Hello everyone! I am brand new to the forums, and fairly new to the game, having only played a few times with my friends. They've enjoyed it as well, but a problem we keep running in to is space. None of us have dining tables large enough for a proper game, and it's been a real damper on play.

Work my question is, what kinds of setups do people have if they play at home? Especially ones that are collapsible, inexpensive, or both.

Than you and I look forward to hearing from you all!

I own a 4ft x 7ft sheet of plywood, with the 6in on either edge painted gray and the inside of it painted up in a starfield. The gray represents a command table on a bridge, and serves as a spot to put all your cards and stuff. I need to saw it in half to make it collapsable before I move.

I have a 7 foot x 3 1/2 foot dining room table that I play on. When we were purchasing a new dining room set, the ability to play Armada on it was one of the must-haves before we considered a table. I would highly recommend this if your significant other wants to buy a new dining room table.

Edit: I also built two 6 1/2 foot x 4 foot table toppers so that we can play our Corellian Conflict games all at one location and at the same time.

I have an Alpha table from Firmer Terra. 4'x6' table that folds down to about the size of a bass guitar case

Sam's Club sells 8ft long tables. You buy two of them put them side by side. I have a piece of nice wood with varnish on it to make a continuous surface.

Before I got smart and built a table topper for my full size pool table, I build one for my kitchen table. 3 pieces at 2x4, and I felted them so the extra 6" on both sides are marked off.

DIY or the prefab options above are all very valid.

I have fold in half 5ft trestle table that I put 2 3x4 boards on to make a 6x4 foot table. I use that for all my table top war gaming FOW and BA as well as Armada and the odd x-wing game.

Question for those of you using multiple boards- how do you hold them together for play? Just mass and friction, or do you attach them in some way?

1 hour ago, vercingex said:

Question for those of you using multiple boards- how do you hold them together for play? Just mass and friction, or do you attach them in some way?

I drilled five holes in both sides and then glued dowels in one side to attached them. Have never had them come apart during a game.

2x 29" wooden saw horses and a 6'x4' piece of plywood. It's also nice to paint my stuff on because I don't really care if paint gets on the table. I would recommend sanding the top surface and the edges to prevent slivers though.

I go to my friend’s house and play on his table. But that’s okay — he’s the one with all the Armada stuff!

Building a table topper is actually pretty easy. I took an old dining table and turned it into an armada table.

Plywood is 4x8. Cut 2 foot off making it 4x6. Now cut it in half. You now have two 4x3 boards. Screw 3 or 4 small pieces of wood on the underside of each piece (as a guide for where it sits on the table). Stick 2 window locks to the underside of the table to connect the 2 halves. Find a good mat for the top, or just spray a couple cans of bed liner, plastidip, or whatever. Flick some different colors of paint on it, lightly paint on lines 6 inches from each long side and you have a great little table to play armada on.

Unlatch it, stick it in a closet, bring it out when you need it.

I over-engineered one with hinges and a 1 foot flip out extension on one of the short sides...but all that isn't needed. If you don't want to use someone's dining table, you could build some saw horses easily enough to act as table legs for it, or buy some folding ones. You can find some 4x6 folding tables on line for pretty cheap too though, much more portable. You can find cheap dining room tables on craiglist or your local garage sale site pretty regularly. I have 2 tables that I can tear down and pack away in 10 minutes or less.

I made two 3x3 foot squares and just use those to play on. One for X-Wing, two for Armada. Spray them black, then some light red and blue misting in spots, and then spatter with white. Voila!

Home Depot/Lowe's. Get one of the 4x8 boards (the nicest you feel like paying for), have them cut it for you into two foot sections. Three of them on top of a kitchen table makes for a great space, and won't cost you more than 20-30 dollars. Spray painting them like stated above is a good idea (I like to use white, yellow, and blue to make a galaxy background myself).

Get a 6x3 ping pong table, I think they run $100-150, then get a 6x3 yoga mat for $20.

Best setup available for a limited space house.

My setup used small latches to secure the 3 sections together and held in place with metal rods (wood dowels also work)

4 hours ago, Lord Ashram said:

I made two 3x3 foot squares and just use those to play on. One for X-Wing, two for Armada. Spray them black, then some light red and blue misting in spots, and then spatter with white. Voila!

Like your sun/star there that is a good idea for the solar corona mission. to remind you to take it into account.

I need to build myself a permanent table. Maybe with some cup holders would be good.

If you're looking for something a little nicer than the obvious giant sheet of plywood...

I had the same issue. With zero experience in doing any of this sort of thing and a couple evenings' work, I built myself a couple pretty nice upholstered tabletoppers. My materials:

Three 2'x4' plywood sections from Home Depot (make sure they're flat! I bought a warped one first and wasted a bunch of money )
Upholstery batting, medium-grade felt, and adhesive spray from Joann's
Staple-gun and staples (pretty heavy-duty, doesn't need to be construction-grade but does need to drive staples through two layers of felt, two layers of batting, and all the way into the plywood)

It's as simple as cutting out a chunk of batting and felt to fit with a few inches overhang, spray adhesive on the board, staple on the batting, spray adhesive on the batting, staple on the felt, repeat til you have three boards. I think I ironed my felt and batting (before putting it on) to keep it nice and smooth, but I don't think that's strictly necessary.

I actually ended up making two of these. One (a gift to a friend) I hinged the three boards so they folded down into a 2'x4' size; the other I was lazy and just didn't attach them at all, and it still works just fine. I also bought some little self-adhesive rubber feet like this and stuck them on the bottom to keep it from sliding around on the table top and scratching it up.

10 hours ago, Lord Ashram said:

I made two 3x3 foot squares and just use those to play on. One for X-Wing, two for Armada. Spray them black, then some light red and blue misting in spots, and then spatter with white. Voila!

The red and blue nebulae make that something special, in my opinion.

1 hour ago, Audio Weasel said:

The red and blue nebulae make that something special, in my opinion.

It adds quite a bit! I’ll see if I can find a photo that really shows it... for now,there is this...?

Thank you everyone for the advice! I'll probably be making a table topper of some sort, for space and money reasons. Looking forward to finally having a correct sized space to play on.

Mine fits on my dining room table.

But for marital harmony, like others, I bought a 4x8' plywood board from a hardware store and stapled some felt to it. It works great.

On 12/31/2018 at 4:53 PM, Admiral Calkins said:

I have a 7 foot x 3 1/2 foot dining room table that I play on. When we were purchasing a new dining room set, the ability to play Armada on it was one of the must-haves before we considered a table. I would highly recommend this if your significant other wants to buy a new dining room table.

Edit: I also built two 6 1/2 foot x 4 foot table toppers so that we can play our Corellian Conflict games all at one location and at the same time.

How did you ever get your wife to consider THAT as a pre-requisite to get a dining room table? My wife would have kicked me in the shins and told me to go to H***!

2 hours ago, Captain Mayhem said:

How did you ever get your wife to consider THAT as a pre-requisite to get a dining room table? My wife would have kicked me in the shins and told me to go to H***!

We needed a table that comfortably sat eight for Thanksgivings and I needed it to be at least 6 x 3 feet. Because of the size needed for the former, it wasn’t too difficult to ensure that it also met the requirements of the latter. I also found a bigger, better table for about $1,500 less than the one she originally wanted from Pottery Barn (I did get permission before buying), so she was pretty happy that she got a bigger table and we saved money.

The funny thing is, we also bought a Dining Room table for the holidays. It measures 6 feet long by 3.5 feet wide. It replaced an oval one that really could not even hold a 3x3 play mat comfortably.