Ive been doing bases with steel rods similar to the way Dan does his, although I have added magnets for all the of the escort and smaller ships. One advantage to steel rods is that you only need one magnet per ship because the magnets stick quite nicely top the steel rods.
I use 1/8" welding rods cut with a hacksaw and ground flat on a bench grinder (or coarse file). 1/8" holes are drilled into the ships as deep as they can go without breaking through to the top side of the ship and the 1/8" x 1/16" magnets are glued into the bottom of the holes. On some of the shallower ships the bottoms of the magnets are flush with the bottom of the ships, but they still work fine just sitting on top of the steel rods.
Another advantage to this method is that the (unnamed) bases for escorts can be used across different fleets so you don't need to make as many bases.
Side note: I also made up some bases using smaller 3/32" steel welding rod, planning to use then for some of the smaller ships, but have found the almost all of the Imperial and Chaos ships, except some of the very smallest system ships, are big enough to take a 1/8" holes for 1/8" rods and magnets.
Very much looking forward to seeing Zac's bases too.
Tim