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Hey Dakkites!

It has been some time...

I was just wondering has anyone ever experieced smaller table sizes? I made a gaming-board out of some timber left over buy some painters that did some work at my house. It was 6ft by 3ft I know that the usual size is 6ft by 4ft. Has anyone else experiened anything similar? It does of course mean that your deplyment zone is alot closer than usual. In my experince it does make for a bit of a fiercer couple of turns as the opposing sides tend to be able to hook in with rapid fire weapons and assaults much earlier.

It just seemed like a waste to not utilise such a decent bit of timber.

What do you guys think?

My friend and I played all of 3rd edition on a 5x3.5 table (basically my kitchen table). You just need to apply a few house rules shrinking deployment zones a touch.

You need to have at least 4" across or you cripple long-range armies (Tau, for example) by giving them nowhere to hide from immediate assault and/or close-range shooting, but the 6" width of the table isn't mandatory as long as you keep the game sizes small. 4"x4" works just fine for a 500-1500 point game, as long as flyers aren't too important to anyone.

Try playing with one of the other deployment zone styles. Maybe the one where the table is divided widthwise rather than lengthwise?

And I thought the way it was done was by measuring 12" from the center line, not the table edge, to create a buffer zone of consistent size. Might've been the previous edition.

As for my own table, it's 4x6, but I've only been using a 4x4 area of it for my games, because we tend to play smaller games around 1,000 points - mainly to make the games go a lot quicker since a lot of time gets sucked up by looking up rules, considering options, discussing things about the game, and my mind going completely blank when trying to remember something.

Peregrine wrote:You need to have at least 4" across or you cripple long-range armies (Tau, for example) by giving them nowhere to hide from immediate assault and/or close-range shooting, but the 6" width of the table isn't mandatory as long as you keep the game sizes small. 4"x4" works just fine for a 500-1500 point game, as long as flyers aren't too important to anyone.

That is a very good point.

Pouncey wrote:Try playing with one of the other deployment zone styles. Maybe the one where the table is divided widthwise rather than lengthwise?

And I thought the way it was done was by measuring 12" from the center line, not the table edge, to create a buffer zone of consistent size. Might've been the previous edition.

As for my own table, it's 4x6, but I've only been using a 4x4 area of it for my games, because we tend to play smaller games around 1,000 points - mainly to make the games go a lot quicker since a lot of time gets sucked up by looking up rules, considering options, discussing things about the game, and my mind going completely blank when trying to remember something.

I have played a game with the small table edge deployment and to be honest it gets a bit cramped up.


Cheers for the reply gents!

 SpaceMonk wrote:
I have played a game with the small table edge deployment and to be honest it gets a bit cramped up.

Fair point.

Is the diagonal deployment the same way?

Havent actually tried diagonal yet. I think that might work out pretty good actually

I should post some pics of my table. I am pretty proud of the terrain I made for it...

A table with a shorter width is still playable, so long as you shrink the deployment zones to keep the starting distance between units the same. It might make deploying a pain though, and it simply won't work at higher points levels, or with horde armies.

I once played a 2k game on a 5'x3' table. It was interesting, but not something I'd like to do again with such a large list.
Saying that though, I haven't played a game since 4th ed. and it might be different these days, and I'll always take a smaller play area over one that's too large.

I'm having to stick to 4 x 4 until I can get my garage tidied after some building work.

Never used a thinner board than 4 foot though. Imagine it would make deployment zones very tight for horde armies.

We generally play at 6' x 4' tables. For small pt games (up to 1000 pts), we also play at 4' x 4' boards.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
I once played a 2k game on a 5'x3' table. It was interesting, but not something I'd like to do again with such a large list.
Saying that though, I haven't played a game since 4th ed. and it might be different these days, and I'll always take a smaller play area over one that's too large.

At least with a board that's too small, you've always got action going and units on foot can get places.

One time, I brought my Sisters against my mom's Marines on a 4x6 board. Probably was about 1500 points, since the memory seems to be old enough for that to be the case. By some weird fluke of luck or deployment, my Sisters on one side rolled up her Marines on that side, and my Sisters on the other side were not doing so well, and were in need of aid. Now, I don't bring transports, or very few if I do, and it was turn 4 or 5. So basically, the stronger half of my army was stuck footslogging across the length of the board. If I remember right, they didn't get there before the game ended.

I had an 8x4 but I cut it in half for portable reasons. So now I have 2 4x4 tables that I can reconnect together when Im playing larger games, or have a smaller easier to use 4x4 for smaller games.

 SpaceMonk wrote:
I was just wondering has anyone ever experieced smaller table sizes? I made a gaming-board out of some timber left over buy some painters that did some work at my house. It was 6ft by 3ft I know that the usual size is 6ft by 4ft. Has anyone else experiened anything similar? It does of course mean that your deplyment zone is alot closer than usual. In my experince it does make for a bit of a fiercer couple of turns as the opposing sides tend to be able to hook in with rapid fire weapons and assaults much earlier.

Your deployment zones shouldn't be closer together at all, if you follow the rules for deployment. That is, you deploy more than 12" from the centre line of the table, so the (minimum) distance should always be the same (more than 24" apart). It doesn't matter if you were playing on a 6x3' table, or a 6x6' table.

I haven't had much experience on unconventional table sizes, personally. I've played on ping pong tables and even on the floor with a rough table size drawn out with a piece of string, but not as a permanent thing. So long as you use the proper rules for deployment zones (and no one plays a horde army) you should be fine.

My club's standard for table size (because of how many players we have) is 4x4, and that's fine for 1500 points or so. Above that, it starts to get cramped. Also, outflankers are much stronger (because when they come in from a side table edge, they're much closer to the enemy at the start) while infiltrators are a little weaker (because it's harder to find places to deploy that are out of line of sight when you don't have the extra space and, presumably, extra terrain).

I have a table at home that is roughly 6x3 feet. Its all in your face and not great for holding objectives. Im buying another table to put next to it and build terrain however.

My table at home is 4'x6'. The same for the rest of my gaming group, too.

When using a smaller table we generally keep the distances between the armies at the beginning the same, it's just the DZ itself is shrunk.

For example, if you have to deploy 12" away from the center on your 6x3 table, then there is a 6" area on each table side the forces are allowed to deploy in.

For that size table I'd probably make sure the points limit was no more than about 1000 and change it to a 4x3.

My home table is 4x6, but the tables at my flgs where my playgroup gets together is 4x8 for normal games and some bigger tables for apoc.

I have played on tables smaller than 4', but I just didn't like how cramped it was .

clively wrote:
When using a smaller table we generally keep the distances between the armies at the beginning the same, it's just the DZ itself is shrunk.

For example, if you have to deploy 12" away from the center on your 6x3 table, then there is a 6" area on each table side the forces are allowed to deploy in.

Yes, do this, because that's exactly what the rules tell you to do.