@Zallomallo:
I’m actually a bigger fan of the standard board look, with the terrain and stuff. Would 94" x 47" be a good size for that do you think? Like large enough I could fit all the starting units and include plastic factories?
That’s almost exactly the size of my setup, in which a 96" x 48" acrylic sheet rests on top of a foundation of the same size, with the map board sandwiched in between them. (The foundation consists of three large framed painting canvasses bought from an art supply store and covered in black fabric. They combine rigidity and flatness with light weight, but because the foundation is in three parts it’s not as smooth and straight as I’d like it to be. In retrospect, a single sheet of painted plywood would have been a better choice.) The whole assembly – foundation, map board and plexiglass – rests on top of four card tables lined up in a row.
One point to note, however, is that the main part of my map doesn’t extend the full 96" width of the assembly – unlike P-Unit’s setup, which is nearly identical in size but uses a map that is much wider than mine. My setup uses a conventional four-panel Global 1940 1st edition map, placed so that its right-side edge is flush with the right edge of the foundation. On the opposite side, flush with the left edge of the foundation, is an extra right-side panel from a second copy of Pacific 1940. In between this extra panel and the normal four-panel map is a gap through which the black fabric of the foundation can be seen. When I was preparing my setup, I placed all the map boards on the fabric-covered foundation, marked various points on the fabric next to the map edges on each side of the gap, removed the maps, then connected the marked points with lengths of black electrician’s tape (some horizontal and some diagonal). I then put the map boards back in place, then put the plexiglass over the map.
The purpose of this arrangement is to show connector lines between the west (left) side of the Europe 1940 map and the right (east) side of the extra Pacific 1940 map panel. If those two map sections had been on the same scale I would have put the two panels right next to each other. They don’t fully line up, however, so I decided to use connectors to show where you end up when you move from one map panel to the other. (My connectors don’t all agree with the crossovers specified in the rules; I did some customizing in that regard, out of personal preference.) Because the connector lines are made with black tape stuck to black fabric, they’re easy to see when you want to use them and easy to ignore the rest of the time. (Originally I used white sewing thread, but I later switched to electrician’s tape. The tape sticks well to the fabric and stays straighter than thread.)
Another purpose for the extra panel is that it lets me visualize more easily how North America relates to the Pacific Ocean without having to mentally “wrap around” to the other side of the table. I just find that more satisfying. But an unexpected bonus of the arrangement is that the left side of the map assembly provides an extra working surface for use during the game (for supplies and sculpts and so forth). The actual game takes part on the conventional four-panel part of the map, so the left-side extra panel is free for other uses. (To emphasize that the left panel isn’t supposed to have units placed on it, I covered all of the roundels on the panel with adhesive black dots.)
One thing I’ve noticed about my 48" x 96" assembly is that the size is close to the maximum height that allows me to stand at the bottom edge of the map and reach over to place pieces near the top edge of the map without having to walk around the table. So a height of about 48" is good choice from that point of view.
