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I just don't get it, it's not what you would expect from a Commanding officer, cramming his whole army into a spearhead setup.

With the amount of veichles in lists these days it seems pretty tight to deploy your forces into one corner, especially if you have terrain in your board section too.
For me it feels like it limits the game a little tactically on the deployment side of things.
1000 points or even 1500 isnt too bad. Anything bigger can get very tight for some armies.

Pitched battle doesn't matter so much as you generally have enough room to deploy your forces.

Should table width or size change depending on the size of the forces you are fighting with?

Its not like you need to play egg-zactly by the rules you know. If you have a problem with table size, ask your opponant and maybe hell agree.
What army do you play?

The problem is, with every new codex you're getting more and more models on the table. Compare a 1500pt. Space marine force compared to one from 10 years ago and it'll probably be around 1000pts. cheaper.

It's GW's attempt to get you to buy more.

So probably, however, I don't believe that there is an offcial table size? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Iranna.

table size, deployment zone, terrain all affect game play. GW set their rules to work best (in their opinion) with their frame work. However, you should always have fun and while the 40K missions are pretty limited, you should definitely make up your own and try new things. It makes game play more fun.

I think all tables at my local club are 6 feet by 4.
Thats standard size right?

I just cant imagine having a 2000/+ point game on these boards and not have some form of an issue with space for deployment for some heavy vehicle armies.

Iranna wrote:The problem is, with every new codex you're getting more and more models on the table. Compare a 1500pt. Space marine force compared to one from 10 years ago and it'll probably be around 1000pts. cheaper.

This is a gross overexaggeration. The only real difference in cost between Marines in 3rd ed and 5th ed is that rhinos are about 20 points cheaper now, and Marines come with what was formerly 3 points of grenades standard for one point over the old cost of a Marine. Most special and heavy weapons actually got MORE expensive in 4th, and now you get some free in 10 man squads. Generally, a good sized army will come in at 200 points cheaper at most. Your point is generally valid, your math is just off.

A 4x6 table is great for 1500-2500 points. Bigger than that you may want to invest in a 4x8.

you definitely need to change the table size to match you points. Even in the main rule book GW only suggest 4X6. I don't like to play small games, so unless it is morheim or gorkamorka I never use a 4X4. I have a 4X6 at home and that works fine for most games up top about 3000. My friends and I played a 10000 point game before and we used 3 4X6s, but after the game we agreed that the next time we would need to move up to 4 because things were too cramped.

I love it when bad math makes for good points.

Mathmaticalliy speaking:

The average 1500 point game is usually played on a 4' by 6' table. A 4' by 6' table is 24 square feet. 62.5 points per square foot. Rounded into a reasonable easy number to work with... For each 250 points played with you should have 4 square feet of play area.

I love it more when good math makes for great points.

At 2500 points, it was extremely cramped playing spearhead on a 4'x6' table.

You have to look at it from all angles. The larger the table area and the more distance your models have to travel to shoot or assault limits several things in the game. For one, it can prolong a game to last multiple of hours and not everyone has time to spend one whole day on one game. Though if that is what you want, by all means no one is going to stop you. Now, lets look at different armies and different tactics and strengths these armies have. For example, you give the Tau more space and a bigger table and create larger gaps between their units and yours, you are giving them an advantage maybe. They can get more shots off and they can maintain their space and distance from you if there is a larger gap. Horde armies thrive in smaller table space because they can assault quicker and every where.

I am not trying to discourage you from playing on a bigger table, but rather pointing out the logic in GW's stance on the standard 8' x 4' gaming table, deployment zones, and so forth is all set in a certain way to hopefully balance and ensure flow of game play. GW just doesn't always do the greatest of jobs of accomplishing this. However, that is their logic behind it. They are making a product they want to work with in a governing system they created.

I encourage everyone to make up all sorts of house rules or crazy missions and different table terrain because it makes the game more dynamic and more fun.

They downsixed the tables from 4x8 to 4x6 because they noticed there was always some unit that never took part in the battle (Sniper scouts, Eldar Jetbikes ect.) Usually these units did nothing until the final turn (if fast enough) when they would jump on an objective. My friends and I have always kept extra "planks" of table around just in case we need more space. But, the size of your battlefield is really up to you and your opponent. Or the event coordinator if youre in some sort of event.

L0rdF1end wrote:I just don't get it, it's not what you would expect from a Commanding officer, cramming his whole army into a spearhead setup.

With the amount of veichles in lists these days it seems pretty tight to deploy your forces into one corner, especially if you have terrain in your board section too.
For me it feels like it limits the game a little tactically on the deployment side of things.
1000 points or even 1500 isnt too bad. Anything bigger can get very tight for some armies.

Pitched battle doesn't matter so much as you generally have enough room to deploy your forces.

Should table width or size change depending on the size of the forces you are fighting with?

The hardest thing anyone with knowledge of history (and reality, in fact) is the compression of scale common with battle games using miniatures.

I was originally turned off of 40k when I saw a battle between the IG and an Ork horde. It looked completely ridiculous.

After I began to understand that the table top battle is really meant to look like an over-the-top heroic rugby scrum, pitched h-t-h battles common in 40k artwork.

My game club uses 8' x 4' tables for our games, but we'll 'extend the front' with another table when the model count gets too high.

The playgroup I use to play with always preferred larger games to smaller games. We played with 4000 points each quite often on my old ping pong table I had. It was 5' x10'

Anything under 2000 was played on a 4' x 8'

Big tables are more fun for me. I see it as more of a battlefield rather than the "stand and fire" type that reminds me more of what armies did a few hundred years ago where both armies just stood in front of each other and shot until 1 side was dead.