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Moved into a new place and got a new dining room table that is a nice 5'x3'. I've decided to closet my 2 folding 2'x4' tables that I had been placing together as a single 4'x4'.

So, any suggestion on deployment types? The standard 12" from the center line is probably what we will use, but that only leaves 6" deployment for "Dawn of War"
Going for the "football field" deployment would give a good amount of depth in the deployment, but it might bottleneck with only 3' of width.

Also keep in mind that my sons and I would only be playing 500-1000pts games
Any fun suggestions?

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Try the diagonal? It would take some basic geometry (which I never mastered) to tell you if your deployment zones would be bigger that way but it's another choice.

Or, for a really weird way to do things put your 2x4s centered on each side making part of your board by 5' wide.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Try the diagonal? It would take some basic geometry (which I never mastered) to tell you if your deployment zones would be bigger that way but it's another choice.

I'll definitely map that out, but my concern would be that if using the standard 12" from center line and the missing 1' on each side might result in very small corners of deployment.
Although that might actually work well considering the small size of the army we will be using.

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The consistent 24" no-mans-land is what really matters. Carve out areas that are no closer to eachother than 24" at any point, and you should be fine.

Dawn of War and Hammer & Anvil still mostly work, but a gunline that sits in the back corner is still going to do worse.

You may need a specific rule about what to do if a model won't fit "Can be placed touching the board edge, but cannot end movement with any part more than [distance moved + 6"] from board edge".

My table's the same size, in three sections. I was thinking of using two sections for 500 point skirmish games (so 3'4"×3'). Leaves a useful space for rules etc too.

Luckily, we don't play any gunlines at home and no single unit we play with can't fit in a 6" deployment, so all of this may be a nonissue.

Our armies are typically 4-6 units per side only.
The more I think about it, the more I like 5x3 over 4x4. It achieves the same goal of having a smaller table, but keeps the long and short edge dynamic

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I would go lengthwise and allow for longer games no turn limit

 Galef wrote:
Luckily, we don't play any gunlines at home

Nice! A healthy meta, lol.

Make a 3rd 2x4 and have a 6x4 table?

As long as you keep some distance between dz's you should be fine, given the low point level.

In jest, as a Guardsman, I'll point out you're probably just mindlessly rushing to centre anyhow, so shallow deployment zones shouldn't hurt either army much.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Make a 3rd 2x4 and have a 6x4 table?

The issue is space and having to set up the tables each and every game. I have the space in my living room, but the wife would not appreciate the table up 24/7
But since we have the 5x3 already in the dining room, all I need to do is put terrain on it. Much easier.

I can't wait to play our first game on the new table.

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I think everything other than Dawn of War should work, so just re-roll Dawn of War.

Dawn of War vs Hammer & Anvil on a smaller board is really do you want to hamstring defense-in-depth or flanking.

Reduce the points levels.

5x3 is 62.5% of the area of a full 6x4 table.

So, just play with (2000)*(0.625) = 1250 points. Since you're playing on 15 sq feet instead of 24 sq feet.

By that calculation 500 points ought to be played on 2'x3'?

 Brother Castor wrote:
By that calculation 500 points ought to be played on 2'x3'?

That might be too small of a table. But it entirely depends on the 500 points. Your average start collecting could be played on this size of table, and those run about 500 points. Although 3x4 would probably be better.

There's no formal guidelines for a 5'x3' table. I don't think 2000 points works. What do you propose?

Why not put a 6x4 table on top?

The realm of battle tiles sit on a 5x3 table just fine (it's only 1/4 of a tile over hanging).

The tablescape tiles are probably pushing it since it'll be half a tile overhanging.

Both of those pack away pretty small.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Why not put a 6x4 table on top?

The realm of battle tiles sit on a 5x3 table just fine (it's only 1/4 of a tile over hanging).

The tablescape tiles are probably pushing it since it'll be half a tile overhanging.

Both of those pack away pretty small.

Or even just two 3x4 pieces of plywood that have a hinge in the middle/break apart.

You don't even need a hinge with that small of an overhang.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Brother Castor wrote:
By that calculation 500 points ought to be played on 2'x3'?

That might be too small of a table. But it entirely depends on the 500 points. Your average start collecting could be played on this size of table, and those run about 500 points. Although 3x4 would probably be better.

There's no formal guidelines for a 5'x3' table. I don't think 2000 points works. What do you propose?

Agreed. I think your calculation is about right for 1000 points. I'd just use the whole 5'×3'. At 500 points I already proposed the following:

 Brother Castor wrote:
My table's the same size, in three sections. I was thinking of using two sections for 500 point skirmish games (so 3'4"×3'). Leaves a useful space for rules etc too.

I had a similar setup in my old flat. I got three MDF boards cut that were each 2ftX3ft and slid them behind the couch when I wasn't using them. When I was I just stuck a gaming mat over the top. Stability was sometimes an issue but we all learned not to lean on the edges.

A buddy of mine is now using the same setup on a folding trestle table and he's stuck velcro lining on to each board and one long strip to hold in place so it doesn't move but it hardly ever moves with the weight of mat+terrain on it.

Why compromise the optimal board area if you don't have to.

 Nithaniel wrote:
I had a similar setup in my old flat. I got three MDF boards cut that were each 2ftX3ft and slid them behind the couch when I wasn't using them. When I was I just stuck a gaming mat over the top. Stability was sometimes an issue but we all learned not to lean on the edges.

A buddy of mine is now using the same setup on a folding trestle table and he's stuck velcro lining on to each board and one long strip to hold in place so it doesn't move but it hardly ever moves with the weight of mat+terrain on it.

Why compromise the optimal board area if you don't have to.

That's basically what I do. All I have is a round table with a 2 foot radius, so I cut some mdf as 2 2x4 sheets, gave them a set of hinges, and when I play I just unfold it and throw a gaming mat on top.

4x4 is very close to 5x3. You could play 1000 points. My concern is that you'll be very spread out in 5x3, making objective games kind of difficult unless the number is limited and they're centralized.

if you wanted to play with 2k, and have smaller deployment zones, you could have a house "nightfighting" rule where on the first turn all shooting is reduced by 12", and charges are reduced by 2", to compensate. Because you'll still have a 24" no-man's-land, the problem is that on either side, you'll have 6" deployment zones, rather than 12".

All in all I think you can have a fun game on 5'x3' as long as you don't have meta skew lists. Like gunlines, or super fast assault armies, etc. If you bring just casual "this is cool" lists it should be fine. Although if you're adding in that third squad of ynnari alaitoc dark reapers...