Gaming Mats

My local games shop has a table that is painted in black paint, given a star scape with a toothbrush and some paint, and then a clear coat finish to protect it. It's great to play on but it means only two people can play space games at a time. Since we're running an X Wing round robin league at the moment (with yours truly in third place at the moment!) we really needed a second playing area.

So I started looking at play mats. Now, if you're at all interested in space play mats, you're probably already aware that there is a huge selection, in a variety of types from a range of manufacturers. You've got felt mats, vinyl mats, cloth mats, neoprene gaming mats, DIY solutions, etc. I ended up deciding to make my own from a banner printing website. And once again, the choices available are myriad. I went with bannerbuzz, mostly because they had an Australian website (which I hoped would save me on shipping) and because the other website I was going to use didn't have an option for a 3'x3' banner.

I didn't want a felt mat because I don't like the texture and because I'm a clumsy bloke who would sooner or later spill something on it. I really liked the idea of a neoprene mat (and will probably try one for my next mat) but couldn't find one with a design I liked for a reasonable price. So in the end I went with a printed vinyl banner from bannerbuzz.

And here it is. I ordered mine to be 3.1' square, and lucky I did because it's only just 36" along one edge, and slightly longer (37") along the other. I ordered a light GSM (for those not in the know, GSM means Grams per Square Metre. The higher the number, the thicker the fabric) as a trial run. For an image, I jumped onto google and just searched for 'stars' and set the filter to the second largest image size. A large image size is important for a project like this because a small image stretched over three feet will look blurry, and not very nice. A larger image can always be shrunk, but a small image cannot be stretched. So if you're going to give this a go, use the largest image you can find. There are literally thousands of suitable images, some including planets and nebulae and all sorts of cool space imagery, but I really wanted a plain star scape.

I opted for no hem, no image protection (which I think is some kind of protective spray they put over the finished product) and no eyelets or anything like that. The final price came to about $55 which was more than I really wanted to spend, but I was also kind of curious to see how it would turn out and I liked the idea of having a unique mat as well, so I soldiered on.

Their staff were very good. The first image I sent had a thin blue line that was difficult to see on the computer screen but would have stood out on the table top. They noticed it when putting together a proof for my order and I resubmitted a new image. But I accidentally sent a small version of a larger image. Again, they noticed this and asked me to submit a new image. Third time was the charm and I finally got my image to them. I have to say, this was a bit of work since the uploader on their website didn't work and the file was too large to email so I had to upload it to google drive and then had to chase them by email a bit before they got back to me and confirmed that yes, they had received the image.

I got the mat about a week later. When it arrived, the return address was in India so I guess that's where their production facility was. Either way, shipping was only $7.95 so I wasn't too concerned.

When I opened the box, I got a nice surprise because they had sent me two mats, rather than one! Happy days! I considered contacting the company to see what they wanted to do about the error, but decided against it since they would have no use for it, I wouldn't want to pay for postage to return it, and it could get some poor schmo in trouble for accidentally sending two instead of one. Plus I'd be lying if I didn't say getting two for one was pretty cool.

The mat in use.

The mat itself is pretty good. Some people complain about ships and tokens slipping on the vinyl surface, but this is only a minor problem IMO. I've played a few games on this mat now and accidentally nudging ships hasn't been a significant problem. It is a bit shiny, but not so much that it glares. It rolls up easily enough, although I store it flat to prevent it from curling. However, due to the light weight material it does tend to fold rather than bend when you pick it up, and I quickly noticed some cracking and fraying on the edges where it was folding. So I picked up some 50mm fabric tape from Bunnings and taped over the edges, as you can see in the pictures. This protects the edges and serves the dual purpose of adding some weight to the mat to prevent it from curling up. Only took ten minutes to tape them up and I used the tiles on my kitchen floor as alignment marks so I get the tape on evenly. Well, mostly evenly.

The back of the mat with the tape visible. You can see the second mat underneath.

Here you can see a closeup of the tape. From the star side, it's almost invisible.

In the end it's probably not a purchase I would make again. I love the mat and the image is printed very well in a high resolution, but I think for my next mat (a 3'x6' for Star Wars: Armada) I will be getting a Gripmat. The price is reasonable, it advertises a neat 'grippy' surface, it has neat printing and it looks like it will be easier to store and transport.

Until next time, happy gaming!