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Some advice needed, I'm looking to moving to the Big Smoke in the near future and will almost certainly be living in a small flat.

So how do others manage? Now I'm sure we'll have a small set up to do a little painting, which will be all single figures and the ships for our Dystopian Wars stuff we're getting into so I'm not worried about figure storage. But what do people do for a playing area? It can't be a permanent set up and needs to be packed away. I can't have a few huge boards that take up half the room even when propped against a wall or behind a door but I want more than a cloth that I throw across the floor to be grass/sea. Anyone make a board that folds up a lot, any luck with that?

So that the challenge, it has to...

- be easily folded or packed away to taken up minimal space and not just stand obviously in the corner of the room
- has to supply a flat, sturdy surface ideally going onto a table not the floor
- has to look nice and be more than a cloth
- has to be cheap, well cheapish.

Anyone suggesting the GW Realm of Battle or whatever they call that plastic monstrosity will be walking the plank.

I made a three part table that clips together and sits atop any sort of table. When it is stacked, it clips together again and is compact enough to slip under/behind a couch, or under the bed. Covered it with that 'flock wallpaper' you can get for model railway building, with modular terrain and the like to sit on top of that. Foam sheeting would be an idea perhaps instead?

http://www.zuzzy.com/rl-tf-001_terra_flex_gaming_mat.html and related products might be for you

Only other thing I can suggest, if you have your own dinner table, is to turn the underside into a gaming table and make it flippable by keeping it attached in a different way

I live in a 900 sqare foot condo, and it can be a challenge but you just have to be organized.. you can get some cheapy shelves and other things at Ikea that will be a big help

my "living room takes" up half condo. It's rectangular so I have to sofa in the middle cutting the room in half a square TV space. Behind that, I have enough room to set up 2 2.5x6 folding tables with a citadel ROB board that I can set up on top. Or the train when it's xmas time.

Off to the side of the back part of my living room I have a closet with double doors, and my painting area is in there so I can close it off when normal people visit. I have a 2x4' table in there that fits inside perfectly, and I got cheapy little shelves that I keep my paints on.

You don't have to get a ROB board but you can make your own version with 2x2 squares of plywood and paint em green. Or even get a piece of green felt from a fabric store and have them cut it to be 4x6 for you or whatever size you want. Or if you have a hobby store that sells trains they sell green flocked paper stuff that you can roll up easily when you're not playing.

What I'm actually planning right now is something that can do double duty.

The goal is to make a solid piece that can double as storage space+workbench, or with the cover removed as a gaming table.

I say go for painting station first, gaming table a distant second... you can always head somewhere else to game (the friend who was going to play at your house, go to their instead... or of course a gaming store).

I realize it's been much more beneficial to my hobby progress to have a permanent painting station... and although I do have a table I can pull out to game on, a permanent setup seems to get much, much more use. I know you wouldn't have room for permanent of both, but perhaps a small painting setup can stay in place and get used more frequently.

Can you specify more clearly define just how small a space you want this gaming area to fit into? "Minimal" means different things to different people.
It's difficult to make suggestions without knowing our limitations.

Eric

You could try a modular gaming table Howard. It's cheap(ish), easily stored and easily put up. Just get a large pasting table which folds up as it's base and you could store your whole gaming table plus scenary under your bed.....
If you design it right you can have an almost infinite choice of scenery and table formulations as well.

BTW, I live in a tiny 2 bed flat right in a town centre, so it could work for me too!

I have a very small room, and house for that matter. It helps ALOT if you have something like this:

A Black Ram wrote:I have a very small room, and house for that matter. It helps ALOT if you have something like this:

If I wasn't married I'd love that setup. Makes for perfect use of a studio apartment. Alas, a second body in the bed(not counting my 1 year old) means that my hobby is out in the living room taking up a pretty penny in space.

I mostly want my hobby desk in my room as the air conditioning works so much better in there.

Agreed, Aerethan. I had a loft for three years and it was great for saving space, but after adding a second person... I don't even know how we managed that year (especially since we didn't have air conditioning - nothing like being 3 feet from the ceiling of the second story when it's uncomfortably hot, even on the ground floor).

As for this table, what will you have in the way of other tables? If you'll have a kitchen/dining room table, I might suggest something different than if you plan to prop the thing up on sawhorses. Also, what are you expecting in terms of terrain? All modular or do you want something molded on? That would also affect my answer.

If you have a large enough table to support the size of play area you'd like, you have a lot more flexibility when it comes to chopping up the tabletop, as you only have to keep the pieces from shifting, not actually support them, so simple dowels or staples (not fold-over metal ones for stacks of paper, but the H-shaped countersunk pieces that keep two abutting surfaces from shifting, yet are removable) are more than sufficient.

Spend a lot of time thinking about storage. Invest in storage bins as needed.

Also, maybe look into smaller scale games.

Balance wrote:Also, maybe look into smaller scale games.

Definitely an option... Back when I was living in a unit, we spent a lot of time playing Necromunda on the coffee table.

insaniak wrote:

Balance wrote:Also, maybe look into smaller scale games.

Definitely an option... Back when I was living in a unit, we spent a lot of time playing Necromunda on the coffee table.

Ahhhhhhh, Necromunda!...........

Balance wrote:Spend a lot of time thinking about storage. Invest in storage bins as needed.

Also, maybe look into smaller scale games.

This! I'm on the move very soon and I'm going from a comfortable big house to small room in another country but I didn't want to lose my hobby, as such I needed to reduce the space that 28mm games take... went for 15mm Skirmish and you will only need a very small setup to be able to paint these minis.

A foldaway bed, like a futon, is a real blessing. I have a modular gaming board and when I play I turn the bed into a sofa and put the board on the floor. You could also get a foldaway table for it, if your knees are not keen on extended kneeling.

In a small space, especially with children around and the usual restrictions on time and money that implies, I recommend investing in a hobby bureau:



This is quite a posh one, but you can usually find similar in second-hand/antiques/junk shops that are at a knockdown price due to being a bit bashed up, scratched or missing drawers etc.

For gaming, the first thing to look for is a local hobby store or club, so you don't have to keep a stock of terrain or playing surface in your flat. Alternatively, you might like to consider a variation on something I'm working on.

I'm blessed with a quite enormous house (we're foster carers, so we need the space for toys and parties and suchlike), but I'm not allowed to have a gaming table (yet - when the boys are older, I'm sure we'll break my wife's resistance). So my current plan is to buy a 4'x4' piece of MDF. One side will be given a coat of brown textured paint for gaming on, but the other side will be my canvas for a piece of child-friendly art that I'll be painting myself. This will then be mounted on the wall as a decoration but in such a way that it can be easily taken down and placed on top of a coffee table, fusball table or mini pool table to be used for gaming.

If you have a larger wall with no windows, I don't see a problem with doing the same thing on a 6'x4' board instead.

And terrain? Notice the big, deep drawers in the bureau. One is for terrain.

R.

Necros wrote:my painting area is in there so I can close it off when normal people visit.

If you have a lot of stuff you don't need often, renting storage space at e.g. Big Yellow can be a viable option. Obviously it costs a bit so you need some spare budget.

Once you become a trusted customer they let you have 24 hour access.

MagickalMemories wrote:Can you specify more clearly define just how small a space you want this gaming area to fit into? "Minimal" means different things to different people.

I don't know how big a place I will be living in, but likely a studio flat in a city, so even the living room will be fairly small and I won't have loft space. I'm probably looking at a 6' x 4' board and would probably go on top of a dining room table

The Terra-flex mat looks great, textured, painted and can be rolled up like a carpet. Shame they don't appear to do one for water.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

precinctomega wrote:I'm blessed with a quite enormous house (we're foster carers, so we need the space for toys and parties and suchlike), but I'm not allowed to have a gaming table (yet - when the boys are older, I'm sure we'll break my wife's resistance). So my current plan is to buy a 4'x4' piece of MDF. One side will be given a coat of brown textured paint for gaming on, but the other side will be my canvas for a piece of child-friendly art that I'll be painting myself. This will then be mounted on the wall as a decoration but in such a way that it can be easily taken down and placed on top of a coffee table, fusball table or mini pool table to be used for gaming.

The wife calls this a 'stealth gaming board'

Warzone makes folding boards, and they are currently on sale:

http://www.war-zone.com/

I had one of their 4x6 boards before. It worked well for me.

Jake

You want Zuzzy if you want amazingly compact mats. I own 6 Zuzzy mats, and they caused me to throw away all my foam boards

All you need is a table, then roll them out. Done

I don't suppose Zuzzy sells anywhere in the UK? I'm so tempted, but the cost of shipping is making me recoil in fear and my wallet weld itself shut.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

MagickalMemories wrote:Can you specify more clearly define just how small a space you want this gaming area to fit into? "Minimal" means different things to different people.

I don't know how big a place I will be living in, but likely a studio flat in a city, so even the living room will be fairly small and I won't have loft space. I'm probably looking at a 6' x 4' board and would probably go on top of a dining room table

The Terra-flex mat looks great, textured, painted and can be rolled up like a carpet. Shame they don't appear to do one for water.

Okay. That helps a bit...

CptJake wrote:Warzone makes folding boards, and they are currently on sale:

http://www.war-zone.com/

I had one of their 4x6 boards before. It worked well for me.

Jake

I can't get to the site from work, but a folding board is what I had in mind.

I know access to certain products is easier here than in the UK. That said...

I have a 4x8 (though a 4x6 is manageable for this) folding board. You need a piece of 2" (or equivalent UK thickness) thick insulation foam. Cut 3 sections out of it at 2' x 4' (essentially, 1/3 the length of your normal board, but the complete width).
Duct tape two op the pieces together on the long side (on ONLY one side of the boards) so that they can fold in half.
Flip them over and duct tape the OTHER side of the center piece to your 3rd section of board. One piece of duct tape running the length of the board will suffice. This should make you a 4x6 (or whatever) board that has one side which flips up to lay on top the center piece and one that folds under it.
Use adhesive grass terrain mat (Woodland Scenics makes a roll this. You just roll it out, remove the backing, and stick it to your board) to cover your top surface. You should have a 4x4 piece of mat (this will cover the single piece of duct tape on top) and a 2x4 piece covering the top of the third section (which is attached on the bottom).

Hmm... Those instructions seem a lot easier in my head. LOL

Found this pic in an old thread by Dakka user "Menelker."

The uppermost board in the pic duct tapes to the center board on TOP (on the gaming surface), and the lowermost board duct tapes to the center board on BOTTOM (the part that actually sits on the table/floor/etc.).
The top & center board get covered by ONE piece of the Woodland Scenics mat (cut to fit), and the lower section gets covered by a second piece.

When folded up, this surface will stand upright on it's own in a closet and takes up 2' x 4' x 6" of space. VERY compact.

Eric

Try Terrain Mat UK http://terrainmat.com/ for cloth mats with textured surfaces, including sea.

I reckon these are probably fairly easy to make by yourself if you prefer to spend time rather than money.

A folding/hinged board is one alternative, the problem is it quite heavy, and you will more than likely have a gap running down the middle - and over time the strain on the hinge tends to split the wood.

If you have carpentry skills - or even competance - I'd make three 2' 4' frames out of 1' by 1' or 1' by 2', pin mdf or hardboard to the frame. Seal and paint each one. Then fit some latches to each bit to hold the sections together. If you go to the right builders merchant they will cut all the wood for you, so then it is just a matter of nailing and glueing.

I'm sure that if you googled it you could get the plans. Model railway blogs and websites will probably have them.

Kilkrazy wrote:Try Terrain Mat UK http://terrainmat.com/ for cloth mats with textured surfaces, including sea.

I reckon these are probably fairly easy to make by yourself if you prefer to spend time rather than money.

I love those and not to expensive for a finished battle mat... You say its easy to make but how do you glue flock to a cloth without it peeling off?

Our group bought a pack of these:

http://www.ukflooringdirect.co.uk/Laminate/Florence_7mm_Laminate_Flooring_Classic_Oak_Plank_V_Grooved.html

Or something similar for twenty quid. Slot together on a kitchen table for a decent sized gaming surface. The boards are about 8" wide and 4' long, so you don't get a huge amount of extra width to your game, but you do get a lot more length (i.e. distance between you and opponent) than with a standard kitchen table. We even managed small games (4'x4') by laying them on a large coffee table.

We currently lay a mat on top for colour, but you could paint and flock individual boards. We plan to add some details for rivers etc. The nature of the set-up means that these features could be moved around fairly easily.

Will stack and hide under a bed, behind a door, behind a settee or wherever you need it to go. Fits in the rear of a focus if you need to take it to your mate's house.

I guess rubber cement (Cow Gum) or Copydex, something like that.

If I was going to try it I would do some tests.

CptJake wrote:Warzone makes folding boards, and they are currently on sale:

http://www.war-zone.com/

I had one of their 4x6 boards before. It worked well for me.

Jake

Okay.
Now that I'm home... yeah. That's exactly what I was describing.

http://www.war-zone.com/shop/tabletops.html

You can EASILY make one for less than the $100+ they want.


Eric