Bases

[Mister Rab]

Before I contemplate the horror of rebasing the (admittedly few) miniatures I have painted, are bases sizes/shapes of particular importance to those of you who actually get to play 3rd ed? From the combat rules, I fear the answer will be yes. What I have done with my figures so far is to base them on 25mm hex bases, mainly because I like them.

What say you? Switch to the "regulation" 20mm square bases for humans?

 

[Just John]

To answer your I'm not sure but I am a base rebel as I am basing all my minis on round bases. When it comes to gaming I'll mount them on movement trays so they'll be just like square bases (no matter what Blue says ) At the end of the day they're your minis and if you can find a way around the rules you should base them as you like.

 

[Orlygg]

To my knowledge, no one gave a shit about the size or shape of any bases at the Oldhammer weekend. As one of the world's leading lights on playing 3rd edition I give you permission to base your minis the way you prefer!

 

[Chico]

The only thing not basing your toys on 20/25mm bases does is hurt yourself, but since 3rd isn't about winning at all costs for the most part then go ahead and base them on what you want. So long of cause you don't take the piss aka a single snot/gobbo on a 50mm Square/60mm Round lol

 

[Zhu Bajie]

subject came up before here: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=540

Personally I use round bases.

no one gave a shit about the size or shape of any bases

Because they were all BtB, so the issue didn't arise?

 

[Orlygg]

It made no difference to the game. Slaves to Darkness is essentially a skirmish game so measurements were made from the head. In other cases, players just used a rectangular piece of card and placed thier models on that.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

So those players did give a shit on some level, else why feel the need to use rectangular card as a temporary rebase?

Were there any actual 20mm troops based on 25mm bases or visa versa in your game? gruddamnit man that's 1/4 of an inch strategic advantage, not in movement (where base size doesn't matter at all) but in area of control, plus more attacks per unit. Base sizing in warhammer isn't all that well thought out for mass combat, it's not DBA or Reaper, curiously it does make more sense as a system for pure skirmish or dungeoncrawl.

At the end of the day, most players or GMs will work out some compromise to utilise different basing systems in the same battle, be it temporary card bases, or a little bonus here, a little reduction there, keep it all fair.

 

[Subedai]

I see base sizes as part of a model's characteristics profile and therefore generally binding if you are playing points based full scale battles. As Zhu said, they do affect area of control, and in my opinion also movement (think of getting into difficult terrain, changing formation and turns), attacks (the margins are often tight so any attack more or less can be the clincher for winning a combat), area effects (weapons/spells, general/battle standard).

I'd always want my forces to stick to the letter of the rule first of all, then it is easy to use them in whichever circumstances by adapting the rules. Having to adapt the rules to make them work in a straight up game seems like an unnecessary hassle.

I think smaller bases are an advantage in most cases btw, and that's not just because it would allow me to squeeze more greenskins onto the table.

 

[Erny]

Bases do matter if you are planning to play full scale battles of 3rd a twenty strong unit of humans ranked five wide is 10 cm wide, for 10cm you only get four orcs and so would be out numbered at the crunchy end. Obviously work arounds can be made compromises met but on the whole bases sizes should be kept to if at all possible. The more figures you have the more the difference notices.

My advice would be re-base now before you get much further down the line, you won't regret it if you plan to play a lot of 3rd. If you just plan on dabbling go with what you like best.

 

[Mister Rab]

Well if you're all going to be reasonable about it, how am I going to make a decision?

The comments above are basically the inner discussion I've been having over this issue. However, given that I struggle to retain even the proper rules for a game, never mind coming up with consistent "fixes" to compensate for my own pigheaded individualism, I'm 99% sure I'll rebase. Actually, I'll base up all my new figures on the "proper" bases, and save the rebasing treat for when I've been a particularly good boy

Thanks, gents.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

Good. Now that is settled, you just need to get all the correct original bases in sequenced sets of numbers

Bases do matter if you are planning to play full scale battles of 3rd

So Erny, I know you've got a bunch of Otherworld miniatures (and no doubt several others too) - round bases yes? Are you going to keep your dungeoncrawl miniatures completely separate from your warhammer set?

I've seen some set-ups where people have used round for characters and square for troops, looks really nice.

 

[Erny]

Good choice Rab, a square base is a happy base.

My otherworld stuff is mainly on square bases, how would I rank them up otherwise? Even the kobolds.

 

[Mister Rab]

I think you're partly on to something there, WP - all gamers I know have at least a smidge of OCD

 

[Mister Rab]

That sounds like the spirit of Oldhammer to me.... which is why I want to get involved

 

[Zhu Bajie]

. Why would basing your minis wrong negate/override the designated frontage in the rulebook?

It doesn't, but it breaks the WYSIWYG design philosophy of the game and takes visual-spatial information out of the concrete and puts it into the abstract (whcih makes things like reading a units strength more difficult, not only frontage but area weapons/spells and all sorts of things get fuzzy)

I'm still going to base my minis on whatever random sizes I like

 

[Erny]

Try fighting a big battle with stuff based, "incorrectly", not just a skirmish. It makes a massive difference visually but also to the mechanics of the game. Wheels are different, area of affect changes, combat changes. Nothing that can't be worked around but it does make a difference, how can increasing the base size by 25% not?

 

[darebear]

Going down is always better than up. For example, I have lots of old Grenadier and Ral Partha humans. Some are on 25mmx25mm while some are on 20mmx20mm square bases. I can then use them as humans or Chaos Warriors. When playing them as Chaos Warriors during big battles I have special movement trays in which the 20mm square bases fit into, thus the unit footprint remains correct. You can also use thin plasticard and cut 25mm squares out, flock to your taste and blue tac on the 20mm square base miniature if you need to (assuming you want to go from 20mm to 25mm).

It always struck me odd that Humans used 20mm for regular dudes and 25mm for Chaos Warriors. Perhaps it is to represent that CHaos Warriors do not maintain as dense a fighting formation than more disciplined human troops?

 

[Erny]

It's because of the spiky bits, any closer and things get problematic.

 

[darebear]

Here is a question: how should Minotaurs be based? The rule book says 25mm, but warhammer armies and realms of chaos indicate 40mm.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

I vote 40x40 as well, the ADD Minotaur was supplied on one and no way could fit on a 25mm base.

in 2nd Minotaurs were just beastmen, and had the same statline and I was going to suggest that 25mm base was an error, carried over from 2nd into 3rd but looking at the 1991 catalogue on Solegends:

http://www.solegends.com/citcat912/c202 ... urs-02.htm

They released 25mm based minotaurs, and said he big ones were "minotaur lords", whatever one of those is.

Houserule? 25mm Minotaurs stat as beastmen, 40mm Minotaurs stat as Minotaurs (basically ogres +bloodlust), but if you decided to base strictly by the book I'd be interested to see the outcome.