40K Movement tryas

[Dooley]

Im sure this has been brought up befor and I appologise if it has. But, are movement trays acceptable in a game of 40K?
In my opinion they should not be allowed. Quite frnakly if you cannot move your army in a timely and uniformed fashion you should not be playing that army.
Two they convey an unfair tactical advantage. The ability to keep all your models exactly 2 inches apart ( to avoid maximum template coverage) or to ensure that models can or cannot pass through your own units seems a bit wrong to me.

However I do see how they could be acceptable using my own points. They would allow for maximum deployment and movement speed for Ork/Tyranid/Guard hordes. And would keep things nice and neat.

I dont know how the "rules" play out with it but all in all I am not a fan!

[chromedog]

I use them for my guard platoons and have no one complain about them (my only 'horde' army (I refuse to play with orks or tyranids).

I see ork players taking ages to move their 100+ footsloggers (meaning I get a 3 turn game at a tourney - if it even gets that far) though, quite commonly. Mind you, many of these same players don't even both reading their codex to find their army details before playing.

Downside? Bunches up the units for maximum marker/template hits (one flamer can hit ALL models in these trays).
Upside? Faster to move units, so your turns don't drag out - and you might actually get to play a full game.

[Dooley]

Again like I said. If you cant play your army with speed and efficiency you shouldnt be playing that army.

[LadasN]

Now, you say if you can't move fast, you shouldn't play that army but what if I'm coming from a 25 man space marine army that has upgraded units so there are few bodies on the table, to starting an ork army after christmas? I am now looking at 50-60 or so units on the board but I know the codex well. How can you expect me to move 60 orks super fast into good positions if I am used to playing a 25 man marine army and have little experience with using the orks? ANSWER: practice or movement trays. Just a thought.

Personally I play orks, foot-guard and chaos marines so 2 of my armies require fast moves which has made me good at moving them quick and have never used trays. My opinion? Yes, if you want to use move trays as a crutch to get faster or just straight up use them as a solution to slow movement, go ahead. Its not your fault that you can't play fast when you have no XP with horde armies and that should not deter you from starting the army.

EDIT: the only people who will use trays to achieve max spread of their units are going to be cheese/hardcore players anyway which I avoid so, w/e.

[Culven]

I don't know of any rules (rulebook, codex, or tournament) which have addressed movement trays in 40K. Personally, I don;t see them granting any advantages that the use of a ruler wouldn't provide. In fact, I can see them making it easier to deploy and move. The one disadvantage I can see is that sometimes the tray wouldn't fit into terrain. I have only played against one player who used trays for units. Not only did they make his army display look quite nice, but they made deployment much faster.

[DarkLink]

You do have to be careful to ensure none of the individual models move too far. If you twist and turn the trays around, some of the models in the corners might move more than 6" if you're not careful.

Otherwise, it's fine, albeit awkward if you don't want to have your models all clumped up.

Oh, and trays are spelled trays, not tryas :p

[Duke]

I agree with dark link... Trays also present problems when in assault as well

Duke

[SotonShades]

Personnally I wouldn't use them in a normal game of 40k. Even with my relatively hordey Orks (got a few tanks which thin out the numbers) I can play at a reasonable speed without them.

On the otherhand, in Apocolypse games a horde army can be truely massive. I have used them to move several units of boyz in moments rather than taking over an hour. In these kind of instances, when the nuances of exactly how many models are hit are a little less critical (with 10" templates being rife amongst my group) I don't think the exact spacing thing is as much of an issue and play being sped up is so much more important, given that we usually have a deadline to work to. That said, I still set up the models on the movement tray during the deployment time rather than before it starts, so I'm not saving myself anything there, making it a bit fairer on my opponant

[DrLove42]

But Mister Shades when you say movement trays that you've used you mean bits of paper with the orks piled on top of them :P

I say its fine, cos it helps speed up play for hordes, but not for smaller armies. It also has abig downside, of its harder to cluster behind a building, or go into one without taking them all off and on again

[TSINI]

As chromedog mentioned, most movement trays are not 2" separation trays, in fact they normally bunch your models up into base to base contact meaning they get affected more by blast and flamer templates.

but if your opponent wanted to base them on any movement tray (even a 2" spacer) that's fine - anything that speeds up the game (even with a small amount of troops) can only be a good thing. although i'll agree it's rather beardy ensuring your models are less vulnerable to templates.

I personally wouldn't use them because it takes something away from the "image" of the game.

like if you base your vehicles - they start balancing strangely over terrain rather than "driving" directly on the terrain. similarly you would have to move off of the bases from time to time to physically fit your squads through dense terrain.

[Duke]

So just to make it clear everyone pretty much agrees that they would be fine, but almost pointless. Unless your using them for "speed"reasons. This thread can now be sAfely closed/ ignored from here

Duke

[Lerra]

I play Kroot Mercs, I've noticed for hordes that movement isn't as time-consuming as deployment. The deployment phase can really drag on, and it's one of the more boring parts of the game. I use movement trays for deployment to speed things up, and then I move the models off of the trays in the following turns. Deploying 150 models with long, tangly guns can be a very frustrating and time-consuming process. The trays are also great for movement between games. Putting Kroot back into foam can take a long time because of the spikey bits, and with trays you move to the next table and are instantly ready for deployment.

It's the best of both worlds, and I haven't had anyone complain about it before. I saw a lot of people doing the same thing at Adepticon, which is where I got the idea.

[whitestar333]

What I find amusing about this thread is that I've heard on several occasions that one thing that turns people off to Fantasy is using movement trays.