"Dealing With Downsizing" Topic

It is looking likely that I will have reduced space for gaming in the near future, going down from a 5' x 3' board to a maximum 3' x 3' board. I already play some games very suitable for small tables (DBA, 1HW plus the rest of Neil Thomas' rules) but some games I play (Polemos, Grande Armee, WRG WW2) need a bit bigger space. Given those circumstances, would you rebase your figures to work on a smaller table (e.g. 3cm x 3cm bases for GA rather than 3"x3" bases) or just concentrate on the smaller games?

And which games would you recommend that are specifically designed for smaller tables?

My collection is mainly 6mm (Ancients, Medievals, ECW, Napoleonics, WW2), some 15mm WW2 and some 28mm WotR/Fantasy.

Don't rebase, argh. Maybe game differently at home, and look into new venues/outlets for gaming that requires more space?

Yeah, you live in Nottinghamshire. If GW still has space for gaming at certain times at the HQ maybe focus on games you can play there.

If GW still has space for gaming at certain times at the HQ maybe focus on games you can play there.

Don't think they'd let you play anything historical though, or any game that doesn't use GW minis!

GA is like Volley and Bayonet in that a number of people play in half scale, so they use 1.5" x 1.5" bases. You could also use DBA size bases, especially if you want to play the Napoleonic version of DBA.

Is it possible to have a 5 x 3 board up against the wall that you can set up just for games, or do you literally have no room?

Armati Intro unit scale for Ancients and Medievals- DBA style basing but with the Armati rules.

Good games for small tables:

For your 6mm WW2 — Blitzkrieg Commander

DBN or Snappy Nappy could work with your current Grand Armee basing

If you want to expand the game library into more non-historicals:
X-Wing
BloodBowl
Super Dungeon Explore

Dear Whirlwind.

Just curious.

Why do you have to down-size?

When I was a kid, I played games and just took the inches as centimeters. So 12" became 12 cm.

Oddly enough, that's exactly the recommended table size for my colonial Australian frontier game, 'Boomerang' (assuming 15mm figures), which I'm about to commence redevelopment of and possibly make publicly available.

Most of out stuff atINLGames is designed for a 3'x3' sized table.

Dux Bellorum?

I wouldn't rebase unless you absolutely have to. WRG works fine if you halve the ground scale.

Anything on a grid works well in a small space, we've had loads of fun with CnC Napoleonic and Ancient played on hexes, and as mentioned above, the various Neil Thomas sets are also aimed at small tables.

Thanks for all the very useful ideas so far.

@OSchmidt,

My family needs the room with my gaming table in for something else. I have been in my current house for nine years and as my family has grown, there has been a gentle downward curve for available gaming space: 10'x5', 7.5'x5', 5'x5', 5'x3'…

I will be able to use a bigger space from time-to-time, but my regular gaming will have to be on the smaller board.

Naturally, when conditions change I'm hoping that the curve will start to drift back up!

Most of my gaming is solo, as my work doesn't generally allow for regular access to club nights or opponents. Again, this will hopefully change in the future.

I would not rebase, but maybe changes to ranges and distances.

Dear Whirlwind

Ah, I see. Thank you, very noble sacrifices for a good cause.

De Bellis Minimus is great, light fun and played on a 1 foot square board.
Malifaux is very entertaining and plays on a 3 foot square board. With proxies to start you can try before you buy a crew.

Dear Whirlwind

Just a suggestion. I had a work area in the finished basement and I got tired of the slovenly mess my table was in and despaired of ever REALLY cleaning it up and keeping it neat. Anyway, what I did was make a "wargame box" made from old scrap plywood I had laying around. The box was 42" by 36" and had a folding lid which covered it over. Into this I pured (yes, poured! my supplies. Then I worked on straightening it out as I needed when I worked on it. The lid was made from some finished table planking you can get at any large home improvement store, and I put handles on each side, and securing hasps in the front so it could be picked up and moved around.

I was thinking something like this might be good for you to do the same thing, or store minis in, and you can pick it up and fold it up and put away when not in use. if you cover the base with thick felt it will not scratch anything like table tops and it can be moved out to the yard to a picnic table in the nicer weather.

Id make one for you if you wished but I think you're in England and the postage would be a killer. You could buy a larger house for that.

Hope I can help.

Otto

We raised nine children. For a very brief spell, ALL NINE were still living at home. I never entirely lost my "game room". But there were a couple of spells, each lasting many months, where one or even two boys had to be put in my game room as their bed room, in order to grant their bellicose older brother(s) the space that they needed to reestablish and maintain family amicability. My gaming table is a folding ping pong table, so up against the far wall it was rolled. All of the stuff normally stacked underneath it went along said-far wall, and mattresses were laid out on the floor. My gaming at those times took a hit, but it wasn't that hard to move the mattresses out into the hallway and open the "gaming table" and play with visiting friends one night a week. You just have to be flexible with moving things around. I hope that you don't have to be forced into a 3 x 3 space! Rethink this….

My gaming table is a folding ping pong table, so up against the far wall it was rolled.

Most rooms in a typical house in the UK aren't big enough to house a ping-pong table. The ones that are usually have beds in …

I wouldn't rebase.

For your 28mm WoTR/Fantasy figures, I'd suggest Song of Blades and Heroes. It plays well in a small space, especially if you have a good deal of terrain. If it's not quite your flavor of game, maybe give Open-Combat, Warlord or some other similar game a try. There's lots of fun to be had in the warband-skrimish size of game with 28mm.

All that said, doesn't LOTR SBG play well on small tables already? Maybe give the "Battle Companies" variant a try as it uses many fewer minis.

I would not rebase. I would rather have major dental surgery. For Napoleonic at a smaller scale I would recommend 2 by 2 Napololeonics. It's free and has a new revision cleaning it up quite a bit.

I am with daler240D. Do anything you can not to rebase – change the distances, fudge the distances.

I have trey out a lot of ancient rules using 40mm wide bases on a 2'x2' table. Most rules work as is, or converting inches to cm, mainly as they either use larger units that are 'shrunk' to just 40mm wide, or just using less units.

I have also tried out some 6mm WW2 rules on 2'x2' tables that are not designed for them. Again, converting inches to cm seems to work just fine.

We are very gradually preparing armies to play Irregular Wars. If memory services, 2x2 table recommended for 15mm and 3x3 for 28mm.

In my experience, I find that our hobby has really improved in this respect. More and more game designers go out of their way, I think, to design their games for smaller surfaces. It just makes more sense as lots of war-gamers around the world live in small apartments or, because of family size, just don't have the spare space for something as trivial as gaming.

If you use inches just read as cm – that puts a 6x4 ft table on to 2ft 4in by 1ft 6in

Have you considered gaming on the floor?

As long as you are comfortable sitting on the floor it is a perfectly feasible place to game at. Tiles can be used for the ground cover or even a blanket if you prefer a simpler route.

Even if you are not comfortable sitting on the floor one of these may be reasonable means of moving figures from a standing position:

link

Although I would recommend adding a bit of soft foam, as is used in figure cases, to the tips to ensure bayonets & swords remain straight.

Alternatively you could try moving the figures with a shuffleboard cue such as this:

link

The shuffleboard cue might work especially well if the bases and floor are both smooth enough that the figures slide smoothly along.