I'm gonna have to look into those pens.

I use the default black for Forces of Evil, because it seems appropriate to me (Though I did up my Sauron mini with the One Ring as his base's rim). I use white on Forces of Good for the same reasoning.

Now I'm gonna have to think about what would work best for specific minis and units, darn you.

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I'm still a bit obsessed with bases and wondered how to do bases like this?

Looks like sand dry brushed from black through shades of brown to a bleached bone-ish colour with tufts of grass and that fine green sponge thrown in for good measure with bestial brown rim

I always use black for every game I play. I think it looks more "serious", and is nicely unifying, as I use models from various sources for RPG miniatures, so it's nice that the bases match.

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I paint my bases to match the faction.

Blue for Elves,
Green for Rohan
Black for Gondor
Brown for Mordor
Grey for Isengard

etc

I also shade them slightly, so there is a highlight on the front of the base. I'll take a picture of one when I get home and show you what I mean.

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Dagster

I painted my Uruk warriors with a dull red for their rim and instead of actually basing the models I opted to coat it black (As I prime white) and paint on a White Hand. My idea was to do a BFME sorta thing where your units have that little team-colored circle around them and I thought it turned out alright. But honestly the models feel incomplete to me so I'll eventually go back over and give them honest-to-God bases and a black rim (Since red is Mordor colors anyhow)

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Army Lists
Isengard - 750
Mordor - 500
Haradrim - 300

I used to use a plain black rim, but recently upgraded to a brown rim when I rebased the collection. A black rim looks great, but I find a brown blends in better with my terrain and game boards. The black rim suggests 'playing pieces for a board game' or 'display pieces' rather than the 'warrior actually fighting in middle earth' that I want. I think, with a well done base and a well painted model, black looks better - but mine are a very average set of miniatures, some barely reaching tabletop quality, and so the brown helps things blend together more on the table.

Weird how much psychology and connotations I manage to read into something as simple as base rim colour. I am available as a base rim colour psychologist for any and all appointments.