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Using different basing methods/colours in same army


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So I have been re-basing infantry with 32mm bases from old 25mm, but I have some with 40mm bases already based. The question is, should I be sticking with the same method or have a different base style for the 32mm? Also I found some resin 40mm bases I want to use for HQ's, I think I could get away with those as being different. Can an army work with two different/similar base styles, or should I just be consistent? 

You should be consistent but its only for aesthetics. With allies I tend to end up fielding inconsistent armies anyway. If you want to stick with the same method that's entirely up to you, if you don't like the way the existing bases are done then redo them like you're re-doing everything else, if you're okay with them but not especially proud then its going to be a little less effort to make the new bases match them and the consistency will pay off even if it doesn't end up matching your ambitions.

Character bases are good but should have something to tie them to the more 'basic' variant. So don't have a army of guys on space ship industrial flooring and a hero standing on a half buried fallen stone statue. Simplest effort is to just make sure that the earth is the same colour on all the bases but you can also use patches of snow or grass to tie things together (but not litter that could be anywhere like skulls or blood, if one guy is on a mountain of skulls you can tie him to his bodyguard by putting the odd skull on their bases but a city rubble base and a tundra base won't look good together just by putting a skull on each one). Same thing can work with mixed bases across an army, battlefields can be varied places, just decide on some element to tie them together and they'll feel a place with some variety rather than a variety of places. Having inconsistent colours of grass tufts on an army all on burnt umber painted PVA affixed sand looks fine because plants come in multiple colours and there's only one element of variety, if you have a guy on a cool cast base that doesn't have exposed soil when putting some sand and a grass tuft in one corner of his base then you do have to make sure the grass tuft is the same colour as the ones on the unit he'll be hanging around with.

Here's an example where I added 5 new assault marines to a squad years later after the newer kit was released.

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The new assault marines are based using the parts from their kit while the rest of the squad are on rubble pained in the old scorched brown colour with water effects over scorched brown mixed with dark angels green. The new bases were painted in as close to the same green I could get with the same water effects and tufts so they fit in despite having injection molded parts and the rubble I used no longer being available.

Bases are what draws your whole army together and gives it a consistent look even if their armours aren't as consistent. Likewise if your models are all painted the same way but you have a bunch of different bases it'll look like they are from two different armies.

Usually you don't want to have your models look all over the place so using the same palette of colours for all of your models and giving them all the same bases is crucial. There are regularly articles about that kind of topic in the White Dwarf and similar.

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