Steel Lard brought home to me the visual difference between, for example, Ken Welsh's French and Indian Wars set-up:
... and my emergency ACW game:
Now obviously my game was thrown together at the last moment but clearly Ken's printed battlemat makes a huge difference to the visual impact. I decided to splash out.
I've gone with Geek Villain's fleece mats. As Jonathan of Wargaming Recon has pointed out in the past, the texture is lovely; they'd make a very comfortable throw for your bed or sofa!
I decided on two 6'x4' mats, "Grass" and "Rocky Grass". These have the advantage of being the same underlying pattern so I can combine them if I ever need a 12'x6' playing area. Alternatively they'll do nicely for the two-tables-side-by-side approach planned for my Attack on the Northern Hills game.
At the moment our kitchen table spends most of the day being used as a workbench for the Baroness' traditional upholstery (an Edwardian sofa won't fit in her workshop) but I did manage to get in a quick photo session with the "Grass" mat. It shows varied greens with scattered grey rocky areas.
And when I place a few hills on top...
Despite the hill modules having been built, painted and flocked at various times and with various recipes of ground cover, I'm quite pleased with how they blend in.
And here is the "Rocky Grass" mat.
I paid £130 for the two battlemats and on the whole I think they represent value for money. I see no reason why they shouldn't last for ages and they potentially free up storage space that's currently being occupied by six 2'x2' chipboard tiles.
6 comments:
Nice pickups! I forked out the cash for a few table toppers over the last three or four years. They really do make a big difference to the presentation.
Cheers Ski!
I now have two mats from them, one I think Spring Grass, which works well with my flocked terrain items and then a Normandy Beach one, which I've yet to try out. Both excellent quality and pretty good value, considering how much use they will get and of course the reverse is white, so perfect for Winter games.
Ooh, that's an idea I hadn't thought of (using the back as snow) although I have used the black reverse of the GW mat for X wing games!
I was thinking at JoS last year that our Mat'o'War set up looked a tad dated. These bespoke painted tabletops on the other hand, while quite beautiful, are of limited reusability. Textured mats like that may present a good middle ground. Something to ponder 🤔
Cheers Andy! Thinking about it perhaps the sequence of increasing "prettiness of table" goes something like: Uniform mat with few terrain pieces > textured mat with few terrain pieces > uniform mat almost covered with terrain pieces > textured mat almost covered with terrain pieces > fully sculpted dedicated terrain.
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