TOW is here, and with it the question, whether you should rebase your models to the larger base sizes. GW has said that, for casual gaming, you don’t need to do it, as it won’t affect the game much. For matched play and tournaments, adapter movement trays are the way to go for most people. I myself just had my first game of TOW, and me and my opponent just used the old WHFB 8th base sizes w/o movement trays. We played Dwarfs vs. Wood Elves, so most models were on 20mm bases and they all would have gone to 25mm. But it should indeed not make that much of a difference if it’s the same for both armies, right? True. Except for templates.
I already made easy grids to print out for all common bases in WHFB and TOW, which are especially handy for template weapons, where it’s much easier to see who’s hit then by holding the template over the models. And now I’ve made a detailed analysis of how this changes from 8th base sizes to TOW base sizes in regards to template weapons.
So far I have only looked at 20mm, 25mm and 30mm and the 3" and 5" template. The Flame template is much more complex for it’s exact placement and I obviously only consider direct hits. even/uneven pertains to the number of ranks and files, which is very importat since in TOW, templates will always be placed exactly in the middle of the unit, so either direkt on top of the model in the center, or exactly on the border between 2/4 models if there is no clear center.
As you can see, the switch from 20mm to 25mm bases has dramatic consequences, especially with 5" templates but also already for the much more common 3" template. The step from 25mm to 30mm however is largely inconsequencial for 3" templates but still affects the 5" template.
What I found quite interesting though is the effect of the number of ranks and files. A 7x3 unit was one of my defaults in 8th edition, which apparently was the worst setup for 3" templates but the best one for 5". With 25mm bases, it’s exactly the opposite! Definitely something I will think about more intently from now on.
tl;dr
- larger bases unsurprisingly means much fewer hits, even without taking the new to-hit rules into account. Duh.
- your formation matters quite a bit