Nobody is going to force you to use miniatures for what they're intended for.
Case in point: The Icelords of Isthak is an army (and a range of minis) in the Demonworld series. Nice idea, but to my mind, totally impractical – an 'ice' army looks wrong on a green battlefield, and I'm not inclined to make an icy battlefield for just one army!
Therefore, I use these lovely Icelords minis in my armies, but for other purposes. Take these Dai Re'Coon (catalog picture shown above), which are intended as giant crystalline ice demons. I decided to use them as Rock Elementals in my Chaos army.
Here they are, as painted by our friends in Sri Lanka, Fernando Enterprises.
I based these for the Mighty Armies rules from Rebel Minis, using the 2" x 2" large bases.
You can barely fit two figures per base. It would have been equally valid to base one figure per base.
I based the figures, using spackle to smooth them into the top of the base, then applying flock.
The orange color is used for all of my Chaos army bases, making it easier for visiting players to recognize which bases belong to which army.
This is my last addition to my Chaos army for a while, but I know I have more figures around here somethere…