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I'm 6'4" and I can assure you my back hurts after playing an ork horde across that table

We solved (actually I solved) that issue in a very simple way: we put an obstacle in the centre of the table!
I don't remember the table size (I played the second edition), but we were able to play with 3000 points (but it worked better with 2500 points), so I think it was pretty large.

 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.

Something similar to this was suggested in the Generals Compendium in the 6th edition for WFB. You had a smaller table that had a part of the deployment zone(2 feet or so) and was supposed be a passage to the main table that was on the flank side of it. Think of this like a mountain pass where you move off from deployment zone and now are on the flank for one side. This usually was supposed to be a group game where two players are on each table and if the defenders get overwhelmed on the small table the attacker joins his buddy on the large table on the flank of the defender. I really like the idea of the portal, elevators or stairs idea as well.

TinyLegions wrote:

 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.

Something similar to this was suggested in the Generals Compendium in the 6th edition for WFB. You had a smaller table that had a part of the deployment zone(2 feet or so) and was supposed be a passage to the main table that was on the flank side of it. Think of this like a mountain pass where you move off from deployment zone and now are on the flank for one side. This usually was supposed to be a group game where two players are on each table and if the defenders get overwhelmed on the small table the attacker joins his buddy on the large table on the flank of the defender. I really like the idea of the portal, elevators or stairs idea as well.

With actions being a thing, you can have rules for "activating portals" or something.

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.

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.

The primary reason was that they want to sell their specific-sized boards, and that their boards are a different size to what everyone made at the time.

Now the reason their boards are smaller than a 6x4 table is purely practical - their box sizes limit what they can do, and thus we got the weirder smaller board sizes. It's the same reason that the Newcromunda tiles weren't actually 1x1 when they came out, but ever so slightly smaller. I don't blame them for that. Changing the size to allow boards that make up 6x4 would have likely messed up their whole manufacturing, shipping and probably even warehouse methodology in the short term. Not worth it for a minor gain.

But the reason those board sizes are the rules now is because GW has that size and wants to sell it. It's got nothing to do with balance, or "average table size", and certainly nothing to do with COVID, FFS. They don't want people buying the 6x4 mats they've been buying, they want them buying their unique size boards. This is the reason it came about.

And it worked. Look how the various mat companies just fell over themselves to make new 60x44 maps.

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

They're minimum because they cannot dictate what board size people play their games on.

Yet.

 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.

Yeah I never saw that either. 6x4 was the accepted norm.

 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.

The old dining table we had when I still lived at home had a 4x3 centre, and then two rounded ends maybe a foot and a half long, but they were curved so it was't a full 6x4 (or bigger) table. It was't great. I had an 8x4 piece of MDF that sat on top of it with no issue at all.

 Jidmah wrote:
I'm 6'4" and I can assure you my back hurts after playing an ork horde across that table

Men are top heavy, it’s why they can’t do that stand back to a wall and touch your toes thing. It’s also what gives them trouble on tables they’re tall enough to reach across.

 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.

For 2000 pointsof marines you will get around 40 models including 1-3 vehicles (if you stick with the cheaper stuff). What you are listing sounds more like 8000 points