"The 20' x 12' Table" Topic

It's all in the wording of the question which determines the answer. Try asking it this way: would you rather play a wargame on a small, medium, or large table? When you use the term "pinnacle" of your gaming it puts people off. You would get similar poll results if you asked: is it the pinnacle of your gaming experience to play on a 3' x 5' table?

A table that is 12' wide would prevent one from reaching into the middle, unless it was separated into two 6' wide or three 4' wide tables.

Jim

I played on a 20-foot (split in the middle) by 30-foot table, gaming with 54mm Army Men figures… It was incredibly fun! To be honest, it was a childhood dream come true. We are planning, and building, a follow-up game, which will be set in a large, table-covering, city, with 3+ story buildings. Tanks will be at a disadvantage, but Infantry will come into their own, against Tanks, who will have difficulty maneuvering. Long range fire will be limited, and it will be a very large scrum game.

Honestly, there is just something wonderful in playing on a really large table. If you have never experienced it, I don't think you can truly appreciate it. I encourage everyone, no matter what scale your game is, to play on a really large table, at least once.

To put this into perspective, I normally game 25mm figures, on a 5-foot by 9-foot table. Anything smaller, seems too limited, too confining to me. Even when I played WW II, in 6mm, we played on a 6-foot by 12-foot table, and that was just about right. YMMV. Cheers!

So true, the perfect size table would be either 6 or 7 feet wide at most since for most individuals they could reach the middle of this size of a table.

So for me the perfect table would be 6 x 12 or 6 x 15 feet.

I figure the 6'x4' table is close to ideal – large enough to put a lot of toys on, small enough to easily reach across.

For most of my gaming I have a 12'x6' table in my game room. However twice a year we have a large CLS game of 18-20 players using a set up in the garage of 20/24'x6' and it has been great.

I had a lot of fun playing TMPer Nashville's "virtual wrap around" pirate game years ago, on a table that was, I'm guessing at least 4' x 24' (4 standard tables laid end to end, but it might have been more). But in actuality, I really only played in maybe 8' of that length, max. (I started at one end table and "sailed off the edge of the world" to pop back up on the opposite end table on "the other side of the world.") Great, silly, over the top game, but what was happening in the areas I didn't sail to (and really couldn't in the time allowed) meant little to what my little ship and crew did. I suspect that's the case with most "huge" table games— the players really only deal with a comparatively tiny aspect of that real estate, so the actual overall table size influences the individual player's experience very little. Probably not too unlike a real battle— you do your bit where you are, and hope the rest of the forces do theirs— and when you're done, you trade bull stories over a beverage or two.

The pinnacle for table size for my group was in the late 80's on a holiday weekend when we used a ballroom at my college (100 ft by 80 ft playing area). Using rocco 1/72 modern (at the time) vehicles, off board artillery, helicopters and planes. We used binoculars to spot. That a was rather fun game.

Early on our games were played on a 12x12 table. Fun but it was a pain to reach the middle.

When that table died we rebuilt it as two wheeled 8x6 tables (8x4 playing surface with a lower one foot area for drinks or books). We added a two foot removable brace to join them to make it 8x10. We have a few tall guys so this works well enough for us.

I never, EVER want to play on a split table again. But accepting the question and not the title, I have very fond memories of what was then known as The Fall Game at Mort's. The main table was 7' x 20 something, and the small table was I think 6'x15'. Fifteen to twenty wargamers, two days and about 4,000 30mm Napoleonics. Leipzig, Arcis sur Aube, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland. Last one I got to was about 45 years ago.

I have a lot of fun fighting my regular opponent with 1/72 or microscale on a 3'x3' board. But it's not The Fall Game at Mort's.

We had some mammoth 15mm Napoleonic games on very large tables at the Penn State Wargaming club when I was there in the 70's. We had a whole bunch of 2' x 6' tables and each table had it's own cloth covering. So as the action moved from the edges to the center we could just pull out individual tables to get access to the center of the map. It worked amazingly well.

20x5 is our setup at Discover games.

You can't effectively use a table more than 6 or 7 feet deep.

I have played on a 32x 7.5 table for a big game and it was great fun. Good rules, players, and scenario for a entire weekend. But the pinnacle of wargaming is when you have a great campaign.

I get to play a big game of that type once a year most years. It's an enjoyable change from the other sorts of game but not a *pinnacle*. In wargaming, size isn't everything.

Phil

Interesting. As of this moment I am experimenting with 2x2 ft game tables

May I ask why, Company? I fooled around with them, but I don't gear now for smaller than 3'x3' on the principle that you can always find a card table--and room for a card table--somewhere.