Tuesday 3 August 2021

Beyond the fields we know *

 Twenty five years ago l had a table tennis table set up for gaming , nothing fancy but a surface. I then downsized , the table travelled with us and has never been set up since. It probably will never be and frankly l am not interested in having a set up that big even if I had the space which l don’t.

However as the horizons  of gaming extend due to face to face games becoming tenable l am looking at this-

 
This is the dining room table which was cleared of piles of stuff ( clothes but mainly my two arty daughters paper, paint and numerous art materials) for a family birthday yesterday. When extended it is seven foot long by just under three feet wide. It has the potential for games to be played on it ,left up briefly and finished later be they solo or with others. The idea is to continue with the rolling programme of games on the Theatrum Mundi with bigger games on the table as and when.
It seems sensible to collect armies and to build them from here with that maximum table size in mind. Ok I will have bigger collections to use at a friends but l will gear the vast majority of projects to this table size as a maximum. Most projects will be smaller .
Here’s where you come in . First l wonder what you think of this plan and the tenability of such a narrow table. Secondly in terms of 28mm figures what is the maximum number of units one might use on such a table top? I am currently thinking in terms of 40mm square based infantry figures in units of around five bases. Same possibily 50mm Square for cavalry.
Finally the post title will be explained in my next post...




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12 comments:

  1. Before I build my Shed- we use to play on a Table Tennis Table on the Back Covered Porch...and before that we use to play on a 6'x 4' Sheet of Chipboard in my Study.

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    1. My railway as a boy was fixed to chipboard. I needed my father to move it as it was just too heavy!

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  2. My gaming table if 7ft6in by 3ft; you can get a fair amount on it although you do have set your setup a bit tailored for a scenario to account for less table depth.

    (see http://tidders-kingdomofwittenberg.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-battle-of-lagerheim.html the table is a bit over full but it looked good - all 28mm, with 18 units of infantry and 14 of cavalry)

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    1. I had forgotten your table dimensions Tidders. Good to be reminded of its potential.

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  3. I daydream about having that much space for gaming! Of course, I’m currently mostly confined to my felt sheet at the minimum and my 2 ft x 3 ft cork board as a maximum. You could easily set up sizable games of multiple eras. On the Major General Tremordan Reddering’s site (may he Rest In Peace), his group once ran a shoreline colonial game; the river ran the length of the table, allowing for gunships to affect the battlefield throughout! Or might I suggest a game inspired by the battle of Osgilliath in LoTR? Both forces on either side of a central ruin over a river, with trebuchets in their deepest areas and forces trying to capture fords and strategic points in the central ruins!

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  4. Interesting ideas, thanks for sharing. I think most of my games will continue to be on the Theatrum Mundi in spite of the cleared table.

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  5. How big is your Theatrum Mundi?

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    1. That’s approximately the size of GW’s “Kill Team” game, at 22x30. I don’t play it, but I’ve picked up a couple of neoprene mats in that size for small games.

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  6. So, the short answer would be that a 7’ long table is 210cm. If a unit is 20 cm wide, and you leave ~25% of the table for flanks, you have room for 7-8 units solidly across. A scenario could involved more depth, but the width is limited to 8 units, so ~16 per side would be about as much as you might ever need, IMHO.

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    1. A most practical answer, thank you.

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    2. My current main game table is 3x5, so I’ve been doing those sorts of calculations vis-a-vis my own collection (and not especially like the answer…).

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