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Just curious how everyone plays their games, on what size table, and whether they follow the books examples of deploying on the long side of the table as opposed to short in some/most games ?

I currently use 1-2 8ft (96x30) tables, placed side by side if its 2 (96x60), and usually deploy on the short side of the table, but that makes the game take a while. I can't imagine what the point is in something like a battle canons 72 inch range or earth shakers 128 inch range in a game where it's deployed long ways ..

Also how much cover does everyone generally use? I know the book says about 25% but I wanna know how much YOU use ;P

Just taken delivery of a 6'x4' board to use as a battle-field, deploying along the long edges.
Will be placed over a smaller table while playing, and put out of the way between conflicts. If we had more room, I'd have pushed for an 8'x4' board.
The diagonal measurement is 6.4', and from the centre of one edge the diagonal to the far corners is 5' so although a 72" (5') range weapon placed centrally can hit just about anything, weapons near the short edges will need long range to reach the other side of the battlefield.

I suppose the ranges take into account that people may use other table sizes/deployments, and also Armageddon could be played in larger areas. (Our local GWS recently had a game of FloorHammer, over a 8'x8' section of floor)

Terrain is still building up, but hope to have lots soon.
GW's suggestion is 25% terrain, but we'll probably use more rather than less.

Regular game? 6'x4', follow deployment just like the book says.

Apocalypse? All bets are off.

The game was more or less designed with a 6'x4' table in mind with the deployment working like the book says. The reason for this is that with larger tables, assault units become worthless and on smaller tables, they become uber. If you are playing on an 8'x5' table and deploying on the short edges, then you are making it impossible to field assault units as they will never ever make it to hand to hand. There is just too much ground to cover and shooting is going to pick them appart long before they get there, even if you run the game past the 5-7 standard turns.

Oh yah, and 25% terrain is really required for a good game. Any less and shooting units again dominate the game as do things in heavy armor.

we play on a 6x3 table in one of our friend's basement. On nights when we have alot of guys over though, we cut the table in half so that it is 2 3x3 playing surfaces. And yes it does make the assaulting armies alot stronger since they dont have as far to travel to wade into HTH combat. Normally though we try to stick to the 6x3 and if everyone agrees we will just pair up into 2 on 2 battles with whomever allies with each other the closest, or in one instance we did a 4 man winner take all with each person on their own. That was pretty interesting. We even had one battle where my IG allied with orks versus chaos plague marines and renegade IG. now that was a night. My IG were pretty much lined up across from the renegade IG and the orks across the chaos troops. both IG were in decent fortifications and just slugged it out across the tabl;e with the orks and chaos going into toe-to-toe melee. was one of the wierdest fights i've been a part of in some time. The other 2 basically wiped out most of each other's respective armies and myself and the other IG guy were basically fighting a war of semi-long range attrition. was alot of fun.

As far as cover we tend to go 30-40 percent...although we fought a jungle world battle one night and had about 90 percent cover on the table. and the owner actually had made enough terrain to cover the 3x6 100% but it made moving the models almost impossible. LOL

~Bart

I like a table that is 8x4, but then we only play on 6x4. The extra two feet is a good place to roll dice, have your codex open, etc. We use two 4x4 foot boards, side by side, so we can mix up the ground look, or shift left or right on the boards to give it a slightly different look for different games.

yeah,
In my opinion, the long edge of the tables length doesn't matter as much as the short edges length.

you should aim to have the short edge as close to 4' as you can, if you have a bigger short edge say 5', It takes longer to get to get into CC this gives a advantage to shooty armys. Also you should always place the armys a min of 24" apart so that assault armys have the standard distance to cover before they get stuck in.

the Extra long edge length of say a 8' board in a small 1500pt game just gives more room for flanking and spreading forces thin across the whole board or thick in one area. but is needed if your playing 3000pts up just to have any tactical space.

I have a 8'x4' (unfinnished) 5' x 4' table and 3' x 4'
So if your playing across only 3' you should set up with only a 6" deployment zone each side and you'll have a 24" no mans land to fight in.

But saying that you can play in whatever setup you want? if you fancy trying a game where the armys start 48" apart to see what happens go for it! just make sure every one know the arrangements before you pick your lists... so all fair.

PaniC...

we built a 8"x6" table for apoc in my friends attic, thats where we play most of our games. in normal battles we just section off half of it. its nice to play on a proper sized table.

as far as terrain goes, we have enough to fill probably 1/4 of the apoc table, but my friend has built a big SM library thing, and that takes up a fair bit.

hell i'll play on either a 4x4 ash waste or a 2x2 jungle. i find square boards are a little trickier in maneuvering but you can really flank some one hardcore. I do occasionally play on a 6x2 1/2 but i notice it seems to be more about charging across the board.

We use modular boards and normally play on 4 by 4 up to 8 by 4. If you don't play long edge to long edge, you unfairly penalise close combat armies.

Phoenix wrote:The game was more or less designed with a 6'x4' table in mind with the deployment working like the book says. The reason for this is that with larger tables, assault units become worthless and on smaller tables, they become uber. If you are playing on an 8'x5' table and deploying on the short edges, then you are making it impossible to field assault units as they will never ever make it to hand to hand. There is just too much ground to cover and shooting is going to pick them appart long before they get there, even if you run the game past the 5-7 standard turns.

Oh yah, and 25% terrain is really required for a good game. Any less and shooting units again dominate the game as do things in heavy armor.

Quoted for truth. 25% terrain is necessary. 4’ x 6’ is standard. We use the deployments exactly as given in the book or in tournament missions. 4x8 is also a good size, especially for larger games.

The store that my friends and I usually play at has 8 or 9 6x4 tables and that works pretty well for an average game.
We just portion off a section of the table for smaller games.

And as for terrain, it really depends on the game. There is a ton of really cool ruins on hand where we play, and 80% of the board covered in them makes for a fun game.
But most of the time 35% or so covered in terrain is more than enough

Being that I played 40k at a GW store for years, I'm most used to 4x4s.

6 X 4

I prefer 6x4 for 1000 points and 8x4 for games larger than that, but I'm an old school 2nd Ed player at heart.

6x4 and 4x4 at the GW store. At home a 6 by about 3.5

Find the small tables definitely give cc an advantage.

Like the 8x8 idea as have definitely run out of room to move in larger battles.

Terrain, I like random 20 to 80 makes the game interesting.

First - I play 4th edition, so some or all of this may not apply. But 5th pretty much sucks IMO. Too many changes at once. Anyway..

Unless I'm playing Apoc, we almost always use a 6x4 with the listed deployment zones. Like others are saying, you have to consider that most units move 6". In a 6 turn game that's a maximum distance of 3 feet, and terrain can reduce that pretty quickly.

If you're going to play on a larger table, you kind of need to to either a.) increase the deployment area in proportion, or b.) just center them as they would be on a 6x4 with the extra area on the edges to accomodate larger armies or whatever. Otherwise both objectives and enemy are going to be out of range.

It is pretty nice having extra room around the edge of the actual gaming area, for setting up or reserves etc.. Not to mention you don't have to worry about knocking stuff off the edge.

I mostly play combat patrol: so 4'x4'
playing bigger games 6'x4' long edge to long edge.
But I mainly play orks so I don't want far to go

(doesn't stop me getting shot to bits by tau though - gotta make more scenery

Built myself a 6'x4' table...



Then I built a second 6' x 4' tables that I can place together for larger games if need...

Nyarlathotep wrote:
If you're going to play on a larger table, you kind of need to to either a.) increase the deployment area in proportion, or b.) just center them as they would be on a 6x4 with the extra area on the edges to accomodate larger armies or whatever. Otherwise both objectives and enemy are going to be out of range.

Yeah.
for standard games the problem with extra large deployment areas is that shooty armys can setup further back...
the only fair thing to do is have your short edge 4' long... with 12" deployment and 24" no-mans land
that way footsloggers have 2 or 3 (running) turns to cross the table and 2 turns to do damage. if the enemy sits in their deployment

PaniC...

I have a pair of 6' x 4' that I usually put together to make a 6' x 8'. I always try to include some hills of at least two levels and/or a building or two, so that assault troops have the option of skirting around them if they think they can get away with it. I try to discourage non-apocalypse games, but that's just me. I've got a buttload of urban terrain that I;ve been building steadily every since the first Cityfight supplement, so I can make the entire table 4+ cover if I really want to. The entire thing is really grey and dismal, with the occasionally blood splatter on a wall, heavily inspired by Saving Private Ryan. Even the tabletops are grey drybrushed on black, with lots of pits and scratches. One of these days I WILL buy a digital camera, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

yeah,
we need picture warp crafter...we need pictures!
Panic>...

In my experience, 6x4 or 8x4 is best, deploying on the long edges. The people I see that always want to play "the long way" (deploying on the short edges) are the people that have guns with 120" range or all mech armies...

6x4 Table unless it's Apocolypse. I've been using the Zuzzy battlemat which is a 6x4 surface.

I found two realy cheap 30"x72" folding tables that I put side by side. Then I got three 2'x4' sections of thin board, glued a grass mat on it, and I put those on top of it. This allows for 12" on each long side of the table to put models, books, etc. I also have an old kitchen table off to the side for drinks, other models, chips, etc.

My wife now calls the basement the "Geek Room".