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:
- Subtle mottling to it. Perfect for terrain cloth.
- Almost felt, but not quite. Nice and soft and pads the figs without tipping them over.
- Plus, I could use a sharpie to mark the dots for DBA deployment zones on it, and they are pretty subtle too.
- 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
- Cheap as chips since all it is is fabric
- But it tends to hold creases a bit.
- Because it's artificial material, you can't iron it (or at least I haven't tried yet)
- Looks great! Fantastic choice of textures. I picked Swallowing Sand terrain and some Grassy Spring for DBA fights
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 :)
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:
- Looks AWESOME. 4x6' fabric fleece. Great printed textures, and it doesn't bleed through both sides, so both sides look completely unique.
- 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.
- 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!
- Really flexible, so you can fit hills underneath it, and it doesn't crease and make your figs fall over
- 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:
- 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..)
- 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.
