind, I base generically and paint pretty generically to allow me to use as many lists as possible, having the same basing allows the force to look "homogenous".



On the subject of bases I do generic Grass. It looks odd if you do Urban bases and they are dug in a field. Equally it looks silly when you take a patch of turf with you into the town. It's kind of difficult so I go with generic green static grass basing and live with it.

I think maybe the scenery makes a bigger difference have a few buildings like this around, makes a bigger difference for Gebirgsjaeger because it gives the whole Mountain / Alpine feel, much more than the bases..





Overall I think Green bases are best. Maybe throw in some small stones to represent boulders.

The small 'bushes' that I use are basically pices of dense green 'fluff' that I bought from a model railway shop that I glue on with nothing more than slightly watered down PVA. They really make a base look more interesting and 3 dimensional for a minimum of time and effort.

I think that the GJ and FJ would look different enough even on the same base. I will probably paint up a stand in FJ colors and then use the same basing to see how they look together. If nothing else, using small colored marks on the back edge of the base like the ones used to differentiate between squads would also help with keeping them separate.

 mwnciboo wrote:
I made a bad choice, in painting my German Army Lehr Colours (Green uniforms etc) so when I proxy them for other Wehrmacht forces people say "Why are you using Green painted Germans". I should have just painted them normal Field grey and used them as other forces. So with this in mind, I base generically and paint pretty generically to allow me to use as many lists as possible, having the same basing allows the force to look "homogenous".

I'm pretty sure Panzer-Lehr uniforms were field gray. They were just cut differently (the jackets were "Panzer Wraps" instead of normal infantry blouses). The picture looks pretty field gray to me. Feldgrau often had more of a greenish tint, but there was a lot of variation.


As for the FJ, you could make the bases slightly different, but still linked to the GJ bases in some way. For example, if your GJ bases are based on rocky outcrops or something, you could have some smaller rocks on the FJ bases so they're still on rocky-looking terrain, but the bases could go either way.

Yeah it was more "Fifty shades of Feldgrau".

Working on the test base, got the actual models painted except for a wash. I think they will turn out okay on similar basing:



The GJ clothing is standard feldgrau pants with greengrey jackets, and black boots. FJ will have the splinter-camo with brown boots. Biggest difference will be the helmets. GJ have either caps or grey helmets. I painted this stand of FJ with dunkelgelb helmets (and some will have camo netting).

Looking at these bases standing next to each other, even unfinished, it seems like the helmets will make it easy to quickly tell them apart.

I really like both of those Camo schemes. Great work.

All right, finally finished the test base:



I think it looks pretty decent. I think camo and helmets are different enough where they shouldn't get mixed up that easily and I will color code the back of the bases as well.

I like them, I find that the bases really finish off the models, and often having at least two colours/textures really helps, but the bits of stone etc work great on yours

mwnciboo wrote:Yeah it was more "Fifty shades of Feldgrau".

That's a great way of putting it!



And d-usa: Those look great! Using Dunkelgelb helmets for the FJ seems like an elegant solution. Like you said, you shouldn't have trouble telling them apart from the GJ teams. Nice splinter camo too. Painting any kind of camouflage in 15mm isn't easy!

I hate painting 15mm splinter camo. It's the reason why I have 1500 points of unpainted FJ sitting around.

Speaking of different shades of German uniforms, here's a pic I found: