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Hi there fellow gamers! I would like your opinion. Would you rather have a box set include a 14 x 24 mouse pad style fancy game mat to play your game on. Or a very nice huge 24 x 36 poster type mat.

Here are the pros and cons of each.

Mouse pad style:


Pros:

Heavy duty

Looks very nice on the game table

Not as common as the poster style battle mats.

Cons:

Mouse pad style mats are awkward to fit in the box se thus may need to be stored sep.

The mouse pad is much smaller, the grids are 2 x 2 inch. It does have room to play but makes for a small battlefield.

Can't upsize due to cost effectiveness.


Poster style:

Pros:

HUGE Battleground. lot's of space.

Overall looks nice and more terrain features added.

Fits well inside box.


Cons:

Must be folded to fit inside box. As you well know from playing other games the creases are not very desirable.

Not as heavy duty for re-playability.

Very common type of mat to be included in a box set, while it looks nice there's not a lot of wow factor to it.


I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Misty-

Lacking context of what the game in question is, I don't know the dimensions I would desire, and thus cannot answer your question.

I mean, a mat to play 40k on that is smaller than 6'x4' would be useless to me. A mat to play MtG on, assuming I played MtG, would need to be a fraction of that size. For the latter, a 14 x 24 would probably work, and maybe even be too large.

The mat that came with the Mantic Deadzone boxed set is excellent and my new gold standard by which to judge other mats. It is of the mouse mat type variety - a sort of neoprene type material. If I could find a reliable and cost effective seller, I would buy some larger mats with different patterns.

 filbert wrote:
The mat that came with the Mantic Deadzone boxed set is excellent and my new gold standard by which to judge other mats. It is of the mouse mat type variety - a sort of neoprene type material. If I could find a reliable and cost effective seller, I would buy some larger mats with different patterns.

$8 a square foot, unpainted (1x2).
http://www.amazon.com/Neoprene-Smooth-Finish-Backing-Thickness/dp/B000MAEWIO

$6/foot, unpainted
http://www.grainger.com/product/Rubber-1MUN8
$4 with a bit of recycled texture:
http://www.grainger.com/product/Rubber-Sheet-WP165738/_/N-c1zZ1z132gp?_=1410444844715&s_pp=false&picUrl=//static.grainger.com/rp/s/is/image/Grainger/10U446_AS01?$smthumb$

A can of green or gray spray will do at least a dozen tiles.

Personally, I've been figuring out an efficient way to use thin galvanized steel sheets - 2x2 is or 18x36 is the sweet spot. About the same price and can be used with magnets too, though quite a bit heavier, if thinner. You can "mag lock" them to a steel frame pretty securely but still just pop them off as desired so there's not need for table weight beyond the frame.

4'x4' or 4'x6' are the 2 standard sizes for nearly all TT wargames. Any other size would be targeting a specific game and thus have a much smaller market. While games for smaller sizes can always mark off a larger mat.

40k/Fantasy and Warmachine are your big markets. And they use 4x6 and 4x4 respectively(and warmachine can use 4x6 and just mark off the extra area)


Anything that is heavy and/or requires a large box to be transported is not desirable. So metal sheets are probably a bad idea unless you also sell it with a special carrying case.

Mousepad style mats are already being sold by several people. They're usually stored in a special sleeve styled bag which works quite nicely.

Thank you for your advice, and input and seriously, THANKS for the links.
I was wanting it for my own board game which features 54mm minis 1 -4 on the board very similar to Games Workshops Inquisitor game. I agree that dreadzone mat is super slick and I could do that but I'm afraid the size with 2 x 2 inch square grids may be too small.
We've play tested on both and were split between the mouse pad style mat 14 x 24 and the poster size battlefield mat at 24 x 36. You should only have a max of 12 (8 being standard) TRUE 2.12 inch 54mm models at a given time.
Thank you so much for your feedback guys!