One of the most vexing things in gaming for me is the seemingly eternal struggle with scenery.
The base (literally) of the struggle comes from the game table itself. Many years ago I settled on a medium brown for my boards, based on a combination of a “Stone Effects” paint, matching Humbrol #29 and Davco #27 tile grout.
These formed many boards large and small, very few of which are still with me, due to weight, size, shape permanence (being a bad thing sometimes) or simply me losing interest. The only survivors are a 6x3 desert base, which will likely go soon (has), the desert painted 6x4 top of my game table (buried under a mountain of neoprene and cloth mats), and a 4x3’ cobble stone board, that may also go with the possible addition of a new CB mat.
The holy grail for me includes a flexible and natural form of gradation, preferably one that does not look like foam dumped on a bowling green, a blend of natural and “game-ish” looking terrain as a base and something that can take many forms easily.
This has been nearly impossible until I took a punt on Cigar Box mats.
The mats themselves are, with few exceptions, either 3x3’ or 7x5’ (1500x2000) soft microfibre cloth. This cloth has the ability to mould around shapes placed under it, prints to a high level of “gamers realism” (not photo-realistic, but that would clash with model terrain and mini’s), packs up flat (all of mine are in one plastic tub) and can be used fully or in part on smaller surfaces, just like a table cloth.
The “over” size is for two reasons. The mats can be placed from any corner, literally changing the terrain on a smaller table and secondly when reasonably large terrain pieces are placed under it, the mat will still guarantee a 6x4+ surface. Personally, I use them as 7x5’s with plenty of gentle sloping under.
The finish is dull and natural in most cases. Some newer mats, especially the plush double sided ones have a shinier finish, but all of mine, except my 3x3 Frontier Space are the dull. Unlike Vinyl and some neoprene, no odd shininess and no slipperiness. The Space mat is a smoother surface like soft shell poly, to help with X Wing or similar “slide” movement I assume.
The mats can be ironed, washed and stored folded in a small space.
Preparation; They can be placed on any surface, but I like to place a cheap K Mart velour blanket down first which tends to stop slippage of the mat and the foam hill pieces and makes the surface softer and more comfortable to work with.
Like neoprene, the mats can be very kind to mini’s. Handling and figure wear/damage compared to my old “gritty” desert surface is worlds apart. My old boards pretty much precluded using clear bases as they scratched too easily.
Below are the basic steps for setting up in my main game’s space/photo studio.
The base table (750x1350).
Three left over (from an old board project) 450x1800, 18mm panels for weight and support (in my upstairs game’s room, the 6x4'‘ table top is enough support).
Five 400x1500 thin shelf panels for full width cover.
The cheap black blanket base, which tends to smooth out any lumps and bumps.
Some hills “carved” out of insulation foam.
A mat laid over it all.
A note on photography, which was a disaster today. The light on the room is on the fritz so I was shooting literally blind, my camera (an old OMD EM5 is banding, I thought a little, but it turns out a lot, and the space, which is new, cramped me a little with the gear at hand.
Ok, now the specific mats.
One of my newest is the “Frontier Town”, which covers western, modern and any arid terrain campaigns. There is another plain version in the range, but this mat with a river and roads is nearly identical in design to my current option, which is too heavy (the reverse of my 18mm table top, taking two hearty souls to flip). It is also rough surfaced, has fixed hills and is smaller than this.
This mat has a 28mm feel, but easily covers down to 15mm. The river can be be deep or shallow, so it can be effectively ignored if wanted. I really like the inclusion of water and roads, as these, like hills, can sit on the board like a crude add-on, but a printed river can easily be ignored as an ankle deep nothing or a raging torrent.
A 28mm USMC patrol sweep, “questioning” the locals. The roads clearly stand out, or can be ignored as suits.
The colour tones match reasonably well with my three base tones (above), although some of my figures have a little too much grass on their bases.
My first “dry ground” love, 28mm western. The mat’s resolution matches the slightly “hyper” real look of the buildings. These figures are Davco grout based only, so a little of the darker brown and some specs of grass like the mat will be added.
The (20mm) green recruits of Alpha Coy moving into a German ambush in Tunisia. Based more for Europe, these are a little over grassed for this mat also, but work ok. Napoleonic Spain, the Crusades, Greece and Italy and most Ancients are all good for this very versatile mat. They do a true desert mat, but I prefer my games with a little more terrain, like you find in arid, but not sand dune geography.
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My first CB mat now and a long thought out process that was! I went for the older design of the original “European Fields” mat, because the newer one was closer to photographic realism, which I felt was not in keeping with my terrain or figures. This worked out well as later mats gave me a newer, better look for some games, leaving this one to it’s own special periods.
Poor image, but plenty of others around on the net of this older mat. The roads are the larger ones for 28mm. This is to my mind a good compromise for 15/20/28mm figures (15mm Roads, 20mm minor roads, 28mm horse trails).
The hardened survivors of Alpha, now on mainland Italy. The road width suits most Normandy or Italian back roads.
My 28mm ECW figs are mostly used for “grand skirmish” games, so the one-cart trail is ideal.
Equally suitable, my 18mm ECW figures are used for bigger battles, which means major roads.
About the earliest period that suits this mat is high medieval. As the fields are many and regularly shaped, so they are a little too neat and plentiful for Dark Ages.
This mat is one of the older mats and has a couple of features I don’t love but can live with. Some of the field colours are a little odd (see the two fields above). Their later mats are more natural looking, but really I am being harsh. Recently i grabbed some mid brown teddy bear fur, that I will cut to cover some of the less natural looking field sections with “standing wheat”.
The thing I do struggle with though and something that in later mats seems to be either a specific feature or completely avoided, is the use of printed-on trees and hedges. This mat has some (the new version does not), but not so many they cannot be covered by terrain pieces if they annoy.
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The last mat in this first review segment is probably my favourite do-all mat, the “La Haye Sainte” 15mm mat from the Waterloo range. The green on this mat really suits my original basing colours, it is very scale agnostic and the little road and field are surprisingly useful for context.
Another crappy image :). I have two of these after an ordering stuff-up* and it looks like I grabbed the unused one with plenty of storage wrinkles. After a few uses these will go or you can try the damp towel in the dryer trick, or just iron it. The only thing to avoid is storing with defined creases, which will stay at least for that use. In real life, these ripples are far less bothersome, but my single light has exaggerated them.
*If I ever have enough room I suppose I could do a 5x14’ game?.
I think “hills” with this mat. The lower left corner of this set-up has a two level hill, about 4” tall and the green edge is actually the ridge line at La Haye.
Not a great image, but you get the idea. This heart breaker adds to my gaming versatility.
It is a decently long way from this tower top to the base of the hill.
Enough to stop this lot? Big fights, lots of figures and gentle rolling slopes are the theme here.
The little trail for my 28mm Vikings, becomes a major road for 10mm figs and is even ok for 6mm (Zulu Dawn anyone?).
20mm figs work well. I like this a lot for WW2 20mm non-jungle Pacific/Vietnam or North African games.
I do not do much in the way of 6-10mm gaming, but do have some figures. Of all of my mats, this is the best for these. I can use the huge grassed area for a pitched battle or the little road is acceptable for a major road in these scales. My 10mm cowboys, 6mm Samurai and colonials and my smaller 15mm ancients will find themselves here more often than not.
A 6mm Samurai castle. If the units are sizeable (one way of using 6mm figs), then the road looks fine.
These three mats are probably plenty for most uses, but I have more, so I will be back (hopefully with better images), to share my thoughts on “The Valley”, “Crossroads”, “Redwood Fight” and “Modern City” mats.