I don’t have a house in which a 4’x6’ (120cm x 180cm) can be permanently deployed. I hope to find a good solution one of these days, but in the meantime… what happens when you play on a smaller surface? I have a drop-leaf table that expands to 3’ x 5’-6” (90cm x 165cm), and I’m sure I’m not the only one to wonder what that does to a game. To be clear, I can and do lay particle board over the table to get the standard size. It isn’t convenient nor steady though, so I want to know how important it really is.

I assume it helps slower armies. Can it be remedied with smaller deployment zones or terrain that doesn’t allow straight lines? Does the problem go away if you only play titan-based lists? On another note, does anyone here know what it does to a game of Battlefleet Gothic? I’d like to hear about any experiences on smaller tables, basically.

My sons and i have had the same problem in the past and used a similar sized board. The only real modifications we did was to make artillery units only fire with a direct Line Of Site, or have a unit with a LOS spot for them.
As you have also mentioned, using terrain to break up straight lines is another good one. True it can help slower units but it also means that contact happens a lot quicker and can actually get even more savage as there isn't lots of room for units to hide in or places to run too.
Leaving destroyed vehicles on the table as wreckage is fun too. My boys had a game a while ago where most units had transport or were and AV of some description. By the time the third turn had finished there was a lot of smoke marked wreckage around the city and neighbouring forest and apart from an arty battery of basilisk and squad of land raiders, all that was left were infantry units and most of those were about to enter close combat or fire fight.
Unfortunately I can't help with any info on a titan force.
Could also try using the Minigeddon ruleset or smaller sized forces too.

Smaller tables may restrict maneuver space ...

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Somewhere in the rulebook Jervis mentions the range of table sizes he intended the EA tournament rules for, and I beilieve he gave the range as 3-5 feet on the short table edge, by 5-8 feet on the long table edge. So you are right at the bottom of that envelope but you are still within design specifications.

Give it a try and see if the table actually feels "cramped" or not. It may not. It's nice to have all the space of a larger table, but there is usually one section of the table that does not end up getting much use in my games.

-Allen McCarley

I play BFG regularly on a 4' by 4' table and there are a couple of effects:

1) It feels cramped once you have more than 4 - 5 ships / excort squadrons on the board each and terrain.

2) Nova Cannons become less effective due to the minimum range, and the fact that they cannot hang back out of range firing.

3) Depending on the amount of terrain you have, it skews the game into a much more close ranged battle - so IN, SM etc find it easier as they have fewer turns of approach before being in range.

4) Eldar seem to struggle a little more than normal - Less space to use to escape the enemy firepower

5) Games tend to be much bloodier - Because the table is smaller, contact happens faster, and it is more difficult to get damaged ships out of the way or off the board edge. For this reason, I would suggest being very careful about running a campaign with persistant fleet lists on a small board.

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I'd suggest you use corners deployment and 2000 pts armies. A little bit more room between the deployment zones, and less minis give more space.

Not sure if this would work but could you knock back all measurements by 1/4? If you're playing over 3 foot rather than 4 could you reduce weapon's ranges and unit movement to reflect this?
A Vindicator for example would now have a speed of 22cm (rounding down a little) and a weapon's range of 33cm. No idea if this would work but it might be worth trying.

2 obvious effects spring to mind:
With only 60cm between armies (70-75 if one army deplys on the baseline) instead of 90cm then a lot of weapons can shoot first turn without moving, meaning you get sustained fire on units that haven't activated from a lot more than the usual volcano cannons.

With the reduced range between armies, anything with movement 30cm+ can double and be in a position to support a first turn assault on a unit that hasn't yet activated. With the normal 90cm between armies, nothing can double and be in a position to support an assault (best they can manage is to be 20cm away). With only 60-75cm between armies they can. This means any army that can drop an assault via teleport or air transport can now do it with a large ammount of supporting fire.
An ork army that wins the roll to go first could quite happily double 30 buggies up to the opponents BTS on a 1+, retain, and assault on a 2+ with a landa filled with boys that now have a on of supporting fire. Same applies to marines, chaos, eldar.