Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've got my hands on some old marauders. I already removed the square bases and now I am wondering which size i need to use?
I would prefer basing them on 25mm bases, as i have plenty of them flying around. Also you could see at a glance that the marauders are the "weak" infantry unit, while the warriors on 32mm bases just look tougher.

In my FLGS i was told i have to use 32mm for all those infantry sized models in AoS, because else it is "modeling for advantage". My box of horrors came with 25mm bases though.

Do I have to base em on 32mm (and rebase the horrors) or can I freely choose the base size? I understand its easier to pile in with more models then, but range is measured from the mini itself. So what to do?

If I want to use official sizes for AoS, both should be on 32mm bases. The 25mm rounds that came with the Horrors are for 40K.

25mm is fine. If people at your store say that's MFA then they need to untighten their buttholes. The amount of difference it makes in any typical game is rather negligible.

Yeah I'd say 25mm is fine. They used to come on 25mm squares after all. If someone told me that me putting marauders on 25mm bases was modeling for advantage, I would just not play that person.

Seems a little much to immediately slap someone with MFA! for such a little thing That said, 25mm round is advantageous over 32mm when you're playing with bases mattering (i.e. you're a civilized gamer, who also may enjoy monocles and fine haberdashery). Let's ignore the unit footprint (small base easier to stuff into cover) and the general movement qualms (small base obviously easier to maneuver into combat, around terrain, whatever), the main benefit is getting more models with 1" melee into range, which has a statistically very significant advantage, especially when we're talking about units that aren't Horrors (whose attak is junk anyway).

A solution if you want to use 25mm for aesthetic reasons (or cost efficiency, as you don't want to buy 32mm ones (or time efficiency, because you can't be fakked to rebase your old army right now)) might be to treat 32mm models on 25mm bases as having a diameter of 1.000000001", as opposed to the mathematical diameter of 0.984252" (or whatever Citadel bases actually are). You still get the movement abilities, but without doubling the number of models able to attak, particularly for large units.

My Horrors are lamentably still on 25mm squares, which I actually feel is much more of a problem than 25mm rounds. Aesthetically for sure, but also with the ability to interlock right next to each other, and so on. Until I rebase I've just been counting whoever gets into base contact as being able to attak, and ignoring models behind them (again, not that Horror gropes break the game, but still).

TL;DR: Bases matter, but I understand needing to make allowances for time/money/aesthetic concerns.

- Salvage

Its not because I dont wanna buy more bases or because I want an advantage. I just think that a marauder on a smaller base standing next to a chaos warrior automatically makes the latter one look more "mighty".

For just the same reason in 40k I use 25mm bases for my guardsmen, 32mm for marines or guard "heroes", and terminator-sized bases (forgot the mm) for my space marine heroes.
It just makes the tougher model stand out even more.

I would go for 25mm too - with Chaos Warriors on 32mm, it is a nice visual way to help suggest the Marauders are somewhat less fighty.

Just looked on the web store and can see Marauders come on 25mms anyway, so there you go. Case closed :-)

I retract my earlier statement. This is the first time I have seen models on 25mm squares go to 25mm rounds as they usually go to 32s. But in this case they didn't. 25mm is the official size.

Horrors should still go on 32mms in my opinion.

 Bottle wrote:
This is the first time I have seen models on 25mm squares go to 25mm rounds as they usually go to 32s. But in this case they didn't. 25mm is the official size.

Same here. I strongly dislike inconsistencies, particularly in game design, but I suppose I shouldn't expect anything less from GeeDub. I mean, Marauders are on 25mm and Blood Reavers are on 32mm?? Am I to give them the benefit of the doubt (!!!) and assume this was intentionally done to give Marauders (which are ugly models and pretty bleh in game) a bit of a leg up over their Not-Marauders counterparts? By being able to shove more into base contact, hide in terrain, and so on.

- Salvage

I don't see what the problem would be, the base doesn't matter as per the rules, only the model matters for measuring.

Frankly I'm putting my Chaos Warriors on 25mm bases so I can get one of these and still be able to use the minis for Kings of War/9th age as I can maintain the same footprint.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
I don't see what the problem would be, the base doesn't matter as per the rules, only the model matters for measuring.

Frankly I'm putting my Chaos Warriors on 25mm bases so I can get one of these and still be able to use the minis for Kings of War/9th age as I can maintain the same footprint.

90% of people play base-to-base measuring and there is a noticeable advantage for 25mm bases over 32mm bases, as 25mm<1" and most attacks are 1" meaning two rows can fight without needing to sawtooth the formation.

 Bottle wrote:


90% of people play base-to-base measuring and there is a noticeable advantage for 25mm bases over 32mm bases, as 25mm<1" and most attacks are 1" meaning two rows can fight without needing to sawtooth the formation.

Which is all well and good if thats what people want to do, but the rules are very specific as to the relationship between the model and the base. That is to say, the base doesn't matter.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

 Bottle wrote:


90% of people play base-to-base measuring and there is a noticeable advantage for 25mm bases over 32mm bases, as 25mm<1" and most attacks are 1" meaning two rows can fight without needing to sawtooth the formation.

Which is all well and good if thats what people want to do, but the rules are very specific as to the relationship between the model and the base. That is to say, the base doesn't matter.

Considering GW is using base to base measurement for its 'The Warlords' Matched Play event that they're streaming this weekend on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch you'll find more and more players who will say that the base size does matter.

Comparatively speaking, 25mm rounds are only a slight benefit over 25mm squares, but 25mm squares are a significant benefit over 32mm rounds. So should players using their models on square bases be accused of MFA? Personally I think that if a player is trying to use base size to squeeze extra potential out of their models it's going to be pretty obvious, and short of that the difference is so minor as to be negligible. So it becomes a matter of calling out the bad players rather than the base size.

 Ghaz wrote:

Considering GW is using base to base measurement for its 'The Warlords' Matched Play event that they're streaming this weekend on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch you'll find more and more players who will say that the base size does matter.

Well that's just follows GW's time honored tradition of not actually knowing their own rules. From White Dwarf Battle Reports to Youtube videos it follows the time honored tradition of doing it wrong. If it's a house rule for a gaming group thats perfectly fine and dandy since if AoS is anything, it's a casual fun game to play with friend and not to be taken to seriously. However none of that erases this from the rules:

"A model’s base isn’t considered part of the model – it’s just there to help the model stand up – so don’t include it when measuring distances."

I get what you mean, it certainly makes everything easier to just measure from the base. However that does not change the fact the the quote above is what the rules say.

And that doesn't change the following from the FAQ:

Q: If my opponent and I agree, are we allowed to modify the rules to Warhammer Age of Sigmar?

A: Yes, you most certainly can. Many players tweak or change the rules found on the Warhammer Age of Sigmar rules sheet, resulting in what are usually referred to as ‘house rules’. For instance, one of the most commonly seen house rules is to measure distances from base to base, ignoring limbs and weapons that hang over the edge of the model’s base. This changes the dynamic of combat slightly, and requires a certain amount of common sense to adjudicate in instances where a model does not come with a base or is mounted on a scratchbuilt base, but it can prevent carefully painted and modelled bases getting damaged as they are stacked on top of each other.

 Ghaz wrote:
And that doesn't change the following from the FAQ:

Q: If my opponent and I agree, are we allowed to modify the rules to Warhammer Age of Sigmar?

A: Yes, you most certainly can. Many players tweak or change the rules found on the Warhammer Age of Sigmar rules sheet, resulting in what are usually referred to as ‘house rules’. For instance, one of the most commonly seen house rules is to measure distances from base to base, ignoring limbs and weapons that hang over the edge of the model’s base. This changes the dynamic of combat slightly, and requires a certain amount of common sense to adjudicate in instances where a model does not come with a base or is mounted on a scratchbuilt base, but it can prevent carefully painted and modelled bases getting damaged as they are stacked on top of each other.

To be that really doesn't disprove what I said. I agree, if you want to play it that way you can, it certainly makes sense to do it that way. That being said it still doesn't change the fact that there are no hard and fast rules currently in the game that say I have to use X base size for X model. You can use whatever you like as the base purely exists to keep the model upright.

Does it feel like gaming the system for advantage? I can see that yes, but it's still not against the rules. And as I stated, at least in my case, it's purely so that I can keep my minis at a similar footprint as other wargames I play so I can get more bang for my buck out of my miniatures. Not so I can get a couple of more attacks in. And to be honest, in a game with the number of buffs and external factors from scenarios, special abilities and terrain that can make your models tougher/weaker,/grant more or less attacks the base size by far the lesser offender.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:

Considering GW is using base to base measurement for its 'The Warlords' Matched Play event that they're streaming this weekend on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch you'll find more and more players who will say that the base size does matter.

Well that's just follows GW's time honored tradition of not actually knowing their own rules. From White Dwarf Battle Reports to Youtube videos it follows the time honored tradition of doing it wrong.

Lol, do you really think they're using base-to-base measuring as an oversight of them not knowing their own rules?

 Bottle wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:

Considering GW is using base to base measurement for its 'The Warlords' Matched Play event that they're streaming this weekend on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch you'll find more and more players who will say that the base size does matter.

Well that's just follows GW's time honored tradition of not actually knowing their own rules. From White Dwarf Battle Reports to Youtube videos it follows the time honored tradition of doing it wrong.

Lol, do you really think they're using base-to-base measuring as an oversight of them not knowing their own rules?

Considering the event pack I linked to has the base-to-base measurement listed under 'House Rules', I find it highly unlikely that they didn't know what the rules say.

 Bottle wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:

Considering GW is using base to base measurement for its 'The Warlords' Matched Play event that they're streaming this weekend on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch you'll find more and more players who will say that the base size does matter.

Well that's just follows GW's time honored tradition of not actually knowing their own rules. From White Dwarf Battle Reports to Youtube videos it follows the time honored tradition of doing it wrong.

Lol, do you really think they're using base-to-base measuring as an oversight of them not knowing their own rules?

Given GW's track record? Yes, there used to be a thread on Warseer that had a list of all the battle reports GW had where there were glaring examples of them using the rules incorrectly. If Warseer were still around I'd drag it up, but sadly .

Now, that being said, in this instance I will admit it probably wasn't an over site but done intentionally as it is easier to measure and determine who's in combat simply by going on Base Size. That still doesn't change the fact that, as far as the rules are concerned, you can put your model on any base size you want as the bases only purpose is to keep the model standing. Using a smaller base size may seem like your gaming the system but, as far as the rules go, it isn't.

I also certainly wouldn't attribute malice and ill intent in a game where modelling and conversions are not only allowed, but encouraged.

I've been putting my bloodreavers on 25mm bases. I started on the 32mm bases they came with, and whilst I like those 32mm bases generally for the affect per model I moved them to 25mm for two reason. First and most important was that I bought into the new sculpted bases GW do, and the 32mm packs come with even more 25mm bases. With nothing else to use them on it would have been a waste of money not to use them, as I would have had to be buying twice as many packs to get the required 32mm ones. Secondly, I wasn't really feeling the 'mass horde' feel I'm expecting from the reavers at 32mm on a per unit basis. Putting them on the 25mm does make whole units a bit more cramped when base-base, but in doing so also gives them more a 'mass of minions' feel. Keeping the 32mm for the bulkier bloodwarriors.

I think I will end up with:
25m = reavers
32mm = warriors
40mm = skullreaper/wrathmongers/heroes

Feels a better base sizing to me. Though, yes, it does give the reavers a possible advantage.

It seemed odd to put my reavers on 32mm bases so I went with some spare 25mm ones. Modelling for advantage didn't occur to me, 25s just look more appropriate.
Also, while I don't advocate it, since it is legit to pile models on top of each other's base in order to squeeze as many models into combat range as possible, wouldn't the general shift to base-to-base contact and measurement actually disadvantage reavers on 32mm bases?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
So should players using their models on square bases be accused of MFA?

IIRC after the first SCGT happened, I remember reading that the next year's GT would require round bases - and it should also be noted that SCGT was pushing to standardize base sizes. While this was during the frontier days before the GHB, the GHB has done nothing to address basing concerns, so I can only assume there will be tournaments that continue to require round bases at the least. I'm not sure standardized basing will really be a thing without a GeeDub missive (they eventually made one for 7E or 8E, where base size 'mattered more' than AOS), but I can see the SCGT crew continuing to try, given the trendsetting position they were jockeying for pre-GHB.

- Salvage