Hey everyone,

I would like to get peoples thoughts on using larger mats for the play area. Sometimes I feel like there isnt enough maneuver space, especially when turrets get involved. Maybe I am being a sooky lala, but still I thought I would see if there are any others out there who would like the game table to be another foot or so bigger.

No innuendo jokes... PG 13 and all that

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Just play a few games on larger area and see if you get a better game experience.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Just play a few games on larger area and see if you get a better game experience.

As much as I was going to disagree on the idea, this response is total gold. Yes: do that.

(3x3 isnt going away though, ffg sells mat at this size.)

But 3x3 is really easy to hit anything you want with R3 turrets. A large ship with a 4 and a boost into the center can hit everything except a stopped shuttle in a corner. or a small ship at the very edge going 1 forward.

I sometimes play on a 4x4 table with is more standard for other wargames. It works fine, as long as you up the number of obstacles to compensate - 9 seems about right for that size.

3x3 is fine, except for, as people have said, turrets. But I don't like them anyway - give me arcs or give me death.

I'll gladly play Epic on a 6x6. But first raise the epic point cap from 5 to 6 and from 300 to 400 points.

Also if we could have a Nebulon-B and imperial Star destroyer Epic ships that would be nice too. (yeah I know armada got them but who cares this would be EPIC!)

(While you are at it is a Scum huge ship too much to ask for )

3x6 is fun. 3x3 is fine as well. different play strategies and mixing it up can be fun. Casual play without asteroids or loads of them sometimes as well to keep game fresh.

Whining about turrets is so helpful.... NOT! lol

For around the house I prefer 150 points casual play really. More fun to deck out and utilize more ships I have.

Can understand the 100 point limit in tournaments though to keep it simple and quick.

Cheers for your responses. I wouldnt think FFG would go away from the 3x3 format, just curious as to who had ever flown on a larger table and what were the experiences they had had.

I've found that a 4x4 play area adds notably to the time the game takes to play. You're usually adding at least one extra turn before the shooting being, and there will be more instances of ships being out of range. If that's a good or bad thing is going to be down to your gaming preferences, but in generally I've found it to be a bit of a drag.

Hedge has a very good point about adding in extra obstacles, otherwise you end up with a lot of empty space.

4x4 for epic i hear works pretty good... I KNOW it works good or multi-furball matches...

There are the ergonomics of the game to consider... 6x6 I think could only be played on Vassel. In a real game, the center would simply be unreachable. Even at 4x4, I feel you'd have to sacrifice any border around the mat in order to access the entire board without incident. But maybe you taller players would disagree.

Maybe I am being a sooky lala...

OK....first, I have never heard this expression before in my life. I had to google it. It's hysterical! I'll have to tell my kid that one.

Our local game store made a bunch of table tops when X-wing was just coming out that are 2x2. He airbrushed them with cool stars and nebulas and all that. They usually fit into a 4x4. We then either just put a mat on top for normal games or use painters tape to make it 3x3 and have the side room for cards. We have, also, played games on 4x4 before.

If you can get people to play on a 4x4 instead of 3x3, then you probably already have an open minded group that would be willing to try a bunch of different types of games. That's awesome, because all sorts of different game modes are a lot of fun to me. I've found traditional 100 pt games tend to be a bit much on a 3x3, especially because lists these days tend to be under 5 ships. That much space with so few ships is not as much fun. It is great when you play multi player, over 100 pts, Epic, or any number of different types of games.

When you start playing with bigger tables, you can see how movement and deployment become a lot more important. Epic is different in that regard as it's less about specific ships and how much dice and jousting this or that. If you place a squad of ships in the wrong place and they aren't fast enough to correct things, then you might have a dead capital ship. The game changes in a lot of different regards that way. I happen to like it. This is where the X-wing outshines the B-wing. The B-wing is slow while the X-wing has a better dial for bigger tables. It becomes a deadly machine while B-wings lag behind. Other things matter, too, but it's almost too numerous to go into. Things like Ordnance alpha strikes being really good because you can smash one half or one third of their ships really early and then have a huge advantage. Aces become less important because they can't dodge all the arcs and with so many shots coming, their tokens and dice can't hold out. It's a lot of fun.

I'm all about playing X-wing in different ways. It's almost like the same game, but better.

There are the ergonomics of the game to consider... 6x6 I think could only be played on Vassel. In a real game, the center would simply be unreachable. Even at 4x4, I feel you'd have to sacrifice any border around the mat in order to access the entire board without incident. But maybe you taller players would disagree.

Reaching into the middle of a 6x6 area isn't so hard. Doing so with both hands free to act in a precise way is another matter. If your arm span is your height and you figured you could reach half that far it certainly is a stretch to reach the middle of that 6x6 without "bumping" the board and likely resting on the board for support.

When you want to go from a 3x3 board to 4x4 remember that you are increasing the area 78%! What's more is that you are probably doubling the area the obstacles go in so increasing their number is a must. Someone suggested using 9 but really 11 or 12 is what you'd need to keep asteroids as a game issue. You want a bigger area so you get room to hide from a R3 turret you're going to need a way to keep that ship from just pushing you around from corner to corner.

It's not about the size of the play area it's how you use it.

I love super obstacle matches where you through every obstacle and mine you can find on the board. Avoid obstacle placement rules and just go nuts.

Mix it up. Importantly, try new things and have fun.

Going beyond 4 feet in all directions is not ergonomic, especially for players who are not gigantic norsemen.

6x4 might be a good size for Epic, and there are starfield mats that already exist. The main arguments for using 3x6 is that it utilizes mats that player already own, and that it gives you 6 inches of room on the edges of the tables to place your cards. If your mat goes all the way to the edge of your table, you need to have a secondary table space to place your cards, which is inconvenient.

No innuendo jokes... PG 13 and all that

Aw, man!

(3x3 isnt going away though, ffg sells mat at this size.)

But 3x3 is really easy to hit anything you want with R3 turrets. A large ship with a 4 and a boost into the center can hit everything except a stopped shuttle in a corner. or a small ship at the very edge going 1 forward.

I feel the abundance of turrets wasn't really considered when they first set out, but too late now. It would be pretty crazy for them to change but I fly 4x4 (with 1 extra obstacle per side) and find it much more fun to do so.

We've played 300v300 points on 6'x4.5', feels about right with all 18 asteroids/debris. We usually crowd around 6 of us with 100 point lists for something like this and form teams. We've also done 59 point cross faction tournaments with 45 minute rounds on 3x3 with 12 obstacles. Tons of fun!

Mixing up the play area size and number of obstacles is great fun and I strongly recommend it. I would not recommend it for standard tournament play (100 point fleets) because larger or different sized areas will impact playtime, and currently 75 minutes for a 3x3 works very well.