Adapting to the brave new old world

The Old World is here, even in Australia (which had to wait a few weeks more than the rest of the world to get our hands on the physical books). We've already played a few games, asked lots of questions, only found some of the answers, and are generally still in the process of coming to terms with things.

The game definitely feels like a new edition of Warhammer Fantasy, probably most closely aligned to 6th edition (with a few things borrowed from other places). However, there are a number of things that feel like they're going to come as the biggest shock to returning players:

• The addition of the Fall Back In Good Order and Give Ground alternatives to properly fleeing
• The disappearance of the magic phase, with spells being cast differently and scattered throughout the turn
• Base sizes

Obviously there are other things with significant ramifications too, like a unit needing to be as wide as it is deep in order to be able to fight properly, and characters having combined profiles with mounts such as monsters and chariots. But for most people it's the first 2 items above that are likely to have biggest impact on how their games flow.

I say the first 2 items, because the final item (base sizes) will have basically no impact on how the game plays, but it's going to have a big impact on people looking to play the game with existing armies from previous editions. It's likely you already knew this before you came here (GW had flagged this was going to happen some months ago), but most models are on larger bases in The Old World than they were in older editions of Warhammer Fantasy. 20mm square bases don't even exist anymore. Everything is on 25mm or larger (many things that were on 25mm are now on 30mm), and most cavalry are now on a new base size, 30x60mm.

This change is going to prove a bit of a headache for some, impacting both the bases of their models and the size of the movement trays they might require. Some might choose to just continue to play with the old bases on their models, but anyone looking to attend events (or just play the edition "as intended") will need to do something to adapt.

No doubt some people will just tear the bases off their existing models and put them on the new ones, but not everyone is keen to do this, for a number of reasons:

• The cost of buying new bases for everything
• The effort involved in re-basing (and potentially repainting damage that is caused as a result)
• The loss of any backward compatibility to previous editions (or other games)

All of these things are factors for me, and honestly the idea of re-basing thousands of models hurts my soul. So instead we've been looking at alternatives.

Many people (and sellers) are turning to base and movement tray adapters - generally MDF bases of the right size with a space to drop the model into in the centre. This is a pretty simple solution that gives the model the correct base dimensions. In the case of the movement tray adapters, it's basically a lattice to sit between the models so that they're correctly spaced, and ideally sit level with the bases of the models to give a relatively tidy finish.

There are a couple of downsides to these plans for me - one is that any movement tray adapter leaves you a bit tied to a particular formation. The other is that dropping models into adapters from the top leaves a gap which is less than ideal visually. 

In an effort to resolve those downsides, this is what we've come up with. You can find the files on Thingiverse:

The base is open at the back, and the sides slope in. The idea is that you slide the model in and it doesn't leave a big gap at the top.

Some of the initial prototypes printed for different sizes of base. The intention is to print them in FDM. Resin wouldn't cope with the thin base layer.

Some samples with paint and sand, just to see them in action.

You can see where they slid in at the back, but everything lines up pretty well.

A larger sample group to see what they'd look like in regiments.

Thus far the solution has worked pretty well, although there are some changes that will be harder to accommodate (like chariot bases getting 10mm wider but no longer). We're still experimenting a bit with tolerances to determine how tightly we want the models to grab once they're in place. Once we're happy we can get on with the serious business of printing thousands and thousands of these... Oh man...

This is going to take a long time...