Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The tape is set at 24". That's an Idea Ingatorp table.

I did a 1k game (900pts vs 900pts) and HOLY CRAP is it small.

I do not recommend anyone playing a 1k game (even with new points) on their table size (44x30).

We both were playing fast armies (Quins vs DE) so we agreed to play 48x30 instead and even tho we did it was still way to small (wide wise) b.c you had to put everything so close together it make movements really hard.

Yes it makes the game quicker, but it was impossible to stop alpha strikes (we used new terrain rules and had 5 large 5 small pieces). I decided not to turn 1 charge and kill 2 of his key characters (I can move 30" and charge without trying, starting 12" he only had 36" which i can move 30" of that). Otherwise it would have been a 1 turn game.

The new minimal approved table for 1000 points is simply too small. It kind of works for a very small skirmish at 500 points, but this is way too small for 1000 points, which represents a small, yet significant army.
These are not identical gaming forces, despite sharing the same line in GW recommended boards.
The table reduction for 1500-2000 points game size is somewhat more manageable, because it is 76% of previous space.

Traditionally 1000 points games are played on 48*48 inches tables. Moving for 44*30" means you play on only 57 % area of the previous de-facto standard. Which is way too tiny.
This table size is presented solely for making easy access : a kitchen Ikea table, two killteam boards and here you go. But in terms of game interest for 1000 points, it will be really lacking.
Almost everything will be in range of everything from turn one, and almost no manoeuvring, just immediate clash.

We played on 36” x 36” mats for 1K games in 8th, and they felt a little crowded, looking back.

GW’S sizes are purely for marketing, not the health of the game. Hopefully, players will quickly realize this and choose to use more sensible play areas rather than ones focusing on selling GW battlemats.

 Stormonu wrote:
We played on 36” x 36” mats for 1K games in 8th, and they felt a little crowded, looking back.

GW’S sizes are purely for marketing, not the health of the game. Hopefully, players will quickly realize this and choose to use more sensible play areas rather than ones focusing on selling GW battlemats.

44x60 isn't terrible. Width matters more than length does and it's only 4" narrower.

1k in 5th-8th is fine at 48x36 b.c 1/2 of 6" is fine with 3" but in new mat size it doesn't translate the same and GW seriously miss calculated. Unless they don't want 1k game.

If i was in charge of an event i would do 500-750, or 1200+ to not hit that way to small table size for 1k games.

 Stormonu wrote:
GW’S sizes are purely for marketing, not the health of the game.

I disagree. The reduction from 72" to 60" has a huge impact on the game.

72" long board always encouraged gunline armies to deploy +48" range guns along the edge of player's edge, 36" range guns @ 6" away from player's edge, 24" range guns @ deployment line. The only line of defense against such deployment is deepstriking, but with 9" rule it's really easy to plug in the holes so that you can't DS within optimal range. This results in yet another Napoleonic standoff, with little reason to bring guns that you'd need to move forward to get in range. The name of the game is "if your unit is not in range of enemy unit in turn 1, then it is a screen. If it's not a screen, it's waste of points".

This extra 6" of board space is exactly what you need to either force your opponent to advance their mid range units (to get within range) thereby limiting offensive options to assault weapons or spend another turn (to get within range). I presume you understand how deadly a single round of shooting is in current edition. Under this scheme, footslogging isn't merely discouraged - it's useless. There is no point in advancing your units to try to get enemies within range because they will blast you off the board. Without specific gimmicks available to certain armies, walking down the battlefield is no different than playing tower defense.

In 72" boards, backfield units are essentially immune to mid-range offense for minimum of 2 turns, and generally +3 turns. In 60" boards, you can effectively advance your mid range units deployed at deployment zone line and reach the backfield units in turn 1, and guaranteed to be within range in turn 2.

The smaller board is a godsend fix, unless what you want specifically is a sniper war.

 skchsan wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
GW’S sizes are purely for marketing, not the health of the game.

I disagree. The reduction from 72" to 60" has a huge impact on the game.

72" long board always encouraged gunline armies to deploy +48" range guns along the edge of player's edge, 36" range guns @ 6" away from player's edge, 24" range guns @ deployment line. The only line of defense against such deployment is deepstriking, but with 9" rule it's really easy to plug in the holes so that you can't DS within optimal range. This results in yet another Napoleonic standoff, with little reason to bring guns that you'd need to move forward to get in range. The name of the game is "if your unit is not in range of enemy unit in turn 1, then it is a screen. If it's not a screen, it's waste of points".

This extra 6" of board space is exactly what you need to either force your opponent to advance their mid range units (to get within range) thereby limiting offensive options to assault weapons or spend another turn (to get within range). I presume you understand how deadly a single round of shooting is in current edition. Under this scheme, footslogging isn't merely discouraged - it's useless. There is no point in advancing your units to try to get enemies within range because they will blast you off the board. Without specific gimmicks available to certain armies, walking down the battlefield is no different than playing tower defense.

In 72" boards, backfield units are essentially immune to mid-range offense for minimum of 2 turns, and generally +3 turns. In 60" boards, you can effectively advance your mid range units deployed at deployment zone line and reach the backfield units in turn 1, and guaranteed to be within range in turn 2.

The smaller board is a godsend fix, unless what you want specifically is a sniper war.

Yeah, none of that is true outside of vanguard strike. Character auras and objectives killed that entirely for 8th.

ERJAK wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
GW’S sizes are purely for marketing, not the health of the game.

I disagree. The reduction from 72" to 60" has a huge impact on the game.

72" long board always encouraged gunline armies to deploy +48" range guns along the edge of player's edge, 36" range guns @ 6" away from player's edge, 24" range guns @ deployment line. The only line of defense against such deployment is deepstriking, but with 9" rule it's really easy to plug in the holes so that you can't DS within optimal range. This results in yet another Napoleonic standoff, with little reason to bring guns that you'd need to move forward to get in range. The name of the game is "if your unit is not in range of enemy unit in turn 1, then it is a screen. If it's not a screen, it's waste of points".

This extra 6" of board space is exactly what you need to either force your opponent to advance their mid range units (to get within range) thereby limiting offensive options to assault weapons or spend another turn (to get within range). I presume you understand how deadly a single round of shooting is in current edition. Under this scheme, footslogging isn't merely discouraged - it's useless. There is no point in advancing your units to try to get enemies within range because they will blast you off the board. Without specific gimmicks available to certain armies, walking down the battlefield is no different than playing tower defense.

In 72" boards, backfield units are essentially immune to mid-range offense for minimum of 2 turns, and generally +3 turns. In 60" boards, you can effectively advance your mid range units deployed at deployment zone line and reach the backfield units in turn 1, and guaranteed to be within range in turn 2.

The smaller board is a godsend fix, unless what you want specifically is a sniper war.

Yeah, none of that is true outside of vanguard strike. Character auras and objectives killed that entirely for 8th.

ITC mission packs with secondaries & progressive scoring are local houserule 'fixes'.

This is absolutely true of both hammer & anvil & spearhead deployments. This means 1/3 of standard deployment maps suffer from the above.

There's still nothing in the standard rules that doesn't discourage going for board wipe as the primary objective. Dead units still can't score.

ERJAK wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
We played on 36” x 36” mats for 1K games in 8th, and they felt a little crowded, looking back.

GW’S sizes are purely for marketing, not the health of the game. Hopefully, players will quickly realize this and choose to use more sensible play areas rather than ones focusing on selling GW battlemats.

44x60 isn't terrible. Width matters more than length does and it's only 4" narrower.

I think that the lack of operational depth is actually one of the major weaknesses of the game when played on a 6x4 board with the 6' sides as the player table edges. There's not a lot of operational development, because there's no front lines or rear area. There's no penetration and exploitation, because there's nowhere to penetrate to. There's no such thing as defense-in-depth or deep battle, because there's no depth to defend with or conduct operations in. I would say that the fact that the operational area is wide and shallow is a major contributor to the lack of relevant strategic maneuver and why the strategic potion of the game so often winds up being a simple product of what assets have been brought to the board.

On the other hand, the 6' x 4' board also has the problem of if your turn it so the 4' edge are the player bases, it's too narrow to outmaneuver anyone, and everybody will have to face off in a big melee ball.


I think that the board really just needs to be generally bigger like 6' wide by 8' deep or vice versa, or even larger. That said, this isn't really possible, because only so large a table can fit within a house or store.

Stormonu wrote:We played on 36” x 36” mats for 1K games in 8th, and they felt a little crowded, looking back.

GW’S sizes are purely for marketing, not the health of the game. Hopefully, players will quickly realize this and choose to use more sensible play areas rather than ones focusing on selling GW battlemats.

Their realm of battle boards are 2'x2' tiles, and the Moon Base tiles total up to 65" x 43", which also isn't the official size.

It's pretty much to make the board fit on a conventional and easily accessible table; and I doubt it's to sell GW battlemats given that they currently don't make battlemats to that size.

Introducing... A fantastic reason to spam Wyverns, Heavy Weapons Squads with Mortars! AND! Mortars for every Infantry Squad imaginable!

Mortars for everyone, lets see how many D6 we can array against our opponent and force them to simply quit before the first dice is rolled...

1000pts of Mortars! 60D6 shots on T1, followed by every curse known to man, as your opponent packs up before you!

GW sure was right about the games being fast, they will be so fast that they will be over before the deployment phase is done!

 Slayer6 wrote:
Introducing... A fantastic reason to spam Wyverns, Heavy Weapons Squads with Mortars! AND! Mortars for every Infantry Squad imaginable!

Mortars for everyone, lets see how many D6 we can array against our opponent and force them to simply quit before the first dice is rolled...

1000pts of Mortars! 60D6 shots on T1, followed by every curse known to man, as your opponent packs up before you!

GW sure was right about the games being fast, they will be so fast that they will be over before the deployment phase is done!

I was thinking take 3 Patrols (leaves you 2CP left) of Reavers, Skyweavers, and Shining Spears, all can turn 1 charge.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
We played on 36” x 36” mats for 1K games in 8th, and they felt a little crowded, looking back.

GW’S sizes are purely for marketing, not the health of the game. Hopefully, players will quickly realize this and choose to use more sensible play areas rather than ones focusing on selling GW battlemats.

44x60 isn't terrible. Width matters more than length does and it's only 4" narrower.

I think that the lack of operational depth is actually one of the major weaknesses of the game when played on a 6x4 board with the 6' sides as the player table edges. There's not a lot of operational development, because there's no front lines or rear area. There's no penetration and exploitation, because there's nowhere to penetrate to. There's no such thing as defense-in-depth or deep battle, because there's no depth to defend with or conduct operations in. I would say that the fact that the operational area is wide and shallow is a major contributor to the lack of relevant strategic maneuver and why the strategic potion of the game so often winds up being a simple product of what assets have been brought to the board.

Simmer down Clausewitz, its just a game - and not a particularly tactical or strategic one at that. You wouldn't get what you're looking for on an 8x8 table either.

(But you're right on both counts, the ratio of frontage to depth on basically all the suggested deployments at the recommended table sizes is atrocious, the only deployment I have ever really think worked in terms of table utilization and emphasis on maneuver is Search and Destroy).

Maybe the missions will fix it. If both sides get super small deployments in the corner the battle space becomes larger.

Once again, it’s a minimum size. Sky isn’t falling. Play on whatever table size you prefer.

We had 1k tournament with 4'x3'(48x36) boards. Small!

Well ain't following those MINIMUM sizes. I want at least some pretense movement and deployment matters rather than just point&click army building.

It's just a different play concept.

Kill team is played on a 22x30 but uses the same movement values and weapon ranges of 40K. Yet it still works quite well and the game is pretty tactical and engaging.

Obviously it has less stuff on the field (about 200 points in 40K terms), but it is also true that every model is a single unit.

Using an 8th edition approach that board could look small indeed, but if you look at it with 9th/KT eyes, it could work.

Remember also that 1000 9th edition points are (according to playtesters) around 800 8th edition points.

the 9th ed points don't matter as much, as the fact that people are going to want to use the armies they have right now.

If someone has and plays in a place where 1000pts is played, then they won't care that in 9th it may end up as some bizzar 1150 or 1200 size game.

Same with the 2000 played right now, the chance that people will want to play the armies the size they are now is bigger then they are going to be willing to have units they will never use, And this goes double for elite armies or knights which can't just cut a squad, because a squad for them is a whole knight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Once again, it’s a minimum size. Sky isn’t falling. Play on whatever table size you prefer.

People like to play at miniums, just like they don't want to buy and place extra terrain etc But this isn't important or what people worry about. The sizes, we are told, are playtested and optimized, for the missions GW has. If the play fields feel too small, but GW says they are well tested, then why give such miniumum and not give the old table sizes of 4x4 and 4x6 as the size?

Spoletta wrote:
It's just a different play concept.

Kill team is played on a 22x30 but uses the same movement values and weapon ranges of 40K. Yet it still works quite well and the game is pretty tactical and engaging.

Obviously it has less stuff on the field (about 200 points in 40K terms), but it is also true that every model is a single unit.

Using an 8th edition approach that board could look small indeed, but if you look at it with 9th/KT eyes, it could work.

Remember also that 1000 9th edition points are (according to playtesters) around 800 8th edition points.

So you cannot compare it to 8th as the changes are so big that it is a different game now
but you can compare it to a actual different game (different number of models and turn sequence) because some values are the same?

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Slayer6 wrote:
Introducing... A fantastic reason to spam Wyverns, Heavy Weapons Squads with Mortars! AND! Mortars for every Infantry Squad imaginable!

Mortars for everyone, lets see how many D6 we can array against our opponent and force them to simply quit before the first dice is rolled...

1000pts of Mortars! 60D6 shots on T1, followed by every curse known to man, as your opponent packs up before you!

GW sure was right about the games being fast, they will be so fast that they will be over before the deployment phase is done!

I was thinking take 3 Patrols (leaves you 2CP left) of Reavers, Skyweavers, and Shining Spears, all can turn 1 charge.

-Smaller board doesn't mean it reduces the the size of noman's land. This is determined by missions and deployment maps. From what was 'leaked', there doesn't seem to be much changes to the size of noman's land.
-Smaller board means less places these 48"+ guns can hide and kite.

 skchsan wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Slayer6 wrote:
Introducing... A fantastic reason to spam Wyverns, Heavy Weapons Squads with Mortars! AND! Mortars for every Infantry Squad imaginable!

Mortars for everyone, lets see how many D6 we can array against our opponent and force them to simply quit before the first dice is rolled...

1000pts of Mortars! 60D6 shots on T1, followed by every curse known to man, as your opponent packs up before you!

GW sure was right about the games being fast, they will be so fast that they will be over before the deployment phase is done!

I was thinking take 3 Patrols (leaves you 2CP left) of Reavers, Skyweavers, and Shining Spears, all can turn 1 charge.

-Smaller board doesn't mean it reduces the the size of noman's land. This is determined by missions and deployment maps. From what was 'leaked', there doesn't seem to be much changes to the size of noman's land.
-Smaller board means less places these 48"+ guns can hide and kite.

You don't understand, you are 44", -24 for no mans, thats 20" you both have 10" on deployment zone.

I start on the edge of the zone, i'm can move Reavers 30", Shining spears 32" and Skyweavers 38".

Reavers 30" means the longest charge is less than 10
Shinging Spears means the longest charge is less than 8
Skyweavers means the longest charge is less than 2