Make bases from the bodies and bitz of your opponent… is this the ultimate taunt!
How much fun could you have creating bases that are nothing more than your army standing on the bodies of your enemy?
Once again we are here to look at ideas for creating great bases for your army.
Bases can set the tone of your army. They can play a huge part in making your army eye catching and awesome.
Putting texture paint on flat bases and sticking some grass on the dry brushed surface gets you battle ready... but it’s just not going to cut it for making your army look it’s most awesome!
But there are so many levels of interest and cool details you can add with a box of bits, your imagination, and sense of cheeky fun!
I can tell you from experience that out of defeat… then victory is often not far away. And it’s really good at providing inspiration and loads of creative ideas. So, when my Knights of Damnation failed to finish at the very top… well I was immediately on the hunt for a new winning formula.
So I thought what better way to face defeat, celebrate loss, and turn it into a victory then nothing would work better than using a previous army or bodies of defeated enemies to create the bases for the next project!
Staring down despair with a smirk is definitely the province of the Laughing God! Then it wasn’t a hard stretch to see my Harlequin Force* rise up from disappointment to stand on the destroyed remnants of the previous year’s army…
The background theme for the Aeldari army was based upon a performance by the Harlequin Masque that caused a psychic nexus and the creation of a new Avatar - the Reawakened would rise up on an ancient battlefield where the Aeldari had triumphed over an imperial force - the remains of which was called the Battlefield of Giants because of the carcasses of so many Imperial Knights.
So as the Aeldari set to defend themselves from a pending threat they are framed by the Battlefield they are preparing to fight on. Some of the poses created look like the models are dancing on the dead!
Like all army modeling projects there are left over parts - with the previous year’s Imperial Knights some of those parts were quite substantial - guns, guns and chainswords! So, it was easy to raid the bits box to find a load of spare Imperial Knights parts.
But to be honest I went all in to the project and had to buy a Knight that was built in sections to then be damaged and destroyed. Plus there’s some Imperial scenery and plastic card that come together to create a platform for the Harlequins to be posed dancing on the graves of the dead - my Battlefield of Giants!
But why stop there? You could take a lead from my Tzeentch Demon/Thousand Sons**. For that force I built and painted a pile of Space Wolves. Only to crush them under the tracks of rhinos, or burn them in the etherial fires of my Flamers of Tzeentch, or for some bases it was using little bits of left overs like a power fist blazing at the foot of a Pink Horror.
I’ve even used this same principle, with a twist, for the Tau’formers*** army. Their bases are strewn with the remains of other tau models - representing the debris from centuries of civil war. The background story for the army sees both sides joining together to fight a looming threat to their home planet - Arc’atron. So allies and enemies make up the bases for Optimus, Megatron and the other Tau’formers.
So do you have an arch enemy or a mate you want to taunt? Are you set to win the mind game?
Will you litter the bases of your next army with the bones and bits of your favorite foe… and then crush them under your boots…
Even if you don’t win the next battle the moral high ground might still be yours!
*Harlequins - Players Choice at Arc40k 2018
**Thousand Sons - 2nd Players Choice 2019
***Tau’formers - Players Choice at Arc40k 2022
