Well I'm back from my latest jolly which should hopefully give me a clear run up until Christmas. I'm not complaining, far from it, but as the dark nights approach there are a lot of things I need to do wargaming wise. Just before I went away I decided to take the plunge and purchase a large terrain mat which I hope to use at wargames shows later this year and next year. The mat, ordered from Tiny Mats at the TinyWargames company was waiting for me when I returned.A very prompt return of product.
I wanted a mat big enough to cover my table should I decide to use it instead of my generic boards, and also be big enough to use at a show to give a large wargame. They agreed to print me a 13' by 7' mat. An irregular size but I want to put hills under the mat and then fix the whole thing to a table, hence the strange size. It will give me a 12' by 6' table. While I was away this time I saw a lot of sunbathers were using large plastic clamps to fix their beach towels to their beds. The little wargaming lightbulb came on, and courtesy of E Bay I have ordered some. Except they wont be fluorescent pink in colour.I intend to spray them black.
Unfortunately my images dont do the mat justice. As wargamers will know, the mats are a much better green than the image I have took.I would thoroughly recommend the company and on first look, the terrain mat. A big investment but its a lot lighter than the mdf boards I have used in the past.
As I have alluded to in my title page we are experiencing something of a Golden Age in wargaming, and the ability to buy such items at the press of a button is first rate.I now just need to move a 100 plus terrain boards.
When I think of all the cash that I have spent over the years on trying to get a good game surface and never really being happy with any of them ..... and here we are now, mats are such a simple and effective solution - indeed a Golden Age of Wargaming.
ReplyDeleteI darent think about how much. I have nearly 180 mdf terrain boards, each one fully sculptured with houses and hills.
DeleteYes, we've never had it so good!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
And yet wargamers still whine. Now why is that I wonder.
DeleteYes they're very good and vfm.
ReplyDeleteand of course we had it first in the Dale 😉
DeleteRobbie,welcome to my world!! mats/cloths/sheets etc. are so versatile-look forward to seeing it at the next show.
ReplyDeletejohnc
John,
DeleteI have found that a mat has many uses, ie you can play on it, or you can wrap yourself in it when you need a nap.
I prefer the mats and not just from a storage perspective. A mat has no range markers in the same way that a two foot board has when laid out on the table. Much more difficult for a gamer to assess whether they are within range or not.
ReplyDeletePaul,
DeleteYou are showing your age there, years ago we used rules where you had to guess how far a range was to a unit, the two foot board was always a good help.
I decided that mats were the way to go a couple of years ago principally because i didn't have room to store terrain boards and frankly because i was sick of trying to match the flocks and paints on the sit on top hills to the main base. Now i simply scatter some lumps of foam around , throw a clothe over them and away I go. Stiffer mats are better but they need to be flexible enough to fall over the terrain. Last year I invested (at the cost of weekend holiday)in a wonderful looking textured mat that proved to be totally inflexible. We live and learn heheh
ReplyDelete