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Hello everyone! First post here ^^ I've been searching around the internet for ages now trying to find and answer to this question but can't seem to find anything really definitive - I'm hoping someone experienced here may be able to help.

I've recently started a completely new Night Goblin army after quite a long break from Warhammer - I'm really putting a LOT of focus and effort in to the modelling, painting, scenery etc. rather than what 'plays well', however I don't like the idea I may be building a completely illegal army that nobody would ever play against. The problem I'm facing is with the base sizes:

Night Goblins come on the ordinary (20mm) infantry bases. Now what I was thinking is if I could put four ( two rows of two) Night Goblins on a 40mm square 'monster' base, so I can add some nice scenery around them and put them in little dioramas - I can't see any real harm in this as I'm not technically decreasing their base size, there'd still be 'one Goblin per 20mm square'.

HOWEVER after some playing around, I think they look a lot better all cramped together - NINE Night Goblins (three rows of three) fit very flushly on the larger 50mm bases, it still leaves room for little bits of scenery (mushrooms! ^^) and I think they look much more like a 'Goblin horde' this way =D - but nine goblins on a 50mm square base IS decreasing their respective base sizes (not by an awful lot, but still). My question is really: how much (if at all) would this be frowned on?

In a regular tournament, would nine Gobbos on a 50mm be an automatic no-no, disqualification? would four on 40mm? The last thing I want to do is put in all this effort only to have nobody play against me >.<

I'm at the stage now where I've painted a bunch of the Gobbos but not yet put them on their bases, I'm really looking forward to getting this first unit complete so any help would be really appreciated =D thanks for your time reading!

I think you can get away with the 4x4 on a 40mm, as they fit the same footprint. Just make sure that you have a few standard 20mm to fill out on gaps when models are killed. It is always nice to see some work put into your units,

The 4 on 40x40 would be fine. The 9 on a 50 would be a strict no-no.

The community would frown on your shenanigans.

As Davall said...50mm base is definite no.
If you want to get creative GW does have a 40mmx60mm.
My suggestion though, as much as I love to see the hobby aspect used, be careful with the larger bases (over 40mm)because people may frown upon you if you keep taking away a big base, put in a smaller one multiple times.
The 2 by 2 (40mm) is usually fine because goblins often lose 4 per combat.

You indeed cannot really use bases that are not a multiple of 20
That said, you definitely want to use 80*20, 40*40 or such bases. I'm playing Skavens, and I would shoot myself if I wasn't basing (most of) my Slaves on 40*40 or 40*60, just because it's much faster to put them down on the table or remove casualties. To be honest, my "Slave transport box" directly houses 3 movements trays with the Slaves already filling it, saving me loads of time when I put them down on the table

50mm base will not rank up with 20mm bases. This is a no no.

Also you can put one model on a 40x40 and it will count as four 20x20 models. You could also put fifteen models on a 40x40 and it will still count as four 20x20 models. Its the footprint that matters in fantasy.

Why don't you just make up your own 60x60 bases.

Aaah thank you for all the replies! Definitely no 50mm bases then =)

I hadn't even considered 40x60mm bases, that would indeed be something to think about! I have been considering making my own bases - again I was just worrying about the 'legality' of it. Although what I'm hearing really is that if it's the correct size (footprint) then anything goes. So maybe making 60x60mm bases would be the way to go.

Having said that, looking at scenic bases you can buy (and some of them are really amazing) they usually only come in 20mm, 25mm, 40mm or 50mm. So I guess I'd have to decide whether I'd prefer to work completely from scratch, or to work up from already existing ones.

It does seem a bit difficult to think about, having 20 or 30 models in a dynamic scene for example - that both looks amazing AND is completely legal/playable. It seems to be a compromise between having the largest base possible for scenic/diorama purposes - and being able to 'split' the diorama as needed whenever casualties are removed, where obviously smaller is better. Hmm!

Thank you all so much for the input though, it gives me lots to ponder over = )

You've got to keep a base size ratio - as you say in this case it's one Night Gobbo per 20mm square. Don't know if they still do them but GW used to sell regiment bases, which were 20mm x 80mm IIRC.

Anything using a multiple of 25mm will be a no-no.