I mostly play at game stores, but for home games my table isn't quite 36" wide. I went looking for options on how to make a good play surface without having to store a 36" x 36" sheet of plywood somewhere, and I found a solution that works really well for me: a tri-fold foam display board. It even comes in black, and it's $12 on Amazon.

The board comes as 36" x 48", but if you cut off one of the wings at the fold, the remainder is exactly 36" x 36". That leaves one folding wing (36" x 12") and the center panel (36" x 24"), and it was fairly easy to score the front of the center panel so it folds in half backwards. Then the whole thing folds down to 36" x 12" as a 3-panel accordion fold.

It's not the most durable, but it's light and cheap and folds down to a convenient size. It looks great with a play mat on top and not bad by itself, and it's easily stiff enough to support ships, dice, etc. as it hangs over the edge of a table.

Thanks for the idea.

I might have to try this. The folding table I bought ended up being 27 1/2 inches wide, so I have been trying to figure out a solution. Being that skinny has its advantages, though. If both players pick a 4 maneuver, shots get fired on Round 1.

we have a 36'x30' kitchen table and it was fine for a while but it started to wind me up that it wasn't full sized so I bought this table from Amazon which was 3'x3', but the edges were rounded so when starting out the models drooped a little, and also there wasn't any room for cards or tokens. So, I went to Home Depot and had them cut me a 3'x4' piece of $10 wood, which I then covered in vinyl, and it sits on the Amazon table. It's really pretty sweet, for a total of about $70.

I had a trifold board and I found the play surface to be extremely slippery. You bump a ship and it slides way too much. To stop that I put cabinet door bumpers on the bottom corner of each of my bases. I picked up a sheet of 48 bumpers for $3 or $4 (4 per base makes it 12 bases per sheet) and I picked up 5 sheets for under $20. No more slippy sliding.

This sounds like the perfect thing to combine with a can or two of this: http://m.homedepot.com/p/Plasti-Dip-11-oz-Black-Rubber-Coating-Spray-11203-6/100131010.

Cheap, light, portable, grippy, stores easily- the only thing it's lacking is durability, but as long as you're careful this sounds like a great play surface solution.

I need a light weight option to my current portable table top. I might try this out... My local dollar store sells these prensentation boards and I figure that I can just fasten down the whole thing with masking tape (looped to make the tape 'double sided'). I would like something that's one-piece and easy to carry.

Right now, I use two 4x2 precut press board sections clamped together with giant binder clips and 2 small, hobby plywood pieces for support. It works well- even on a small card table and gives me plenty of side room for game components.

My memory is that the cardboard display boards (which I'm guessing is what a dollar store would have) bend and flex quite easily. The foam ones (like the one I linked) are more expensive, but they're quite stiff for hanging over the edge of a table.

Let us know if you find something that works, though!