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I have not had the chance to play much of 8th yet; but i see a lot of themes like alpha strikes, hordes, bubble wrapping and others that made me think how differently the games rules interact with different tables.

if you could have your ideal table in 8th edition what it would look like? This of course is not limited to room size or cost ir even game point/power level.

My dream table for 8th would probably be 5 feet wide and 10 feet long with many different elivations throughout it, defanitly not a flat game mat. It also could potentially grow wider in the middle by a foot or even have a 90 degree turn in it. It would be full of different impassable terrain that caused splits/bottle necks or forced bigger units to split from infantry. It also would contain peppered in gw terrain for rules changes or strategic bonuses like landing pads or bunkers. And of course tons of total LOS blocking terrain.stll in some areas would be open no man zones. Probably a landscape battlefield as opposed to a ruined city.

In short my ideal table would be huge and probably not even modular. I would like a table that forces some decesions and leaves others to you.Thats just me, i like a crazy big game. Maybe you like the opposite. What would your ideal 8th edition table look like? Wouldnit even match your army? What kind of terrain? Modular or fixed? Round, square, rectangle, L shaped, H shaped or diamond?

I'd like a board probably room-sized, with distinct objective areas, like a town with a road junction, a bridge over a river, a wooded hill, etc. Each area would be separated by at least 48" of open ground, liberally scattered with craters, tank obsctacles, barbed wire, and other such things.


I think the key is that the board should be large, and the objectives of clear value. Not an arbitrary point squirreled away behind a building to stand within 3" of, but something like "defend the town square" or "capture the bridge".

The themed rooms I watch Miniwargamer Dave n fiends play at.

I would like craters, trenches, etc. to be deeper than the surface of the table, like real craters and trenches. And a dice roll area which is visible for both players.

 CadianGateTroll wrote:
The themed rooms I watch Miniwargamer Dave n fiends play at.

Exactly. And they have enough terrain to fill dozens of tables too.

A table that plays vertically as much as horizontally, buildings (even ruins) would be vastly taller than we currently get, with roads and catwalks connecting them up high. The buildings themselves would be fully playable on each floor.
And if we're talking ideally there'd also need to be more immersive rules and I'd have enough free time to devote a week to the game.
We can only dream...

I'd really like a hyper-realistic scene with lots of terrain variation and LoS blockers, something like https://youtu.be/vxhZ7uE7glY?t=21m56s

No idea how the models would work in with it all, how tanks would work, but I still reckon it'd be awesome.

nateprati wrote:
if you could have your ideal table in 8th edition what it would look like? This of course is not limited to room size or cost ir even game point/power level.

I like the standard size, anything larger is kinda hard to play on. I'd like an extra area on the short end for rolling dice, some space for drinks and something like a turn counter and victory point trackers, or at least some area where you could have that stuff placed.
The table itself should be just a basic flat area where you can either put a mat down or modular tiles (e.g the ones from GW).

The terrain should be themed , have proper LOS blocker pieces as well as some normal pieces (e.g ruins/woods) and scatter terrain (stuff that's on the table for decoration but usually doesn't do anything. All the terrain pieces have to have a proper footprint/base.

The only way to make terrain work in 8-th.

 koooaei wrote:


The only way to make terrain work in 8-th.

I get its a joke, but it does kind of ring true. We were using pretty much only the official GW ruins but once we picked up a whole bunch of big blocky MDF bunker type stuff the game became much more interesting.

As a pro tip, if you have a piece of terrain that's a little awkwardly shaped such that you can't really use it, rule it to be "neutral statuary" - basically, use the Imperial Statuary rules without the "if your mandolls are imperials get +1LD because WE LOVE YOU SINCERELY GW" tacked on. Imperial Statuary uses 7th ed terrain rules. If you're obscured 25% by it, you're in cover.

in 7th, everything worked the best if everything was considered a ruin. in 8th, Ruins are one of the most restrictive terrain types, so if you have a piece small enough that no reasonable unit could get "wholly on or within" then use a different terrain rule for it.

on a standard table, 6x4, play 1000-1250points.
on a 4x4, play less than 750.
fill the middle with everything in the world.

and, house rule realistic cover and terrain.
forbid super characters.
enforce force organization requirements, i.e. 2+ troops, 1-2 hq, up to 3 hs, up to 2fa, up to 2 elites.

Standard 6x4 for me. I usually play 2000 point games. Ideally, I'd have a generic mat or surface that could work for fantasy and 40k, like forests, desert, ruins, something like that. Different elevations would be fantastic, and nice fat pieces of LOS-blocking terrain. Nothing with holes in it.

Personally, I'm a firm believer that bigger = better, and also that a high density of terrain = better.

I actually had an immense stroke of luck recently, with regards to a table surface. I'll take some pictures and include them when I get home, to give people an example of what I mean.

I'd second something like 8'x5', even if the edge 6" on each side is marked as out of bounds (somewhere to put models, dice etc)

Have a look at how WW2 games do tables, provide a reason why the battle is taking place here, a central focus then work out from their.

e.g. crossroads, bridge, small settlement the could be an access point to an underground bunker or similar. Then think of what would actually be around it.

Battlefields look better when they tell a story all of their own.

This being 40k, find something that excuses a lot of stuff that blocks line of sight, some that provides cover then stuff that makes playing the game possible.

Find ruined buildings are best if they have the remains of an internal wall to block LoS, or blocked up windows at least on the ground floor.

5th (IIRC) had a rule of filling a quarter of the board with terrain, then spread it around, seems a decent density, I'd go closer to a 3rd these days.

Wondered on something like a Sci-fi version of the Normandy Bocage, small fields surrounded by tall hedges

All of the best wargames I've played have been on larger tables than the standard 4x6. My first club had a table that was closer to a 6x10. Playing the full size for many varieties of wargaming allowed for more maneuvering and reduced the impact of alpha strikes, either through weapons being out of range, terrain coverage in between, or so many negative modifiers as to make it useless until both armies got closer.

Then have lots of terrain laid out in a logical fashion.