Copy pasting in an article I wrote on another forum:
Ok. A mini primer on basing is in order here as I have put a lot of thought into it. Lets start with this caveat: while are are some dos and don't with basing, like don't flock the edges of a base and don't static grass an entire base. When it comes to artistic choices, which is what we are discussing here, there is no single correct approach. Your mileage may vary, if you disagree artistically you do so and that is that.
ORLANTH'S BASING GUIDE
Ranked up armies. Square bases of course, just to get that out of the way. Give the army a uniform basing colour, if you can use the same basing style for all armies. Make the unit base edges of a single flat colour, unit identification on the rear of the base is acceptable if discrete.
Tip: Avoid heavily detailed bases, take the addage of less is more. Smaler bases such as 25x25 or smaller can look good with little to no detail, other than that which the miniature bring with them like a stone underfoot or an array of arrows before an archer. Base with a simple covering such as sand soda and flock. Flock is simple and efficient and looks very good on a large scale. It may sound like a boring way to paint, but consider a unit and even an army as a single entity. There is a reason why [lexicon]
GW[/lexicon] stuck with [lexicon]goblin[/lexicon] green base rims and railway flock as its sole staple for over 15 years. It works.
The more you base the more you detract from the features of the miniature. Individually they might look better with complex bases, but collectively it detracts.
Tip: You can make exceptions here for characters and because less is more when you have more for a character miniature you don't need a lot more and they still stand out. I have seen a lot of character on pillar models that stand out less in a mess of unique bases than a hero on a small rock in or next to a unit on plainly finished bases.
Large monsters and marmachines. Base as per the rest of your armies, but break up larger bases with a discrete amount of detail. Rocks are a good example, the bigger the base the bigger the rocks.
GW gave people a heads up there by adding plastic rocks and other terrain elements into larger model kits.
Skirmish units. Benefit from a little variety also to highlight their irregular nature. If you use movement trays decorate the unit trays and add small amounts of the same detail on the skirmishers themselves. If they have a terrain hugging or stealth characteristic tun it up a notch. Free company skirmishers do well on bases little more detailed than Empire rank and file, but chameleon skinks for example do well on bases covered with aquarium plant fronds so they are standing in tall leaf-grass. Even better if you paint the chameleon effect accordingly. This works for small special units even if the best of the army is flocked or painted sand with small clumps of static grass.
Characters. Some characters come with terrain bases, generally they are fairly discrete and are intended to be slightly heavier detailed than the rank and file basing.
GW sent a message here with its late plastic character lines having scenic bases but all but a few were very discrete, such a a broken wagon wheel half sunk into the ground or some flagstones. There is a message here about hoe this level of detail is generally either equal to or more than you expect. Some character miniatures are more dynamic and have dynamic basing such as Shadowblade. This isn't in any way over the top with an army of plainly based miniatures, in fact it highlights the character perfectly. Imagine you are playing with a Dread Elf army, all on minimum detail bases such as flock, bar a few scattered rocks on monster bases and your general and
BSB are standing on shallow flat rocks. Then you assassin model appears on an outlandish base, leaping from a shard.
The plainer your bases the more dynamic reveal comes through where needed. This is especially true of the most noted heroes, when on foot, and for concealed characters.
Rock bases.
Take products like this:
of which there are many on the internet. I promise you that a unit based this way will look silly under almost all circumstances. Imps on flying stands would get away with it.
However for characters they are ideal, I bough a pack of a similar product for 20x20mm and 25x25mm based characters. As a tip don't use them exclusively or heroes float on rocks become their own cliche, note the word float because if all heroes have them and the bases move the mind tricks you into accepting that heroes surf on rocks. Break this up with alternatives and avoiding elevating too many characters. It actually makes sense if your army general stands on a taller rock to get a better view of what is happening, and is forgiven for focus highlight, but for general use buy a pack of low rock bases, or use flatter flints. Using real rock is a pain, flints and slate chips do work, but they can be a problem to paint and drill. They do scale well and in many cases need not be painted.
Tip: The above rock packs can be used to elevate problem posed miniatures in a unit. If you have say a halberdier whose pose means be will poke the guy diagonally next to him in the head use a rock to get his weapon clear. Use this technique sparingly and avoid it when you can.
Double Tip: For front rank models like characters you can assum there will be nothing in front of them bar the movement tray. Consider a front overhang of rock to buy characters of outlandish size of with awkward poses some room. Consider the Black orc champion models wargear with one arm stretched out carrying a large axe with chains hanging from it, below.
An impressive piece but one that really gets in the way of basing up. I got a piece of slate and placed it on the 25,,square base so that the champion models front foot overhung the base entirely. This gave him enough clearance, frontally and vertically to show off his axe without toppling da ladz ranked up in the second row.
One further bonus point on frontal overhangs, they will prevent ranking up in melee with your opponents combat blocks. My word for that is: good. It is not uncommon for weapons to stick out the front anyway, and inevitable for larger models. Don't bother trying to have a clear frontage for the opponents unit, it seldom works, and it often wasted if your opponent does not do likewise. While building ranked spearmen or knights with weapons levelled is 'anti social' basing. You cant get models within 2 inches of the front of a Bretonnian knight formation with levelled lances, just dont do it, it's a mess. However not being able to directly rank up is an advantage, you always want frontage in combat to be figurative rather than literal, or if you cant pack your soldiers in as tightly a That Guy opponent can they might try and claim more models in contact with fewer of your own. A neat separation of half an inch die to monster necks, crests, weaponry and pointing arms and the like makes combat positioning abstract.
Other Wargames. Small warband skirmishers is where you have the best room for a heavier focus on scenic bases. Mordheim, Frostgrave, Necromunda, Kill Team, Infinity, all benefit from warbands on scenic bases. This is because you will be playing other players with their own skirmish warbands, and their own basing standards. Some of the above games also have specific base sizes which are important to the game and clear bases don't work if only one side uses them, it highlights the disparity.
If you have an itch to try some scenic bases, skirmish games is the best place to satisfy that.
However where one player hosts games and collects all warbands necessary for all the players, or if you agree to play on ultra high detail maps then clear bases become the out and out superior choice, though regular basing still looks good on a good 3d terrain board.
RPG's. Clear bases should be used whenever you can, because of the versatility of terrain matching required with visual
RPG's. The narrative sets the location on the fly, supported mostly by [lexicon]terrain[/lexicon] maps or mats, or now terrain books. Having miniatures that do not interfere with this is optimal. If clear bases are unobtainable or unusable for technical reasons then black or flat grey bases are best. For single miniatures they do admittedly look odd, but as collections grow a flat black or grey base fits in more and more. Clear is still superior when using mats as black bases and out too much on ice or water maps. You can get clear acrylic disks from an increasingly large number of suppliers.
To answer technical issues.
- You can buy clear acrylic cement to glue any [lexicon]model[/lexicon] other than metals. Metals should be pinned and the pins alone painted with thin super glue. Press in the pins with the model being suspended and leave to dry without smearing. Dunk in water to be sure.
- You can matt varnish clear acrylics with a large clean brush, or buy matted clear acrylic.
As noted clear bases don't work for ranked up models, but this is also true of any other type of base. For clear based armies/large collections there is some getting used to, just as there are
The main issue are scratches, but they can be avoided by careful play and storage and most scratches can be polished away.
Historicals. Clear bases are finally a superior choice for historical skirmish wargames where the emphasis is on maximum fidelity of both models and terrain. A squad of soldiers moving through a ruined village in Northern France 1944 benefit from clear basing if there are attempts to visualise a reality or near reality. Fantasy gaming is al;ways abstract, historicals less so as the scale decreases. Large scale historical wargames are abstracted by necessity, but skirmish levels need proper visualisation of soldier uniform and terrain (though not necessarily going to rivet counter/button counter extremes). Clear bases or at least minimalist bases are best for this because historical skirmish wargames normally pay as much attention to detail on the play surface as they do to the miniatures. For warhammer your army can fight anywhere, but if you want an infantry assault in Stalingrad it helps if it looks like Stalingrad, clear bases removes as much distraction as possible from the relationship between model and scenery.
