Where does the 6'4' table come from?

[YPU]

I mean where did this idea start that everybody needs a table the size of their room to play on? I made one ages ago but even in a big house its a huge unwieldy thing to have around. What game started this trend long back and why did they decide on that size anyway?

[Malebolgia]

Dunno...but nowadays I always game 3'x3' or 4'x4'. I don't game bigger due to the annoying table size needed (and the huge amount of terrain...). Then again, I mainly play skirmish (or skirmish plus, like Warmachine) games, no real armies clashing (unless it's 6mm ).

[Blofeld]

I've always played smaller games even for 40k using smaller force sizes because the sheer amount of terrain as well as storing the board is pretty prohibitive. As far as I know several games including 40k recommend a 4'x6' table but in GW's case that may just be because their realm of battle boards in total come to around 4'x6', and as always with the company, profit overrules playability!
Thanks
Blofeld

[Cory]

This seems to mainly be an American versus European thing.

Even in college we could always find a place for a 4x8', though sometimes those were in questionable places. Big games were on five or six foot wide boards twelve to twenty feet long in someone's garage. The move towards smaller tables for most of the gamers I know has been an issue of time available to play.

[nic-e]

It's the standard size that wood panelling used to come in from domestic hardware shops, so it was easy to use as a standard.

[grant]

It's the standard size that wood panelling used to come in from domestic hardware shops, so it was easy to use as a standard.

This makes sense.

Here in North America, the standard wood sheet is 4x8, so you see a lot tables that size.

Personally, I'm short so I've always found them to be too big. I can't reach!

My preferred sizes are 2x4, or 3x4; I have a 3x4 now (an ikea table - it was a free giveaway, but even if it wasn't, they can be pawned for under $50).

[HerbyF]

Here in the USA a standard sheet of plywood or wall board is 4'x8'. A 6'x4' table you can either have a foot on each side for storage or just cut off 2'. I always played on a 5'x9' table, my self & most of the guys I gamed with kept regulation ping pong tables for gaming.

[FramFramson]

3x3 has always felt a bit small to me, to be honest. If it's a crowded or street corner fight, smaller tables can work, but if it's "outdoors", I feel like smaller tables look and feel wrong. As Rhoderic mentions in another thread, a good urban (or industrial, or military, or any sort of facility) table will have interiors and multiple levels and more subdivisions with walls and furniture and so forth to increase total functional play area, where an "outdoors" table will be more open, with less subdivision. 

Anyway, I don't know where GW got it from (the wood panel, I imagine), but 6x4 was (and still is?) the standard size for a GW table, so a lot of gamers took that as their cue. 

[nic-e]

3x3 has always felt a bit small to me, to be honest. If it's a crowded or street corner fight, smaller tables can work, but if it's "outdoors", I feel like smaller tables look and feel wrong. As Rhoderic mentions in another thread, a good urban (or industrial, or military, or any sort of facility) table will have interiors and multiple levels and more subdivisions with walls and furniture and so forth to increase total functional play area, where an "outdoors" table will be more open, with less subdivision. 

Anyway, I don't know where GW got it from (the wood panel, I imagine), but 6x4 was (and still is?) the standard size for a GW table, so a lot of gamers took that as their cue. 

That is where they got it from. I remember reading am interview with rock priestly where he said his mother for him a sheet of chipboard painted green to play games on when he was younger, and since that was the standard size, I think he just adopted that.

[warlord frod]

The standard size of 4'x6' came about because of the large army battles that most historical gamer's played anything smaller made large engagements difficult. I also think this was the average size of most dinning room tables back in the day so it became the size used as reference. Most of us who played historicals 30 or 40 years ago never talked about smaller tables if anything we were consistently trying to make bigger tables 

[grant]

I think all of this also assumes people are playing 28mm figures; DBA was a huge (funny!) change to use a 2x2 board - that was incredible to think about.

6mm, GHQ tables are 2x4 (there are larger scenarios, but many fit in that space).

[Etranger]

6' X 4' or thereabouts is the standard size for a dining or kitchen table. 5' X 8' is table tennis table sized.....

[Rhoderic]

nic-e is probably right about the standard wargaming table size corresponding with standard dimensions for wood panelling in the UK, but I'll go ahead and speculate a bit about other factors anyway:

For "massed battle" 28mm wargames, I imagine that a table depth less than 4 feet doesn't really feel adequate. In a standard pitched battle, there has to be a decent distance between deployment zones, but players also need to be able to deploy their troops with some potential for "depth". I suppose that you could curtail movement rates and shooting distances, but that would probably feel dissatisfying, especially as you can't really curtail the width and depth of the units themselves to go with these adjustments - that is, unless you go down to a smaller scale like 15mm, but that would defeat the point for 28mm miniatures to exist in the first place.

As for why it's 6' x 4' and not 4' x 4', I see two reasons for that. In a standard pitched battle, you want there to be some potential for flanking maneouvers. In my Warhammer days, there were some opinions among other WHFB players that not even 6' was wide enough to properly allow for tactically rewarding actions to occur at the flanks, and if you wanted real flanking actions to happen, you had to have at least another foot of table width, preferably two or more.

The second reason is that some scenarios (going beyond the standard pitched battle) will benefit from a board that is deeper than it is wide, such as a "meat grinder" / "gauntlet" scenario, or a scenario where an army marching down a road is ambushed along its whole length.

Skirmish games are a different beast, of course, and I welcome the shift toward skirmish gaming in 28mm on smaller boards. That just leaves me with the problem that there are one or two games I'm into that still call for the old 6' x 4' table. Notably, Beyond the Gates of Antares does that (at least it does in the Beta rules - I'm still waiting for my Xilos Horizon box to arrive). We can debate whether BtGoA is a skirmish game, a "skirmish plus" game or a massed battle game, but it won't change the fact that if I want to play it, I kinda need that 4' x 6' table. The other game is Heavy Gear Blitz, although it can be played on smaller areas.

I also think this was the average size of most dinning room tables back in the day so it became the size used as reference.

6' X 4' or thereabouts is the standard size for a dining or kitchen table.

Honestly, I don't think I (or my family when I was growing up) have ever had a dining table 4' deep or 6' wide. The one I have now is 3' x 5' and it's what I would call a standard-sized dining table, at least by my European standards. I've often been frustrated by the fact that I can't just use an actual bloody table to wargame on (at least until I took up skirmish gaming).

[Vanvlak]

Even here in Malta it's available board size which often indicates matters - either that or tournament rules, which (at least until some years back) - were popular. Or in other cases practical size.

What I really like are boards which are not rectangular - if I had enough space in the house for such a board I'd have it in the shape of a palette... would be great for a cyberpunk game.

[YPU]

What I really like are boards which are not rectangular - if I had enough space in the house for such a board I'd have it in the shape of a palette... would be great for a cyberpunk game.

Interesting. I have been moving towards skirmish games as well and I can see the potential for a round or 6 sided table, giving you 360 choice of deployment "edge" If the opponent deploys on the opposite side you still have the board widening in the middle for flanking actions.


I guess in general the fact that some boards are available in 6x4 is the reason its used so much. My initial guess was that it came over from some sort of board used in rail-road miniatures.