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Evening Dakka,

Digging my marines out after not touching them or playing over the past 12 months. While I was absent from the hobby I noticed a lot of talk on Twitter etc about new 32" space marine bases. Can't seem to find a straight answer online as to whether or not it's a requirement. Does every marine now need a 32" base? My apologies if it's in the new codex, haven't had a chance to pick it up yet, or has been discussed a lot already. Thanks everyone.

I think 32 inches might be a bit big for a model base.

Its not mandatory. All the new kits are coming with bigger bases, but you will not have to replace any of the bases on your models with smaller bases. GW said it was a designer preference and that it is not mandatory.

Haha! I'm an idiot. I meant 32mm!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Awesome! Thanks for the info Mindstrike!

And if Age of Sigmar is anything to go by *shudder*, then the next edition of 40K might ditch bases altogether and just have you measure things from the model itself.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
And if Age of Sigmar is anything to go by *shudder*, then the next edition of 40K might ditch bases altogether and just have you measure things from the model itself.

While we're at it, let's do away with dice and just play rock/paper/scissors, or toss a coin to see who wins whilst singing a silly song in an Ork voice or something dumb like that.

I know, I'm just not FORGING THE NARRATIVE hard enough.

zerosignal wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
And if Age of Sigmar is anything to go by *shudder*, then the next edition of 40K might ditch bases altogether and just have you measure things from the model itself.

While we're at it, let's do away with dice and just play rock/paper/scissors, or toss a coin to see who wins whilst singing a silly song in an Ork voice or something dumb like that.

I know, I'm just not FORGING THE NARRATIVE hard enough.

"No no no, that's too complicated lets just see who can say pewpew more times in five seconds. There, now its a true game of skill, the players will love it!" ~excerpt from the latest design meeting

Pewpewpewpewpewpew!

I win all the things!

Incidentally, the 32mm bases look way better, if that matters

 Talys wrote:
Incidentally, the 32mm bases look way better, if that matters

I am a huge fan of them as well. Rebasing is a sick kind of fun.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
And if Age of Sigmar is anything to go by *shudder*, then the next edition of 40K might ditch bases altogether and just have you measure things from the model itself.

I'm starting to think that there should be some kind of a contingency plan for if/when this comes true. There are some really talented people on this forum and in other corners of the internet so making a functional ruleset for that time based on whatever the current ruleset at the time might be wouldn't be that hard. As long as 40k is doing as well as it is at the moment I don't really see an "Age of the Emperor" reboot on the horizon, but GW has time and time again made it clear that they don't care much about the rules so anything is possible.

 Talys wrote:
Incidentally, the 32mm bases look way better, if that matters

Maybe for marines. IG infantry looks stupid on it, and it makes using it harder. Marines run in small 5 or 8 man squads, IG have 10 or more, bigger bases make them not fit in to cover.

Makumba wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Incidentally, the 32mm bases look way better, if that matters

Maybe for marines. IG infantry looks stupid on it, and it makes using it harder. Marines run in small 5 or 8 man squads, IG have 10 or more, bigger bases make them not fit in to cover.

Well, the 32mm bases haven't replaced the 25mm bases. It's just become the new standard for larger models that don't quite fit on a 25mm base, such as Necrons and anyone in Power Armour.

 j31c3n wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Incidentally, the 32mm bases look way better, if that matters

I am a huge fan of them as well. Rebasing is a sick kind of fun.

Have to agree on this. The first kit I bought with them were the new devastators. After seeing how good they looked my next trip to GW I bought 80 32mm bases. Time to get basing!

The 32mm makes a world of difference - so much better. No more stupid tactical marine feet hanging over the edge. Makes me a happy camper.

 Lammikkovalas wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
And if Age of Sigmar is anything to go by *shudder*, then the next edition of 40K might ditch bases altogether and just have you measure things from the model itself.

I'm starting to think that there should be some kind of a contingency plan for if/when this comes true. There are some really talented people on this forum and in other corners of the internet so making a functional ruleset for that time based on whatever the current ruleset at the time might be wouldn't be that hard. As long as 40k is doing as well as it is at the moment I don't really see an "Age of the Emperor" reboot on the horizon, but GW has time and time again made it clear that they don't care much about the rules so anything is possible.

What contingency do you really need? Just keep playing whatever edition you are already playing. Don't need to do anything different and can ignore any future idiocy from GW at the same time. Though I wouldn't be surprised if they did this with 40k seeing as they aren't known for fixing their rules and just changing them a bunch and replacing the old errors and issues with completely new ones. I mean it would be awesome to play a version of 40k where a Wraithknight is considered equivalent to a single IG trooper. Yeah I like the sound of that.

Back on topic I have no intentions to rebase all of my marine minis on 32mm or 32" bases. Kind of hard to stay in coherency with those 32" suckers.

I re-based a full unit of flesh hounds one afternoon a couple of weeks ago to match the new 50mm circle basing. Was good practice and I think the unit looks slightly better now for the effort. Bit of a sideways blessing.

I did rebase my Necron Immortals not long ago. They were the old 2nd Edition metals, very top heavy. My original ten were on 40mm bases, but the bunch I've gotten through Ebay were all on 25mm bases. Rather than pay GW's crazy prices for 32mm bases, I just called the difference between 25mm and 32mm and bought a bunch of cheap 30mm bases. If GW no longer cares about official base size, then why not? Besides, I don't play in tournaments anyway.

Makumba wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Incidentally, the 32mm bases look way better, if that matters

Maybe for marines. IG infantry looks stupid on it

It's a good thing IG infantry don't use them then, isn't it?

I like the 32mm bases, but I'm not re-basing my gak!

 Xenomancers wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Incidentally, the 32mm bases look way better, if that matters

I am a huge fan of them as well. Rebasing is a sick kind of fun.

Have to agree on this. The first kit I bought with them were the new devastators. After seeing how good they looked my next trip to GW I bought 80 32mm bases. Time to get basing!

I've been rebasing my Sternguard. I love how they look, it's bloody top.

Also, people seem to forget that the rule generally is you use the base the model came on, also, IG and other small base models are still on 28s, it's only effecting power armor and Necrons really, it's not lije we'll have 32mm bases on grots or something.

I wonder how Nobz would look on them...

Building a SM army up nice and slow. Just based the newly built units and the way I modeled the standard bearer for the command squad, there was no way that he would fit on a 25mm base so I put him on a 32mm while the rest of the squad is on 25mm. I love the way the standard bearer looks even on the bigger base even without it decorated. I'm thinking the sternguard vets will be going on 32mm and if I like that, a full re-basing.

The question I have is, how does the bigger base work game wise? Does it make it hard to get the units in cover or when moving inside of a building?

I'm kinda worried about this, I have a Tactical Squad with the little bases...
This isn't just a modelling thing, base size effects their gameplay as well.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
I'm kinda worried about this, I have a Tactical Squad with the little bases...
This isn't just a modelling thing, base size effects their gameplay as well.

Generally speaking, the positives you get from a different base size are balanced by the negatives of that same base size.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
I'm kinda worried about this, I have a Tactical Squad with the little bases...
This isn't just a modelling thing, base size effects their gameplay as well.

Generally speaking, the positives you get from a different base size are balanced by the negatives of that same base size.

I can't speak for Tannhauser but that doesn't really answer the concern of how it effects gameplay. What positives do you get that makes the game play better when on a bigger base? Right now, all I see are negatives. Harder to move into cover and staying in tight formation and harder to move around in various buildings and terrain.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
I'm kinda worried about this, I have a Tactical Squad with the little bases...
This isn't just a modelling thing, base size effects their gameplay as well.

Generally speaking, the positives you get from a different base size are balanced by the negatives of that same base size.

Yes, but whether or not it's balanced, it's still a change.

tilarium wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
I'm kinda worried about this, I have a Tactical Squad with the little bases...
This isn't just a modelling thing, base size effects their gameplay as well.

Generally speaking, the positives you get from a different base size are balanced by the negatives of that same base size.

I can't speak for Tannhauser but that doesn't really answer the concern of how it effects gameplay. What positives do you get that makes the game play better when on a bigger base? Right now, all I see are negatives. Harder to move into cover and staying in tight formation and harder to move around in various buildings and terrain.

It allows for greater board control because of the bigger footprint.

You are also less vulnerable to blast weapons, iirc.