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So basically is there any useful rule of thumb how many points can a certain table size comfortably hold?

My dinner table is approximately 180-200cm by 90-100 cm or 6-6,5 foot by 3-3,5 foot. How many points worth of a game would fit in this size table? Would both sides having 3000 points fit to the table?

Width fine, depth bit more wouldn't go amiss. Maybe get some foam boards to put over table?

It depends on the rough size of the battles.

40k is doivided into 4 gamer sizes,

Combat patol (500 points)
Incursion (1000 points)
strike force (2000 points and the prefered game size)
and onslaughter 3000 points


the game defies some MINIMUM table sizes for these games. (more is good though)
Combat Patrol/Incursion is 44 inches by 30 inches,
strike force is 44 inches by 60 inches,
and onslaught is 44 inches by 90 inches.

so your tables about the right size for a 2000 points game I belive.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
So basically is there any useful rule of thumb how many points can a certain table size comfortably hold?

My dinner table is approximately 180-200cm by 90-100 cm or 6-6,5 foot by 3-3,5 foot. How many points worth of a game would fit in this size table? Would both sides having 3000 points fit to the table?

Traditionally, "normal" 40k was played on a 6'x4' board. As for what "normal" 40k was pointswise, it's increased from 1500 in 3rd edition to 2000 in 8th and 9th edition. Your table is a bit on the small side for 3k points, imo. As BrianDavion says, 9th edition introduced new "minimum" table sizes because GW want to sell board tiles of 1/4th that size, not for any sort of balance reason.

Thanks for the answers. If I downscale my ambitions to 2000 points, how much of a difference does playing a 2000 point game vs 3000 point game have?

2k points is the current 40k standard game size. its the size that tournaments are played at, and that most people consider to be a "full" army of something. To a large extent, the game is balanced around a 2K size game, with oddities happening at smaller or larger sizes. 500 point games can be very unbalanced, for example, as its possible to fit in something that it is very hard to counter at that scale. i've not played any 3k games, but ive heard their off in different ways, with supposedly "tough" units running into truely stupid levels of firepower and melting far to quick.

most advise and discussion of listbuilding, here on dakka and on other platforms, is based on a 2k list. at smaller games you can often find that your army is lacking in some fairly important areas (like it struggles with pyskers, or against hordes of cheap infantry), becuase you can't spare the points to cover all the bases, but can generally just about do it at 2K.

My goal would be to have an Astartes army consisting of infantry, their mechanized support (as in transport vehicles and tanks), artillery and air support + Tech Marines, Apotcheraries and Scouts included.

Is this able to fit 2000 points?

I think my goal would be like a few dozen line Astartes, a few Land Raiders, a couple of Predators, Whirlwind, a gunship,a Stalker + a few Tech Marines and Apothcheraries.

The biggest issue with 3k points IMO is that it takes a lot longer to play than 2k, but it's a much better level to play 2vs1 games on because the two players teaming up can both build a meaningful army.
It's also important to know that some onslaught missions cannot be used on smaller tables.

GW changing table sizes only to sell more boards is an opinion, not a fact.
I'd also like to point out that playing with the minimum table sizes is very different from playing with the old 6'x4' standard. My group has done a series of test games and has found the smaller tables vastly more enjoyable to play on. In our experience, larger tables have a huge impact on how powerful deep strike and fast units are, so even if the impact on balance was unintended, it's very much appreciated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
My goal would be to have an Astartes army consisting of infantry, their mechanized support (as in transport vehicles and tanks), artillery and air support + Tech Marines, Apotcheraries and Scouts included.

Is this able to fit 2000 points?

I think my goal would be like a few dozen line Astartes, a few Land Raiders, a couple of Predators, Whirlwind, a gunship,a Stalker + a few Tech Marines and Apothcheraries.

Honestly, this sounds like you want to be playing this game instead of 40k:

https://warhammer40000.com/apocalypse/

BrianDavion wrote:
It depends on the rough size of the battles.

40k is doivided into 4 gamer sizes,

Combat patol (500 points)
Incursion (1000 points)
strike force (2000 points and the prefered game size)
and onslaughter 3000 points


the game defies some MINIMUM table sizes for these games. (more is good though)
Combat Patrol/Incursion is 44 inches by 30 inches,
strike force is 44 inches by 60 inches,
and onslaught is 44 inches by 90 inches.

so your tables about the right size for a 2000 points game I belive.

having seen a 1000 point game on a 44" by 30" table, its silly. The table is way to narrow and your basically fighting down a corridor, which is probably good for 500, but is to narrow for 1000.
I'd probably use 44" by 48" instead

I highly doubt you would be able to fitt all of that in 2000 points and have a army that performs very vely.

Lanraider, 2x predators, 1 whirldwind, 1 stalker all of those are heavy suport so you would need multiple detachments, so that is doable. A rough estemate it comes at around 800 points.

A few dozen lines of astartes? What is a few, and what is a line? Asuming you mean 5 people in a line, and a couple is 2 and a marine costing around 20 points (give or take) that is 2400 points. If by a line you mean 10 marines it is around 4800 points.

I have no idea what flyers cost these days. But you would need at least 3 HQ in adition. I would say what you describe clocks in at around 4000 points give or take, or 6000 if you want a line to be 10 man.

You have 134 post in here on dakka. This feels like a real troll post.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Traditionally, "normal" 40k was played on a 6'x4' board.

No, traditionally its played on an 8'x4' table. The 6'x4' board was an abomination that started in 5th edition.

 Niiai wrote:
I highly doubt you would be able to fitt all of that in 2000 points and have a army that performs very vely.

Lanraider, 2x predators, 1 whirldwind, 1 stalker all of those are heavy suport so you would need multiple detachments, so that is doable. A rough estemate it comes at around 800 points.

A few dozen lines of astartes? What is a few, and what is a line? Asuming you mean 5 people in a line, and a couple is 2 and a marine costing around 20 points (give or take) that is 2400 points. If by a line you mean 10 marines it is around 4800 points.

I have no idea what flyers cost these days. But you would need at least 3 HQ in adition. I would say what you describe clocks in at around 4000 points give or take, or 6000 if you want a line to be 10 man.

You have 134 post in here on dakka. This feels like a real troll post.

By line Astartes I mean a single Tactical, Devastator or Assault Marine. Or their Primaris equivalents. So roughly 30-50 Marines.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Traditionally, "normal" 40k was played on a 6'x4' board.

No, traditionally its played on an 8'x4' table. The 6'x4' board was an abomination that started in 5th edition.

From the 3rd edition rulebook:

3rd Edition BRB, Page 123 wrote:Typically the battlefield should be between 6 to 8 feet long (around 1.8 metres to 2.4 metres) and 4 to 6 feet broad (1.2 to 1.8 metres).

From the 2nd edition rulebook (keep in mind in this era Space Marines moved a whopping 4")

2nd Edition BRB, Page 8 wrote:Before the opposing forces clash you need to prepare a tabletop or an area of floor as a gaming area to battle across. Initially a small playing area will suffice. say about 5' by 3' (the size of most dining tables). This gives the troops room to manoeuvre and bring their weapons to bear. As battles get progressively bigger and include armies of greater points values you will need a larger area to fight over. Tables 6' by 4' or 8' by 4' are generally the norm but obviously this can be adjusted to fit what space you have available.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
I highly doubt you would be able to fitt all of that in 2000 points and have a army that performs very vely.

Lanraider, 2x predators, 1 whirldwind, 1 stalker all of those are heavy suport so you would need multiple detachments, so that is doable. A rough estemate it comes at around 800 points.

A few dozen lines of astartes? What is a few, and what is a line? Asuming you mean 5 people in a line, and a couple is 2 and a marine costing around 20 points (give or take) that is 2400 points. If by a line you mean 10 marines it is around 4800 points.

I have no idea what flyers cost these days. But you would need at least 3 HQ in adition. I would say what you describe clocks in at around 4000 points give or take, or 6000 if you want a line to be 10 man.

You have 134 post in here on dakka. This feels like a real troll post.

By line Astartes I mean a single Tactical, Devastator or Assault Marine. Or their Primaris equivalents. So roughly 30-50 Marines.

you could proably manage it, although mechanizing the entire force might become problematic.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
So basically is there any useful rule of thumb how many points can a certain table size comfortably hold?

My dinner table is approximately 180-200cm by 90-100 cm or 6-6,5 foot by 3-3,5 foot. How many points worth of a game would fit in this size table? Would both sides having 3000 points fit to the table?

Your table is 39 by 79 inches circa (3.081 square inches), while a table should be 44 by 60 inches (2.640 square inches) for the strike force battles (up to 2.000 points) or 44 by 90 inches (3.960 square inches) for the onslaught battles (up to 3.000 points), so I think you could be able to do good battles with 2.500 points, but maybe you should modify the dimension of the deployment zones, making them a little wider and less deep, in order to maintain the same depth of the "no man zone".

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Thanks for the answers. If I downscale my ambitions to 2000 points, how much of a difference does playing a 2000 point game vs 3000 point game have?

Playing 2000 is the conventional value the everybody play at.

Also, my experience with armies deviating from the 1000-2000 point range hasn't been great, so your experience would probably improve from downscaling your ambitions to 2000.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Traditionally, "normal" 40k was played on a 6'x4' board.

No, traditionally its played on an 8'x4' table. The 6'x4' board was an abomination that started in 5th edition.

BS. People have been wargaming on 6x4 (and smaller, and larger) since before 40k was even a thing.
And various editions of 40k have reccomend everything from the dining room table to to 8x4.
The size of your table(s) is often dependant upon the space available.
After that you figure out what size of battles fit best on what you've got.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Traditionally, "normal" 40k was played on a 6'x4' board.

No, traditionally its played on an 8'x4' table. The 6'x4' board was an abomination that started in 5th edition.

You're absolutely wrong. 6x4 is the recommendation from Rogue Trader onwards.

To be blunt - even 6 x 4 is an unusually large dinner table for the UK, which is of course the country of origin. Typically our largest dinner tables are somewhere around 5.5 x 3, and casually going to pick up a 6 x 4 table is nigh on impossible here - you're either building your own, buying from somewhere that specifically caters to gaming, or in many cases making do with that slightly smaller table.
In fact, I do wonder whether that factored into this edition's changes to minimum table size.

In any case - the idea of having an 8 x 4 table readily available in this country is just ludicrous.

 Super Ready wrote:
To be blunt - even 6 x 4 is an unusually large dinner table for the UK, which is of course the country of origin. Typically our largest dinner tables are somewhere around 5.5 x 3, and casually going to pick up a 6 x 4 table is nigh on impossible here - you're either building your own, buying from somewhere that specifically caters to gaming, or in many cases making do with that slightly smaller table.
In fact, I do wonder whether that factored into this edition's changes to minimum table size.

In any case - the idea of having an 8 x 4 table readily available in this country is just ludicrous.

Families were bigger back in the 80s.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
So basically is there any useful rule of thumb how many points can a certain table size comfortably hold?

My dinner table is approximately 180-200cm by 90-100 cm or 6-6,5 foot by 3-3,5 foot. How many points worth of a game would fit in this size table? Would both sides having 3000 points fit to the table?

Traditionally, "normal" 40k was played on a 6'x4' board. As for what "normal" 40k was pointswise, it's increased from 1500 in 3rd edition to 2000 in 8th and 9th edition. Your table is a bit on the small side for 3k points, imo. As BrianDavion says, 9th edition introduced new "minimum" table sizes because GW want to sell board tiles of 1/4th that size, not for any sort of balance reason.

I dispute this. I think the new "minimum" board sizes were designed to a) make 4 sizes of game a real, true part of the rules, rather than the sort of half way supports provided in previous editions and b) GW really, really wanted to facilitate playing at home instead of at tournaments and clubs. Funny how right they were given that we're going into round two of a pandemic lockdown.

If they had done it JUST to sell boards, they would be table sizes, not minimum table sizes.

Will it result in more sales? Sure.

To assume that one result of a decision is the only reason a decision was made is over simplification. There were many, many reasons to go with the recommended minimum sizes we have now. Profit was definitely one of those reasons. I probably wouldn't have even bothered to reply if BCB had chosen to say "the primary reason was profit" - I might not have agreed, but I would have at least felt that the argument had some validity.

To say that any company makes any decision for only one reason really just indicates over simplification.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Families were bigger back in the 80s.

I'm aware, I'm the youngest of three brothers and was born in '84. The families were indeed a bit bigger on average... the tables still weren't.

PenitentJake wrote:
If they had done it JUST to sell boards, they would be table sizes, not minimum table sizes.

This is what led me to believe that pure profit wasn't the reason for the change. If it had been, why change away from the existing sizes and do away with the existing Realm of Battle boards?
I'm aware there might be some repeat sales but I would imagine as the new sizes are smaller and also a minimum rather than set in stone, most people with the existing boards would just continue to use them rather than go out and replace.

 Super Ready wrote:
I'm aware, I'm the youngest of three brothers and was born in '84. The families were indeed a bit bigger on average... the tables still weren't.

I assume because you lived in a puddle with only two thirds of a single shoe between you while your dad woke you up three hours before you'd gone to bed to give you a thrashing before you before sending you off to work for 31 hours a day in the acid mine?

PenitentJake wrote:
I dispute this. I think the new "minimum" board sizes were designed to a) make 4 sizes of game a real, true part of the rules, rather than the sort of half way supports provided in previous editions and b) GW really, really wanted to facilitate playing at home instead of at tournaments and clubs. Funny how right they were given that we're going into round two of a pandemic lockdown.

If they had done it JUST to sell boards, they would be table sizes, not minimum table sizes.

Will it result in more sales? Sure.

To assume that one result of a decision is the only reason a decision was made is over simplification. There were many, many reasons to go with the recommended minimum sizes we have now. Profit was definitely one of those reasons. I probably wouldn't have even bothered to reply if BCB had chosen to say "the primary reason was profit" - I might not have agreed, but I would have at least felt that the argument had some validity.

To say that any company makes any decision for only one reason really just indicates over simplification.

It turns out that GW have at least ONE competent beancounter on staff. There is this thing called "We try and soften the blow so it doesn't look like a desperate money grab on the surface but it actually is." If one thing GW has learned from the AOS debacle is "Give your customers the illusion of choice, we don't lose the few atoms of goodwill we have left, and then they won't make a stink and swallow whatever garbage we say."

It's odd for me (who loosely started in 3rd/4th, really started in 5th) to think that an 8'x4' table was recommended.

I now feel like this would be a fun way to play, I've regularly found a 6x4 to seem too cramped, with units seldom out of range of one another. Maybe I'll try and make an 8x5 table, I have a big enough room for it, and I need to make a boardgames/d&d table so I may try to combine the two projects...

I also haven't encountered a single dining table that could fit a 6'x4' board, and not for the lack of looking.
Meanwhile, 44"x60" fits on many tables owned by my gaming group and 44"x30" fits pretty much everywhere.

Not having a place to game is one of the biggest problems when starting 40k, and few people are willing to invest into extremely expensive gaming tables right after selling a kidney for their first models, paints and rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 some bloke wrote:
It's odd for me (who loosely started in 3rd/4th, really started in 5th) to think that an 8'x4' table was recommended.

I now feel like this would be a fun way to play, I've regularly found a 6x4 to seem too cramped, with units seldom out of range of one another. Maybe I'll try and make an 8x5 table, I have a big enough room for it, and I need to make a boardgames/d&d table so I may try to combine the two projects...

Make sure your tables aren't much wider than 48"' though, otherwise you will run into issues when trying to reach things in the middle. We have one gaming table in our group that has a roughly 10" wide border around the playing field to sit down books, models, dice, etc, and it usually remains unused because it's hard to move models near the middle of the battlefield.

If you really want a huge battlefield, try L-shaped or U-shaped combinations of regular tables, but keep in mind that this amount additional depth usually renders footslogging melee units unplayable.

Another cool thing we do sometimes is having two tables next to each other, with portals, elevators or stairs connecting the two, symbolizing two levels of a hive, a cave system or an orbital station. Those two tables don't even have to have the same size.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Thanks for the answers. If I downscale my ambitions to 2000 points, how much of a difference does playing a 2000 point game vs 3000 point game have?

Playing the “elite” armies at less than 2K makes it very tough to do what will feel like a complete armiy with some of “everything”. At 2K you can usually do it with some somewhat tough choices. At 3K you can start being “frivolous”.

2K is a nice sweet spot for me.
2250/2500 is probably fun in that it would give you room for a whimsical choice of some kind.
When model prices tend to go up, so do average Army sizes so people can still play with an army that’s the same size, and points just went up.

2250 is nice, because you are playing with armies that you played in 8th ed without some serious unit cutting.

But the 4x6 table is often too small for those games, or at least it feels as if the table was too small.

Karol wrote:
2250 is nice, because you are playing with armies that you played in 8th ed without some serious unit cutting.

But the 4x6 table is often too small for those games, or at least it feels as if the table was too small.

See, this is what I mean. Points go up, but armies stay the same. People have a sweet spot for their armies they want to land on, that will have somewhere around X units/models/power size/level.

The player with armies for sure, and considering there is always more of them then new players, they do tend to shape the meta. No one wants to hear that now they are going to be able to only use 900$ of the 1200$ of their army, and that new players are going to have a cheaper start in to the game.

 Jidmah wrote:
I also haven't encountered a single dining table that could fit a 6'x4' board, and not for the lack of looking.
Meanwhile, 44"x60" fits on many tables owned by my gaming group and 44"x30" fits pretty much everywhere.

Not having a place to game is one of the biggest problems when starting 40k, and few people are willing to invest into extremely expensive gaming tables right after selling a kidney for their first models, paints and rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 some bloke wrote:
It's odd for me (who loosely started in 3rd/4th, really started in 5th) to think that an 8'x4' table was recommended.

I now feel like this would be a fun way to play, I've regularly found a 6x4 to seem too cramped, with units seldom out of range of one another. Maybe I'll try and make an 8x5 table, I have a big enough room for it, and I need to make a boardgames/d&d table so I may try to combine the two projects...

Make sure your tables aren't much wider than 48"' though, otherwise you will run into issues when trying to reach things in the middle. We have one gaming table in our group that has a roughly 10" wide border around the playing field to sit down books, models, dice, etc, and it usually remains unused because it's hard to move models near the middle of the battlefield.

If you really want a huge battlefield, try L-shaped or U-shaped combinations of regular tables, but keep in mind that this amount additional depth usually renders footslogging melee units unplayable.

Another cool thing we do sometimes is having two tables next to each other, with portals, elevators or stairs connecting the two, symbolizing two levels of a hive, a cave system or an orbital station. Those two tables don't even have to have the same size.

Fortunately myself and me most regular opponent are what our stout norwegian friend refers to as "height freaks", IE around the 6 foot mark, so reaching 2.5 foot in shouldn't be an excessive option! I wouldn't do a 5' wide table with any sort of border, so it would also function as a 6x4 with border. my mind's full of ideas now, I should probably stop thinking about it before I spend this months food budget on timber...


Loving the idea of multiple boards for multiple levels, that sounds like a good amount of fun (and a way for infantry to escape vehicles, could be a good motivator for good old fashioned troops!). I might try that at some point...