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What's wrong with square bases?


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Everyone has a right to a preference, however quite openly this just made me feel like someone is trying to impose their subjective opinion on me in an attempt to make me inferior, just because to them, miniatures look prettier on circles. I dislike rounds over squares very much. Some of them so much, my Megaboss still stands on his feet without any base.  Most of my minis are metal old (squares) but I've never used a formation template.

I've spent a bit over a decade collecting different armies and I may have over a hundred miniatures. Now, since I don't have to read 2000000 pages of rules, I am becoming interested in playing AoS in clubs as a "returning" whatever I am. However, it chills any desire for me to get close to clubs after I read how dismissive they are towards my years of collecting the same miniatures (think ardboyz vs black orcs etc) they play now but in metal and on a different geometrical support. 

I understand some of it was posted as an attempt of a joke and I grasp the concept of freedom to not visit such clubs. For some reason I was under the impression and hope that a more welcoming tune prevailed in these communities.

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5 minutes ago, Groomy said:

Everyone has a right to a preference, however quite openly this just made me feel like someone is trying to impose their subjective opinion on me in an attempt to make me inferior, just because to them, miniatures look prettier on circles. I dislike rounds over squares very much. Some of them so much, my Megaboss still stands on his feet without any base.  Most of my minis are metal old (squares) but I've never used a formation template.

I've spent a bit over a decade collecting different armies and I may have over a hundred miniatures. Now, since I don't have to read 2000000 pages of rules, I am becoming interested in playing AoS in clubs as a "returning" whatever I am. However, it chills any desire for me to get close to clubs after I read how dismissive they are towards my years of collecting the same miniatures (think ardboyz vs black orcs etc) they play now but in metal and on a different geometrical support. 

I understand some of it was posted as an attempt of a joke and I grasp the concept of freedom to not visit such clubs. For some reason I was under the impression and hope that a more welcoming tune prevailed in these communities.

Tbh I do think you get a skewed view here. Most people are fine with whatever. But the tournament crowd of old hasn't really been the most accommodating or flexible, and a lot of those are here in this forum.

GW doesn't insist on a particular base, and neither do most regular players. Independent tournaments are you're only downfall really, but that's not the end of the world.

 

AoS is about fun. It's done well to have a rules system theoretically open to much abuse but with the attitude of dbad. Same goes for bases really. If you're using something particular to gain an actual in-game advantage, then people will stop playing you. If you just like a different shape of base, then you're not going to have an issue.

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10 minutes ago, Bosmer Nightblade said:

Tbh I do think you get a skewed view here. Most people are fine with whatever. But the tournament crowd of old hasn't really been the most accommodating or flexible, and a lot of those are here in this forum.

I might. Haven't ever been familiar with the tournament crowd of the old. To me a base shape and size is really needed for the model not to tip over. Don't care for the rest as long as the games and people are enjoyable.

Just received a Skaven assassin ordered from GW online store a week ago, on a square base :D  

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I prefer the round bases for aesthetic, gaming and realism reasons. When I first started playing Warhammer with my brother in 1992 we actually laughed at the idea of rowdy orcs, mindless zombies, wild beast men etc. ranking up nice and neat like Napoleonic regiments, for what is, even at 3000 points, a skirmish compared to a real historical battle. Though we played it and enjoyed it, I prefer it now.

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Let's be honest GW have answered this question of bases just not in a very direct way. Take a look at all the new models and re-boxing of existing range do they come with square bases no they come with rounds now this to me  dictates that at some point the ruling of models have to be put on bases provided will come into effect in the future. 

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17 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

They never have to make an actual rule.  Any more than they would ever make an actual rule demanding painted models (individual events notwithstanding).

But.... they do.

At whw events, you have to have your models painted. They do *not* however force a certain base, although they do specify they must be 'based'.

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26 minutes ago, Minkster said:

Let's be honest GW have answered this question of bases just not in a very direct way. Take a look at all the new models and re-boxing of existing range do they come with square bases no they come with rounds now this to me  dictates that at some point the ruling of models have to be put on bases provided will come into effect in the future. 

I agree it's the aesthetic they've chosen going forward. But models still do ship with both (I ordered a monster from mail order the other week and it came with both), and you can purchase square bases from the website.

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43 minutes ago, Percivael said:

A circle has no direction. A square is always pointing somwhere and so does not work aesthetically in lose formations.

This is irrelevant as aos specifically doesn't have 'facing' implemented in its rules.

But how does a square point somewhere? Surely you mean the side of the square where the model's face or body is angled towards is where it is "pointing"?

If you can do that though, then really you're just judging the miniature itself and could do so regardless of its base.

A moot point anyway though since aos doesn't use facing.

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7 minutes ago, Bosmer Nightblade said:

But.... they do.

At whw events, you have to have your models painted. They do *not* however force a certain base, although they do specify they must be 'based'.

That's an event rule.  Or a WHW venue rule.  Not a "Warhammer: Age of Sigmar" rule.

There won't ever be a formal rule for "Warhammer: Age of Sigmar" that any particular bases are required, or any particular level of painting is required.  Sure, I'd be free to ignore such a rule if they made one, just like I can ignore or change any rule my opponent and I agree to ignore, but there won't ever be such a rule to ignore.  It'll never happen.

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5 minutes ago, Bosmer Nightblade said:

I agree it's the aesthetic they've chosen going forward. But models still do ship with both (I ordered a monster from mail order the other week and it came with both), and you can purchase square bases from the website.

What monster did you order as everything I have ordered that has had the new re-boxing comes with round only and like I say I'm talking way in the future when all armies are re-done and re-boxed they will get rid of the square bases on the web store it makes sense they will save money by not making two different sets of bases and they won't get rid of rounds because 40k uses that system. 

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In defiance of all my pre-AoS thoughts about bases, I do think rounds look better, but gameplay wise it really hasn't mattered at our club.   As I recently posted on a Facebook post advertising our next club night: all welcome, new armies, old armies, square bases, round bases, doesn't matter Sigmar abides...

Trying to grow the game and scene in my area, I really don't want to exclude anybody from trying the game.  If models are painted on a nice table, square or round doesn't matter much to me.  TO's however are certainly free to require whatever they wish obviously, which is why I kept my old army on squares and started a whole new army for AoS...:D

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I hate playing against square bases - combats and pile-ins become a horrible mess of clashing diagonal corners. Whereas when it's all rounds they are sliding around like melted butter.

If you want to play KoW or 9th, why not get movement trays that take circles? KoW have to be an exact size don't they? For 9th age your footprint might be 10mm or so wider. Not the biggest deal.

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5 minutes ago, bottle said:

I hate playing against square bases - combats and pile-ins become a horrible mess of clashing diagonal corners. Whereas when it's all rounds they are sliding around like melted butter.

Ooh now that's an interesting point. I definitely agree they'll be easier with the movement.

However, with pileins, you don't really want them to be sliding around etc as nothing gets to move in the combat other than 'towards' the nearest enemy and if there's something in the way then it's tough, unfortunately.

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1 hour ago, Bosmer Nightblade said:

This is irrelevant as aos specifically doesn't have 'facing' implemented in its rules.

But how does a square point somewhere? Surely you mean the side of the square where the model's face or body is angled towards is where it is "pointing"?

If you can do that though, then really you're just judging the miniature itself and could do so regardless of its base.

A moot point anyway though since aos doesn't use facing.

I was making a point about aesthetics. Circles have no direction as circles are infinite. The corner of a square always point somwhere. So you get a jumble of multi directional points come movement and pile in, hence it looks rubbish.

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I think square bases look fine, and I am not going to rebase all my old WHFB models just to cater to the aesthetic preferences of others. My new AoS-only Wanderers force will all be on rounds, though, as are my newer Chaos units. If someone refuses to play against my DEs because they hate square bases, then that's fine. That's probably not somebody I would enjoy gaming with anyway. Tournament organisers have the right to impose any rules they like, but I don't play in tournaments.

I think, in general, that the hobby would benefit from people being a bit less eager to tell other people they're doing it wrong. I won't field unpainted minis myself, but it is absolutely no skin off my nose if my opponent's army is partly or even entirely unpainted. I'll encourage them to paint their minis, but I do not consider I have any right to tell them to do so or to refuse to play against their grey plastic horde. It's a game/hobby. It is supposed to be fun. If someone enjoys playing the game but hates painting the minis, that's fine by me. It doesn't hurt my enjoyment of the hobby one jot.

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11 hours ago, Bosmer Nightblade said:

I agree it's the aesthetic they've chosen going forward. But models still do ship with both (I ordered a monster from mail order the other week and it came with both), and you can purchase square bases from the website.

The only reason it would come with both is either it was a mistake, or it was a Daemon model that hadn't been reboxed since AoS (as those came with rounds for 40k and square for Fantasy). All the new AoS models and models reboxed for AoS only come with rounds. 

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Guys this is really a non-issue!

AoS has many different ways to play. Tournament organisers/game clubs/friend groups are all free to pick and chose which house rules they want to adopt for their games and there is no reason why everyone should adopt the same standards.

If someone wants to run a tournament with no specific basing requirements, then they are free to do so (and vice versa). 

People can chose to attend the events / clubs / groups that reflect how they want to play. Alternatively they can set up their own events / clubs / groups. But you can't force others to play in a way that they do not want to.

People need to relax a bit about how others choose to play the game and focus on building a positive community of how they want to play.

Focusing on the positive.

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22 hours ago, RossMHoward said:

Base size for me is only an issue if somebody has tossed out the bases a unit comes provided with and opted for a lower size. Fyreslayers on 25mm rounds instead of 32mm. You could argue that Fyreslayers are hamstrung by their larger base size compared to Dwarves. But armies are all moving towards a large base standard. 

In a tournament in a lot of situations more 20mm square based models would be able to pile around a unit than would be possible on 25mm rounds. Same applies to the larger 25mm Square base and its counterpart the 32mm round. Also a unit on a 25mm square base they'd gain an extra rank of attacks that they wouldn't get if they were on 32mm so I can see the need to have a requirement to have models on rounds for tournaments. 

Another fear I have springs from this.

What if I go through the effort to remount my armies on rounds and ovals, but gosh, not the "right" rounds and ovals? My skeletons would look just fine on 25mm rounds, but if I go to a *ahem* forward-thinking event where to organizers believe that 32mm bases will be the standard from now on, am I still excluded?

When we introduce base sizes as a thing, we add a level that is open to interpretation, open to excluding people, and doesn't actually need to be there.

I don't think it's right to have to have the same unit on 3 different bases just so I can play in games where the base is not a part of the rules anyway.

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Seems like there's two streams to this thread:
First stream - in casual play, everyone wants to have fun, so square bases/round bases/different sized round bases are all OK and we are cool about it.
Second stream - some people are unhappy that indie tournaments seem to insist on standard sized round bases, so they can't enter them with their square based armies. The tournament organisers run the tourneys because they enjoy it, they don't make money from them, they like to see lots of people having fun. So they run them with the rule sets they enjoy. 

The answer is very simple. If you want to go to a tournament where any base shapes are allowed, or if you even wish to go to a tournament where model-to-model measuring is the order of the day, then stop whining, get off your chair and run one yourself.

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21 hours ago, Minkster said:

... everything I have ordered that has had the new re-boxing comes with round only and like I say I'm talking way in the future when all armies are re-done and re-boxed they will get rid of the square bases on the web store it makes sense they will save money by not making two different sets of bases ...

The future will certainly be only rounded edge bases, if for no other reasons than those you state (and the inevitable merger of the 40K and AoS rules systems).

That said, today, now, I can go to my local GW and purchase Thanquol & Boneripper and be supplied with a rectangular base. I would hate to tell a kid who comes to my event "Sorry, sonny, I know that the actual company sold you that $80 kit and it came with all the parts you thought were right, but unless you spend more and/or change the model, you can't play with it here."

 

"But, but, but...I read the rules for him and for the game. Why can't I play with him like the rules say?"

"Because we know better, and you might get a tiny advantage by using the kit the way it was sold to you.  Besides, it's ugly the way you like it."

 

Awesome community-building right there, that is.

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