"Do Your Bases Tell a Story?" Topic

According to the Wargamers' Army Painting Guide from The Army Painter…

What are your bases going to look like? Your bases tells an important story about your army and defines the theme. Time invested in bases is never wasted.

Do you invest a lot of planning into the base design for your army? Or do you just want something that looks vaguely grassy?

Depends on the game system. For example, my basic "grunt" figs (wwii, modern, post apoc, etc.) may get a standard grass/rock scatter treatment, while the command figs get more of a diorama type base. Same for fantasy, numerous hordes or common figs get a basic dungeon floor/outdoor base, while special characters/monsters get more elaborate ones.

Generally I rebase so often that more than a green woodlands scenic mix is wasted.

Having said that, my 28mm Greeks are more ambitious and the Spartans do have rocks from Thermopylae on their bases

Yep – like, "man, he really doesn't care about his basing, does he?"

Tell a story? Not so much, except for perhaps reflective of how my hobby skills have developed and enthusiasm waxes and wanes.

(Very old Internet meme reply: all your base…you know)

dogs are a must these days..all GWZ's fault , I blame him for most things..

Yeah!
My troops see a lot of use as the flock gets rubbed off.
That's their story, and they're sticking to it unlike the flock…

Yes, probably too much.

my Command bases do…

P.

Nope, just keeps the minis from falling over.

Yep – mine get quite a bit of terrain. I model in micro armor, and I base on 1.25" bases. The bases tend to get grass, rocks, sometimes roads, bushes and srub, rock walls, mud puddles, and sometimes tall grass. Also sometimes put fallen trees or rotten logs on the bases. Sometimes the tanks are crashing thru a small rock wall or such. Just my technique for making the tiny models look more interesting.

I just want my bases to blend in with the tabletop, please. My basing is for gaming, not for the display cabinet.

The only story mt bases tell is that "this painter isn't interested in basing".

I see no need for my army to travel with its own sod.

Mine tell a story that goes something like, "He was doing real well painting everything, then he got close enough, threw some acrylic gel and sand on me with a bit of flock, and called it done."

I hate figures that cart great lumps of terrain around with them on their bases. Just grass green is fine.

I find mine grass on me all the time!

Only story my bases tell is that I am cheap. Vaguely grassy and vaguely dirty for me.

Using the same figs for different games is part of that, making stands particularly for a single game makes them less suitable for others.

No story.

a bit like this then?

My bases for fantasy warbands are usually somewhat thematic in representing the units' home turf. Almost everything else -especially my sci-fi figs- are simply based to blend into my desert terrain board.

I'd rather have the figs and terrain tell the story and have the bases be invisible than rely on the bases to tell the story.

Ordinarybass got it right – "I'd rather have the figs and terrain tell the story and have the bases be invisible than rely on the bases to tell the story."

That hit my feeling to a "T". Almost all of my figures are single based. My bases should blend with the terrain. I don't like seeing figures drag a stone wall around with them.

Vince

Depends on the game.
40k and WW2--> standard flocking
Pulp, pirates, horror and Witch Hunters --> resin scenic bases with bits added on.

Or do you just want something that looks vaguely grassy?

Works for me.

Geography shouldn't be mobile.

Yes. A decent base makes even an average paint job look good.

I come up with a decent good looking repeatable basing scheme for each army and stick to it.

My basing skills have gotten better since I started so my newer figures look better.

A prime example is realizing that green flock over green paint is wasting a chance for contrast. Green flock over brown paint looks much better, and if the flock wears off from handling, it looks like patches of bare earth.

I think if you are doing an army to refight one action for scenario play, then going farther is fine. For example, if you are building an army just to refight Stalingrad, then the rubble bases are just fine. But I think using them for general gaming it just detracts from it. I also think terrain should be on the bases but the bases should not be terrain features. Put grass, rocks, bushes and stuff on the base but not permanent structures. Troops don't get to carry stonewalls and roads with them, so it looks silly to me.

At least now I paint my new bases with the same enamel paint I used on my gameboard

Usually I do grass and mud, mud and grass. Once I put small white pebbles on the bases to look like small outcrops of chalk and it looks horrible….REBASE!

The FoW bases I just did do. They are muddy with sparse bit of rock and tuft with splashes of water effects on the mud and bushes.
I showed them to my wife and asked her to tell me what the story of what's going on is. She nailed it in that it was fall and the first frost of the year was hitting and the troops hadn't managed to get their winter gear yet.
Asking someone to tell you the story of what's going on really helps to tell if you did it right.

yawargame.blogspot.com

I have flat black bases for my minis which represent that every individual is alone and isolated in a vast, dark universe that cares nothing about him so all perceived context is a fading self-delusion that separates him further from the pitiful and ephemeral opportunity at human contact that will end up exposing how alien others truly are and how our meaningless commonalities ultimately lead to greater and more frequent episodes of desperation and despair along our inescapable march to oblivion.

So … yes.

The benefit of big bases is that you can tell a story

I couldn't find it, but there is a picture of a Samurai base for Impetus, with the mounted Samurai and retainers splashing through a small river

It is simply the best basing I have ever seen, with great painting as well

The downside of big bases is that it limits you to one or two rule sets, which is a big issue

If you want flexible basing then only a few figures on a base which makes it harder to do more complex bases, so I am on the side of simple bases that match the terrain. Within that they can be quite detailed and look really good. It also helps to have them in a contrasting colour – dusty ground or something as this makes the figures stand out better

John

"At least it's not sand and goblin green paint"

Only ever this one

I do a sort of dirt drybrushed either sand color or sable color. Or grey dry brushed light grey

I leave mine the exact color of the base cloth, they blend in better.

I try to match the color of the playing surface, which is typically either a table-covering cloth or a painted painter's drop cloth.

If my command has more than one figure, then I try to arrange them a little. Depends on the figures. I can sometimes have one mounted officer pointing with his sword, telling the commanding officer, "look, they are over there" or have an aide on foot looking up receiving orders. It just depends on the figures.

Within a unit I can sometimes have a NCO pointing while barking orders. I don't go out of my way to do it. I don't do anything special with the terrain. It is the same for all bases.

Quite honestly, it depends upon the minis.

In some games, the basing can take away from the rest of the game, which leaves things like the clear bases as a major thing.

In others, a simple basing choice can easily work far better than more intricate options, having your grunts all done basically the same emphasizes that they're part of a unit. This is even more true with ranked up troops, though diorama setups with fillers can be interesting, but can create other issues in games where you're actively pulling minis off and putting them back on like my experiences with my old vampire counts army.

However, open spaces tend to need something for attention