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Do you have a pic of your setup?

8x4 is pretty bad for apoc considering the range of weapons and the size of units. I personally will never play Apoc on anything less than 8x6.

 malfred wrote:
Do you have a pic of your setup?

Nope still in the planning phase. was gonna do some crazy old fashion wood working but thats bust as the situation changed.

now i need a fit my own table in my garage wall. so two 2x6 that i can physically bolt together for sturdiness seems the way to go.

(also cant find 2x8 racks though still searching :( )

Where do you live that gaming in the garage is a year round option? You can be as general as possible

I may eventually build a more "permanent" table in my game room, but for now, what works best for me are folding tables.

I have several of the 30" x 72" fold tables (2.5 feet by 6').

I use one for when we are playing smaller games or board games (small xwing battles, cards, zombicide, pandemic, etc.).

for war games that prefer a 4x6' area, I put two tables together, long edge, and get a single playing surface that is 5' by 6'. Then I put a gaming mat down for a smooth even surface (you could put down a thin sheet of mdf 6x4).
This gives a little edge on each side, for dice, drinks, reserves, etc.

When we want a bigger game, i put several of the tables together - for example, four tables together is a 6'x10' big play area (which we then put gaming mats down on).

Sure, it might not be as nice as a custom made gaming table that is of a specific size, but it is very flexible, and has proven to be a good use of space.
(I store the tables in a closet in the game room when not in use....which is almost never).

kenofyork wrote:
A standard ping pong table is a good investment for gaming. When you are not playing table tennis you can remove the net and cover it with a layer of cheap indoor-outdoor carpeting. I use the heavy felt looking stuff. I have several that I painted the backs on to look like various surfaces for fantasy or sci-fi. At 5' X 9' the extra space makes for some great games. When finished it folds up and rolls away for easy storage.

If you calculate the surface area it really shows the extra playing space. At 4 X 6 you get 24 square feet of gaming space. A ping pong table gives 45 square feet of battle space.

This is a really good idea. I played a lot of 40k in the tabletennis room of my dorm back in the day.

4x6 is the norm for most games (Warhammer, Bolt Action and related games, etc), Warmachine uses 4x4, not sure about others.

Kinda curious to hear more about this, since I have an apartment and not a lot of room so 4x4 is all I can manage (which is fine since I play Warmachine basically exclusively) but I'd like to branch into other games and wouldn't have a big enough table to use :( The 4x4 takes up enough space as it is.

I might have to look at a ping-pong table they can be folded and stored or whatever, getting a 4x8 or more would be nice!

I used to have a heavy old foldup pingpong table I used but the verandah it was under leaked during a storm and it got badly water damaged. Now all I currently have is a roughly 4x2" desk in my bedroom and a couple 4x2" MDF boards I lay on my bed to make a square.

One day I'll get a new pingpong table but somewhere more weatherproof.

kenofyork wrote:
A standard ping pong table is a good investment for gaming. When you are not playing table tennis you can remove the net and cover it with a layer of cheap indoor-outdoor carpeting. I use the heavy felt looking stuff. I have several that I painted the backs on to look like various surfaces for fantasy or sci-fi. At 5' X 9' the extra space makes for some great games. When finished it folds up and rolls away for easy storage.

If you calculate the surface area it really shows the extra playing space. At 4 X 6 you get 24 square feet of gaming space. A ping pong table gives 45 square feet of battle space.

This is my optimal sized table for gaming.

I have only once needed a larger area, and that was in running a 6mm Sci-Fi game of Striker, where there was a central "engagement zone" (an area where both players could enter), and areas surrounding the "engagement zone" where either one or the other of the players could enter (and which had troops belonging to each player which could not leave these areas, or sometimes specific zones within these areas - patrol routes, fire-bases, villages, etc.).

It was the best game I ever ran, and the one which generated the most praise.

But it required four Ping-Pong tables to play, and most of the players had a hard time reaching the center of the table (I had tried to plan so that movement through the very middle would be minimal, and I created sticks with spatulas on them to pick up bases of miniatures - Striker like FoW, uses Fire Team bases of two to four miniatures each). I did have the terrain set up so that we could move the Ping-Pong tables apart, to more easily reach miniatures.

But that is about as extreme as you are going to get for home gaming.

A Ping-pong table should be large enough for most games now.

And they are easy to store and set-up.

MB

I have a 4x6 in my game room. Something I've notice recently is that I never use 4x6 in any game. 40k and Bolt Action only takes up 4x4 or 4x5 during play. I can't think of any Warmachine game I've played that needed more than 4x3. The edges are generally covered in the dead, books, dice, and templates.

I think when I get around to building my own fancy game table it will be 4x5 game space with either a 12" side board or 2 6" side boards for books and such. It will definitely have cup holders.

With 4x8 you can always use less table but you might not have enough table.

You don't need a table thats 4x8 all the time though, have it hinge at both ends and cut down to like 6x4.

Zomnivore wrote:
With 4x8 you can always use less table but you might not have enough table.

You don't need a table thats 4x8 all the time though, have it hinge at both ends and cut down to like 6x4.

I was just thinking back to my gaming tables when I had a house.

I remember that my dining-room table (which I built in a furniture design class in 1985/86) was 6' x 9' (at the largest, it had two 2' leaves, making it normally 6'x5').

But I had this leftover lumber for the top, and I decided to make both additional leaves, and additional side-tables (running the long-axis of the table).

So... I made two more leaves, giving me a final central table of 13', and I made two (folding) tables that were 2.5'x9' each.

I only ever got to use the folding tables, since we would up playing at a friends house, who had no means of moving his miniatures, but I did the tables.

But I often thought that they were pretty useful, and that having smaller, interlocking (oh... I forgot to mention, I built a pinning system that attached the two tables together so that they did not shift during use) tables was more useful than the giant, heavier (but more attractive) larger table.

I wonder what kind of a Market there would be for folding gaming tables (of various sizes) that were interlocking?

Say:

1.5'x4'
1.5'x5'
1.5'x6'
1.5'x8'
1.5'x9'
2'x4'
2'x5'
2'x6'
2'x8'
2'x9'
2.5'x4'
. . .

I totally have access to the shop to create these, so that they would be "interlocking" not just with others of the same size, but of different sizes as well... And some gaming equipment manufacturer like Litko could probably sell them.

Just thinking aloud. I don't know if anyone makes tables explicitly for gaming.

MB

Thanks everyone for all the great input!

We are probably going with 5x8, as that seems the best. Ping pong won't fit the motif of the room though My wife is working on the painting desk and bookcases right now then she will get cracking on the table. When the room is complete I will be sure to post lots of pics!

 Crimson Devil wrote:
The edges are generally covered in the dead, books, dice, and templates.
.

Precisely why I like having a board bigger than its generally required for the actual game .

It's always frustrated me that so many tournaments and gaming venues don't allow for space to put your stuff

I've got a 4x6 and a 4x8 upstairs. The 4x8 is nice because there is an extra 1' on either end to be used when setting up armies and removing casualties/reserves etc. It is a bit bigger of course, but I like having the extra space. However, if you are going to do a purpose built table, shelving underneath can serve this purpose quite well whilst saving on floor space.

I just recently dismantled my old gaming table, a 6x4 custom made folding game table that weighed a ton and was becoming rather beat up. It was simply too heavy for most folding tables to set on, so we always put it on sawhorses and a frame made of 2x4s. It was rather unstable being on sawhorses, even with the frame, and it was a pain to break down and store when I needed to reclaim my garage. It was made by a friend of mine years ago, and one of the additions I added was a small little extension on each of the short ends to put models, dice, cards, etc. It was very handy and influenced my new table set up.

I've recently acquired two 6ft x 2.5ft folding tables that are lightweight, easy to fold and store, and rather sturdy. When put together, its a nice sized space for 40K, large board games, and two X-Wing mats. Using a single table is ideal for card games and smaller board games. For 40K, I'm getting a F.A.T Mat to put on top, and we'll have a little extra space on the long edges to put models, books, cards, etc, which will be really nice because the actual game space can be clear of clutter.