For King and Parliament in a smaller area?

[mmcv]

Has anyone tried playing FK&P (or TtS!) on a smaller than recommended table size?

My fold up table that I'd ordered to extend my playing area has unfortunately not arrived and I'm hoping to try it out tomorrow morning. I have a six foot by two and a half foot table space to play it on which I hope will be decent enough for two small armies at 150mm squares. It'll give me a 12*5 rather than standard 12*8 grid, but I'm wondering am I better off lining my armies up on the long egde (with flank space) or the short edge (with space between armies).

Based on my reading of the rules my intuition is lining up on the long edge makes the most sense to give maneuver room on the flanks, as the armies will still start (just about) out of range of each other.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

[paulr]

I would line up on the long edge, being only 3 squares apart won't allow much time for manoeuvre

Depending on how you mark your grid an option might be to use a 150x95mm 'squares', that will give you a 12x8 grid
Any units fighting along the table will be oversized for the grid but you can usually find a way to fit in the few units fighting at 90 degrees to the battle lines
A 150x125mm 'square would give you a 12x6 grid if 95mm is a bit too tight

Another option is to use a row of half squares along each long table edge, with 150x150mm squares this gives you a 12x6 grid, with 150x125 it would give you a 12x8 grid
I mark my squares with small stones so can adjust as required

[mmcv]

Hi Paul, thanks for the advice. Some good ideas there. Using rectangular "squares" may just work. I've not my movement trays made yet so rearranging to a smaller frontage when required would be easy enough. I've been making movable grass and folliage tussocks to use along with stones to lay out the grid so can be quite flexible on it.

[mmcv]

A slight change of plan has rendered the kitchen table available to me as well, which will give me enough expansion to provide full depth, though it's not a full six feet long so won't have that depth the whole length. Shouldn't be a concern though as it's two pretty small forces so unlikely to end up in the far corners... hopefully!

[mollinary]

Hi, As you probably know, Simon Miller is a bit of a megalomaniac when it comes to size of units, and given he uses 28mm figures he often has your problem!  A trick he uses is to make the boxes along the baselines half depth, thereby giving him an extra box overall. Given that FK&P does not encourage you to have two units in the same box, and little action takes place in the boxes on the table edge, this sneaky idea seems to work for him!  You can regard them as 'deployment' boxes if you will. This would effectively give you a 12 x 6
box grid, which we have often used with success at shows.

[mmcv]

Haha yes I've seen the size of some of his games! I've just finished laying out the grid, I've for 8*12 at one end and 8*10 at the other. If needs be I can prop up the edges for play to get the full 12 if needed but as I've pretty small armies it won't be necessary I hope. Having the kitchen table to extend has helped certainly

[paulr]

Looking forward to seeing and hearing how it goes

[mmcv]

You can read my report and thoughts here: http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,19064.0.html