I honestly think that citadel basing is one of those things that can completely change how you feel about your finished miniatures. You know that feeling when you've spent hours—maybe even days—meticulously layering highlights on a character, only to realize they're just standing on a plain, black plastic disc? It's a bit of a buzzkill. It's like wearing a tuxedo with flip-flops. It just doesn't quite sit right.
The base is essentially the frame for your artwork. Just like a nice frame makes a painting look professional, a solid base ties the whole model together and tells a story about where that character is. Are they trudging through a radioactive wasteland? Are they stalking through a dense jungle? Whatever it is, the basing is what sells the lie.
The Magic of Texture Paints
Back in the day, if you wanted a decent base, you had to mess around with PVA glue and actual sand from the garden. It was messy, it took forever to dry, and half the time the sand would just flake off in your carrying case. When Games Workshop released the current range of Citadel texture paints, it really changed the game for lazy (or time-efficient) hobbyists like me.
The cool thing about these paints is that they do two jobs at once. They provide the physical grit and the color. If you're looking for a parched, desert vibe, something like Agrellan Earth is basically witchcraft in a pot. You slop it on thick, and as it dries, it physically cracks to create a dried-out mud effect. If you want something more rugged, Stirland Mud gives you that thick, wet trench look that's perfect for grimdark settings.
I've found that the trick with these texture paints is not being afraid to use too much. If you put it on too thin, the effect looks a bit "painted on" rather than looking like actual ground. You want some peaks and valleys. It's supposed to look a bit messy during the application phase.
Adding Depth with Washes and Drybrushing
One mistake I see a lot of people make with citadel basing is stopping as soon as the texture paint is dry. Sure, Agrellan Earth looks like cracked dirt, but it looks like flat cracked dirt. To really make it look "real," you've got to treat it like the rest of the model.
Once the texture paint is bone dry—and I mean really dry, give it a few hours—hit it with a shade. Agrax Earthshade is the old reliable here. It flows into all those cracks and crevices you just created, adding instant depth. After that's dry, a quick drybrush with a lighter tone like Tyrant Skull or even a basic off-white makes the whole thing "ping."
It's a three-step process that takes maybe five minutes of actual work, but it makes the base look like something you spent an hour on. It's all about creating contrast. The dark shadows in the cracks and the bright highlights on the raised bits are what trick the eye into seeing scale.
The Essential Box of Skulls
We can't talk about Citadel products without mentioning the infamous "Skulls" box. Look, it's a meme for a reason. Warhammer settings are usually pretty miserable places, and nothing says "grim future" like a literal pile of human (and alien) remains underfoot.
The beauty of adding a single skull or a bit of debris to a base is that it gives the viewer a sense of scale. A rock could be any size, but everyone knows how big a skull is. By placing one next to your model's foot, you're grounded in a specific reality. Just don't go overboard—unless you're painting Khornate Berzerkers, in which case, there is no such thing as "too many skulls."
Tufts and Foliage
Another massive time-saver in the citadel basing ecosystem is the grass tufts. I remember trying to use static grass back when you had to shake a little plastic bottle to get the fibers to stand up. It was a nightmare. Now, you just peel a self-adhesive tuft off a sheet and stick it down.
The "Middenland Tufts" are great for a dead, wintry look, while "Mordheim Turf" gives you that classic dead-grass vibe that fits almost any battlefield. Pro tip: put a tiny drop of superglue down before you press the tuft on. The self-adhesive backing is okay, but if you're moving your models around a gaming table, they tend to pop off eventually. A little extra glue ensures they aren't going anywhere.
The Eternal Rim Debate
We have to talk about the rim of the base. It's a point of contention in the hobby. Some people swear by black rims because it makes the model look like a "museum piece" or a finished collectible. Others love a colored rim that matches the terrain, like a deep brown or even the classic "Goblin Green" if you're feeling nostalgic for the 90s.
Personally, I think a clean, matte black rim is almost always the way to go. It's neutral. It doesn't distract from the work you did on the top. But whatever you choose, the most important thing is that it's clean. Nothing ruins a great paint job faster than messy, splotchy paint spilling over the edge of the base. It's worth taking thirty seconds at the very end to do a neat pass around the rim.
Consistency Across the Army
One of the biggest benefits of sticking to a specific citadel basing recipe is consistency. If you have sixty infantry models, you want them to look like they're actually standing on the same planet. Using the same texture paint, the same wash, and the same tufts across the whole army ties everything together.
Even if your painting style evolves or you change your color scheme slightly between squads, a unified basing style acts as a visual "glue." It makes the army look like a cohesive force rather than a collection of random models. I usually batch-base my models at the very end. I'll get ten or twenty models lined up and do all the texture at once, then all the shading, then all the drybrushing. It's much faster than doing them one by one.
Experimenting with "The Weird Stuff"
Citadel also has some specialized technical paints that are fun to mess with. Valhallan Blizzard is genuinely great for snow. It's got a weird, gritty texture that actually looks like clumped snow rather than just white paint. If you're doing a Space Wolf army or some frosty Orks, it's a must-have.
Then there's stuff like Nurgle's Rot or Blood for the Blood God. While these are usually for the models themselves, putting a little pool of toxic slime in a crater on the base or some fresh "blood" on a jagged rock can add a lot of character. Just remember that less is usually more with these effects. You want a "detail," not a "distraction."
Final Thoughts on the Process
At the end of the day, citadel basing is about finishing the story you started with your paintbrush. It shouldn't feel like a chore; it's actually the most relaxing part of the hobby for me because it's hard to mess up. You're basically just playing with mud and glue.
If you're just starting out, don't feel like you need to buy every single grass tuft and technical paint in the store. Grab one texture paint that fits your army's vibe, a wash to go over it, and maybe a pack of tufts. That's enough to get results that look way better than the effort involved would suggest. It's all about getting those models off the "plastic void" and onto a battlefield where they belong. Plus, there's just something incredibly satisfying about seeing a fully based army ranked up on a table. It just looks right.