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This is something that has been bugging me for a while, as near the end of Fantasy a lot of the heroes started getting sculpted bases, then when we got Underworlds and the 2nd ed easy builds, they got these amazing thematic bases that stand out among the usual flat boring bases. While 40k takes place on many worlds so a sculpted base wouldn't work, I don't know, in AoS a proper sculpted base for every mini might work, am I nuts?

foenixphate wrote:
While 40k takes place on many worlds so a sculpted base wouldn't work...

And Age of Sigmar has at least eight realms, with each realm having a variety of terrain so sculpted bases wouldn't work for the same reason it wouldn't work for 40K.

 Ghaz wrote:

foenixphate wrote:
While 40k takes place on many worlds so a sculpted base wouldn't work...

And Age of Sigmar has at least eight realms, with each realm having a variety of terrain so sculpted bases wouldn't work for the same reason it wouldn't work for 40K.

Except it does, a lot of the look of AoS is paint jobs, the Underworlds and easy build stuff proves that

foenixphate wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:

foenixphate wrote:
While 40k takes place on many worlds so a sculpted base wouldn't work...

And Age of Sigmar has at least eight realms, with each realm having a variety of terrain so sculpted bases wouldn't work for the same reason it wouldn't work for 40K.

Except it does, a lot of the look of AoS is paint jobs, the Underworlds and easy build stuff proves that

No. It doesn't. The jungles of Ghur are nothing like fire plains of Aqshy just like they're nothing like the Celestial Realm of Azyr.

https://ageofsigmar.com/realms/#panel-10

Sculpted bases annoy me a fair bit actually. I usually replace them with blank bases.

Where it gets really annoying is when the models' feet are sculpted into the base...

Sculpted bases can look good, but if you don't happen to like that theme, you're stuck with it.

Also on top of all the realms, its also a hobby and they want to sell hobby tools like basing materials and let players do their own bases.

If i get special bases that don't match my theme, i just throw them out or give them away. I personally hate the sculpted bases.

The sculpted bases certainly look good, and from a painter's perspective, it's a fantastic way to make a very dynamic-looking model from the inexpensive easy-to-build sets.

It is, however, a lot more work to paint. Painting 50 dryads or 'Ardboyz would be beyond brutal if you had to go over their base and paint every fallen leaf, vine and brick.

 joewarhost wrote:
The sculpted bases certainly look good, and from a painter's perspective, it's a fantastic way to make a very dynamic-looking model from the inexpensive easy-to-build sets.

It is, however, a lot more work to paint. Painting 50 dryads or 'Ardboyz would be beyond brutal if you had to go over their base and paint every fallen leaf, vine and brick.

(shrugs) A little bit of glue + my favorite basing material covers up sculpted bases as easily as it does flat ones.

There are two major problems with sculpted bases: if you happen to not want to base your army the way GW's design team decided you should you've got to go buy more bases, which would annoy people who wanted to do something other than the bog-standard studio paint scheme, and they take up a lot of space on the sprue, which is all right for something like the Underworlds warbands but could be pretty nasty on something like a Stormcast Vanguard sprue or the Khinerai or anything else with big bases and a lot of surface area on the models.

I'm annoyed by the few easy to build kits from nighthaunt, because they don't fit with the bases of the rest of my army

I'm also not a fan of when they sculpt the foot onto the base. Really annoying having to try and cut the foot free so that I can put it onto a different base so that it matches the rest of my army.

Doesn't let you base as you please.
Stifles creativity. (GW does that enough already)
Can look crap.
Forces you to use GW only bases.

 ValentineGames wrote:
Doesn't let you base as you please.

Where there's a will, there's a way.
Can't possibly be harder than doing extensive conversions on GW "white metal" minis back in the late 90s/earlly 2000s

 ValentineGames wrote:
Stifles creativity. (GW does that enough already)

If it stifles you, you weren't creative enough to start with.

 ValentineGames wrote:
Can look crap.

Well that could be said for virtually any aspect of the modeling portion of our hobby....

 ValentineGames wrote:
Forces you to use GW only bases.

99% of the time you were going to do that anyways. Mostly because of the convenience. Oh look, there's a bag of bases in the box. One per model!
The other 1% of the time? If you're determined, you'll base things as you please. Even if that means you've got to trim the foot out of/off the offending base. Or completely resculpt said foot....

If it stifles you, you weren't creative enough to start with.

It's significantly harder to be creative on a 32mm base that has fence, pavements and half a dead body sculpted on it than on an empty plastic surface. I guess I'm not creative enough to want to get rid of all that junk if I happen to want a jungle base.

Cronch wrote:

If it stifles you, you weren't creative enough to start with.

It's significantly harder to be creative on a 32mm base that has fence, pavements and half a dead body sculpted on it than on an empty plastic surface. I guess I'm not creative enough to want to get rid of all that junk if I happen to want a jungle base.

Ok, maybe I should've phrased it as "You're not motivated enough". I get it, you're lazy. Or just prone to internet hyperbole.
But wether you lack motivation or creativity, it's still just a 32mm plastic base.... You're looking at trimming the fence off with clippers/hobby knife & covering up the offending details with putty/your favorite basing material. Assuming you can handle not cutting towards yourself with that hobby knife there's not much effort/skill needed here.

I have boxes of plastic minis in my backlog to paint. I dont need hundreds of bases to prep before I even start basing adding to that.

It's not laziness, it's that it would be huge pain in the backside to deal with.

I don't want to see all models go to pre-sculpted bases, but I would like to see GW offer sets of bases that match the ones used by models in Underworlds. Would be nice if there was a set of bases that match the Tzeentch warband that can be used to flesh out a full army in AoS. Same with the cave ones used for the Gloomspite warbands.

 Equinox wrote:
I don't want to see all models go to pre-sculpted bases, but I would like to see GW offer sets of bases that match the ones used by models in Underworlds. Would be nice if there was a set of bases that match the Tzeentch warband that can be used to flesh out a full army in AoS. Same with the cave ones used for the Gloomspite warbands.

This would be a fine compromise.

you can buy pre done bases already. if they all had pre made bases, aswell as being boring, it will likely be more expensive.

basing is a fun part of the hobby. if you dont do it, then learn to do it.

ccs wrote:

Cronch wrote:

If it stifles you, you weren't creative enough to start with.

It's significantly harder to be creative on a 32mm base that has fence, pavements and half a dead body sculpted on it than on an empty plastic surface. I guess I'm not creative enough to want to get rid of all that junk if I happen to want a jungle base.

Ok, maybe I should've phrased it as "You're not motivated enough". I get it, you're lazy. Or just prone to internet hyperbole.
But wether you lack motivation or creativity, it's still just a 32mm plastic base.... You're looking at trimming the fence off with clippers/hobby knife & covering up the offending details with putty/your favorite basing material. Assuming you can handle not cutting towards yourself with that hobby knife there's not much effort/skill needed here.

The way I see it, you just want to introduce another layer of busywork for those who want to actually base things as they want. Why do you hate the hobby, did you cut yourself on a brush?