Battlemat Deepdive & Madness

Something that I don't tend to focus on in wargaming is the terrain, and more specifically the surface of the board, so I wanted to share a bit of the collection that I've been working on of battle mats, but also terrain "flats" since I don't have much room for buildings, trees, etc. like I used to back in my parent's basement back in the day. The flats will be another post.

Many games require different sized boards, 2x2', 3x3', 4x4', 4x6' seems pretty standard. There are those historical Napoleonic guys who have 5x8' tables, but that's just not very common anymore. It's also WAY easier to lean across a 4x6' table and not spear yourself on the metal points of your pikemen, knock over trees, or shift a figure/unit by mistake.

But either way, what we used to do "back in the day" was to get a thin green thin fabric sheet from a place like Michael's, lay it down, with some books underneath it for hills, stick some trees, buildings, fences etc. on it, and get to playing. Whenever I make it to my parent's house for XMas days with BigWillie and/or Goulio, that's STILL what we do, because all my old terrain and that green sheet is still there.

I also play the ancient's game DBA, which uses a 2x2 or sometimes 3x3 board, and I bought a few boards for this game:

JoAnn's Fabric square 2x2':

I bought this first. It's called Something Something Green:

Pros: 

1. Subtle mottling to it. Perfect for terrain cloth.
2. Almost felt, but not quite.  Nice and soft and pads the figs without tipping them over.
3. Plus, I could use a sharpie to mark the dots for DBA deployment zones on it, and they are pretty subtle too. 
4. Easy to scrunch up into a box/bag and not worry about it. I prefer to roll it to remove creases as much as possible
5. Cheap as chips since all it is is fabric

Cons:

1. But it tends to hold creases a bit. 
2. Because it's artificial material, you can't iron it (or at least I haven't tried yet)

Mats by Mars 2x2':

Pros: 

1. Looks great! Fantastic choice of textures. I picked Swallowing Sand terrain and some Grassy Spring for DBA fights
2. Easily takes sharpie. I used a brown marker to mark out the deployment zones. They are still subtle (can't see 'em in the photo can you!), and if you REALLY want you can send Mats by Mars a deployment overlay and they'll print it custom on that mat for you! I saw this at the DBA tournament, and it was very helpful and fast
3. Totally flat. Very thin vinyl material, so easy to place "flat" mousepad terrain on. I shall use these for my first few battlebox fights with Warmachine in addition to DBA.

Cons:

1. Takes a bit of time to level out. If they have been rolled up for a while, you have roll them the other way, and sit a while for them to totally sit flat, but do they do it eventually so not a biggie.
2. Expensive. These 2x2' mats are (compared to just cloth) a little pricier, about $17 each, which frankly isn't that bad for what you get, so a minor con :)

Cigar Box Battle Mats:

Next on the list are the luxury things that I indulged in.  CigarBox has a kickstarter every couple of years, where they do a special run of "double sided" mats. I could not resist.

Pros:

1. Looks AWESOME. 4x6' fabric fleece. Great printed textures, and it doesn't bleed through both sides, so both sides look completely unique.
2. Fleece. It's machine washable. You can wrap yourself in it! My daughter rolled around on one because she just thought it was a cool blanket.
3. Double sided. More expensive than single, but worth every penny. I will definitely buy 1-2 more when they do another kickstarter. The hard part is deciding which terrain to pick!
4. Really flexible, so you can fit hills underneath it, and it doesn't crease and make your figs fall over
5. It's flat. Really flat. It doesn't crease. You scrunch it into a ball and toss it into a bin, then pull it out 6 months later and it's aok. That's such a nice thing.

Cons:

1. Expensive. Roughly $100 each. Ouch! But if you do double sided, it's more worth it, AND make sure you'll use 'em for more than 1 game (but I might break that rule with my planned mat #3..)
2. Satin fleece so can look a bit "shiny". Not super bad, and will be dulled down once a bunch of scenery and figures are put on there. You can't notice it in the photos, but you can see it under strong lights. I don't care that much, but some people might.

Some comment on these things: 

I bought 2 double sided mats, 1 with Europe + Fields (ala Normandy, Italy, Russia, Market Garden etc.), and Desert (ala.... erm Desert). I figured these would be useful for my FOW Mid War Desert troops and Tallarn 40k, and the other side for my late war Germans/Americans/Canadians. 

The only complaint I'd have for the European fields is that the roads I picked were for 28mm, so they're pretty wide for a tank to rumble down. More like a highway.  But I figured if I ever did a 28mm game, it would look perfect, and it's ok to have wider roads for the 15mm guys. 

The desert side *could* have had a road running down it, but I decided I'd put the road on there if I ever needed one since open desert battles would look weird with roads.

Next up is the stranger one. One side is "Redwood Forest", and other side is a more generic rough ground. The rough ground can be used for pretty much anything, and substitutes for that flat green sheet I used to use. Can be used for every game from Warmachine to Saga to To The Strongest (With some rock squares), to 40k, Warhammer, One Page... Basically EVERY wargame out there, this is generic without being just a really expensive blank sheet.

The other side I'm reserving for forest type games. This'll be for Musket and Tomahawk French Indian War (if I ever collect more figs for that), and more especially my Japanese + Australian 28mm Jungle forces. It can double as regular forest but also jungle so looks great. If somebody brings over a bunch of Star Wars Endor figs, well.. I've got them covered too.

If/when CigarBox does a third kickstarter, I'll definitely invest in at least 1 more double sided sheet. 

My plan is to do a Snow with road 15mm + Urban wreckage combo. This will allow my eventually to be painted FOW Finns to have snow to fight in against Russians in Winter War '39. Again if somebody brings over Star Wars Hoth figs, well we are good to go. Haven't decided on either deep snow, or winter scrub, but I really like the idea of deep snow yet though.

The other side of the mat would be urban, either grey, or brown. I might go with brown so that my Tallarn or Black Templar Space Marines would be right at home. Grey urban would work too, but I like the desert one a bit more.