I've got a jar of texture paste that's starting to dry up a bit on me so I have been trying to use a bunch up. Some folks will tell you texture pastes are a waste of money or that they are just dirt in some paint. Maybe true with citadel and some other brands, but AK interactive pastes are actually made using some sort of gel or plastic beads and bits. This gives the advantage that you can actually sand the paste when it is fully cured. You can also paint over the texture paste if you wish to do so for any reason. Obviously you will want to sand before laying any paint down if you intend to do so. The only real difference between stuff like Desert Sand or Dark Earth or any of their products is the size and consistency of the beads. In desert sand it is more uniform, as you would expect with sand. With something like dark earth you've got different sized chunks in there to give it a more varied consistency and finish, as you might expect comparing soil to sand.

Even if you use loose basing material, throwing down a layer of texture paste can help fill in spots you miss with the mix etc. If you're working with minis with integral bases (like most metal figures) you can also use the texture paste to hide the raised integral basing. Even moreso if you have a base with a lip. I use Rubicon models bases. Both because I mainly work with metal and resin, and the lip comes in handy to create a seamless appearance. They are also designed very well because they taper slightly at the top and bottom so that you can actually handle the minis by the base. I always found GW bases and other bevelled bases difficult to pick up on a game table.

Anyways I'm making a little fire pit thing here. Gonna paint the sand to an earthy brown and then cover it with some scatter mix, add some little stumps or a bench or something. Maybe a pile of firewood. Gonna fill the pit with some ashy pigments and a loose basing mix I've got that will work well to represent a regularly used fire pit.