Cheap Easy Basing City or Ship Warhammer 40k

A while ago, just after 8th Edition 40k dropped its new box set, I decided to build up some new Primaris Marines into Blood Angels for my own collection when time allowed. I decided i wanted to base them on a City like base that might also be used as a ship interior basing on my models and I wanted to be cheap about it. Here is what I did...

First off I already had bases from the box set with the figures, so that part was done. I then read up (sorry I cant remember the site) on a guy using Vinyl Tiles to simulate rubble, much like people use cork, plaster, etc. to represent. I personally dislike the mess and having to pin everything down into cork and what not... and so I figured i would go grab a tile or two from Lowes/Home Depot.

I found some grey like tile (color does not matter really as it will be painted). The tile is cheap as it is, however I found some tile that had broken corners on the rack. I asked employee if i could get them discounted. He gave me paperwork saying they are free as they were damaged.... Nice!

Next i went to the window screen area to get window screen (i like the rubber window screen but the roll was so big and fairly expensive i decided to look for another option for floor grating. I found that drywall sanding screen (goes onto the drywall hand sanders) comes in sheets was more reasonable in cost and simular.. and I might have more use for it and takes up less space to store. This made the grate pattern on the left in picture. I also found some drywall tape that had some round pattern on it (its like paper and if remember right self adhesive... but i glued down anyways). This pattern of grating is seen in right in picture.

I then went to the task of breaking the tile by hand into small pieces i was happy with as seen in picture (easy to do). I then put the grating i desire down onto the base (not worrying about if it hung over the edge you can trim off easily after its dry. I used super glue to glue it down and maybe PVA glue would work on the drywall type. I then super glued the pieces of rubble onto the top as seen in picture. Let that dry and hit with Army Painter black primer spray paint. I then hit with some Army Painter Uniform Grey and then highlight wet drybrush of Ash Grey for edges etc of rubble. I then did a wet dry brush over the grating with Gun Metal to give metal look for bases. You could do more to the bases... i kept them at this stage as I just try to get my stuff table top and later I do more to my models timer permitting at later times... done this my whole life. :). But I know these can look nice with rust effects etc. added to them for a Space Hulk old dingy look and what not.

Well I hoped this helps some of you get some ideas on cheap cool basing that can be done. Oh, finally to glue marines onto bases I used super glue, however for some strange reason (did not think vinyl would bond with plastic glue) I got good results having models adhere to the bases with plastic glue.... I am not sure why... but by testing it it seemed to bond as well as super glue. As a safe bet i would use super glue however.