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Edit: The product is the Combatmat, not Battlemat, my apologies.

Here is the link to the product http://www.saboldesigns.net/combatmat.html



Ok fellas, I have not even taken pics of mine yet, these are my initial impressions.

First of all, the Battlemat is very well made, with a thick bottom that is very non slip. The top is a type of dense felt looking material that does appear to be able to keep figs fairly safe if they fall. The image printed onto it is photo realistic, the detail is great.

It looks like it will withstand a ton of pnuishment and the felt matrial seems to be pretty druable, although time will tell in that department. It rolls up, no creases, but does curl up a bit at the edges. If I store it flat under the bed, I assume that these will go away in time. Plus, terrain will keep it weighted down.

It looks great, my one, giant, HUGE complaint: IT HAS A GOD DAMN ADVERTISEMENT ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The fething Battlemat comes with a 4 foot long white print out of the company name and the company website, down one end.

Are you fething kidding me?!?!?!?!?!

I did not pay to advertise for your company, I am really pissed. It ruins the aesthetics of the mat.

It does not show the gakky, stupid advertisement in the product pictures on the website so I feel pretty cheated in this. I am going to write Sabol to see what they say and I am going to write Neal at the Warstore. What the hell were they thinking? It is so ugly and distracting that I am seriously dumbfounded at the stupidity of this move.

But, I want to thank everyone who gave me input into their own mats, I should have listened to Tazok and got a Zuzzy. Hopefully I can return this, as the assanine advertisement just ruins it.

You're a modeler. Can't you cut the advert strip off with a hobby or utility knife?

Then the mat would be about 6" too short. It is exactly 4' by 6'.

Cool. Are you adding your review to the Articles system?

Really? That sucks! Take a picture so we can all see the advert.

Yeah I will, I am so bummed out, it was the thing I was most looking forward to. The add just blows, its HUGE. I will snap a picture to show everyone, the thing that really gets me is that the damn picture on the website does not show the add.

And Malfred, yeah I will add to the article section as soon as I have some pics up.

Mat Sabol already got back to me and basically told me tough gak. He didn't give a rat's ass that I was mad about being misled on the product and said the bellow picture clearly indicates the advert in question. I told him he must be joking me as the large pictures of the product clearly do not show the advert (he must have intentionaly cut them out of the picture on both mats), and the mat with the tiny little advert on them is not the one I ordered. And, this picture makes the advert look so much smaller than it actually is, it is rediculous.



He then wen on to say this: "Please feel free to cut the text off or as everyone else is doing cover parts of it up with terrain." So obviously other people are not happyabout it either.

What a dick.

Hopefully Neal will take this back, he is pretty cool and I bring him a lot of business. I think I will be done with Sabol after this, there are just too many other options out there.

Well, I will post reviews on the gaming forums so people know what to expect since the website is so misleading. What a bust. the prodcut is otherwise very high quality.

It may not bother some people, but the last thing I want in a game is a flipping advert. I paid good money for this dumb thing, if I want a fething commercial I will turn on the TV. If it would have been a small logo in the corner, no problem, but the damn thing is huge!

I'm looking at the link you made and the advertisement is very clear in the third picture. It's the first picture under SD-COMBATMAT "PLAINS". Still a shame though, and an idiotic idea to boot.

Edit: Looks like you beat me to it. I can't say whether you were intentionally misled or nor, but it is a shame that his response was such as it was.

I have been wanting this myself. Didn't see the advert either, but won't be purchasing it now so thanks for the review. If I am not too lazy I may even write to them. Cutting it out is such an assinine thing to say. Anyone had issues with their customer service - I need a new bag and foam and deciding between them and Battle Foam. Battle Foam (whilst more expensive than Sabol) is really catching my eye and I hear great things about their c/service.

Alright, to be upfront about all of this, Mat got back to me after I sent a really angry letter and he apologized and offered to try and make amends.

I am not the kind of person to take advantage of a situation or try and get free stuff just by throwing a temper tantrum and told him as such. I just asked what he suggested at this point, so I will let you guys know what he says.

I did suggest he put the advert on the big picture of the Mat, as if I had known I was getting that, I would not have purchased it. I looked at about 6 different gaming Mats (Monday Knight Games, GW, Zuzzy, etc.) before I decided on this one. I even asked other gamers here on Dakka what Mats they liked. I was really looking forward to getting it, which is why I felt so dissapointed when I got the package.

OK, the situation is being taken care, sorry to vent here guys, but I was pretty frazzled about it.

I will put up some pics with terrain, minis and such as soon as I have a chance. I will also include a pic of the advert so that people can judge for themselves if it is something that would bother them or not.

Otherwise, it is a very high quality product, just that dumb logo and website along one entire length of it.

advert can be cut off without many problems


SD-COMBATMAT SANDS

$54.99
SD-COMBATMAT PLAINS

$54.99


are you fething kidding me!?
at around £30 this is great!
feth the GW board, for the same price i can buy this and spend a bit on GW scenery and it will not only look better, but still be cheaper by miles, and more durable.

I think it would bother me too.

I also don't think it's obvious from looking at the page that the mat would come with an advert. It's fairly obvious once you know it's there, and look for it in the third picture, but otherwise I think I would have missed it.

Doesn't sound intentionally deceptive, but still annoying.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I won't be buying one either.

No problem guys, I am taking pics tonight at my game club, and will post them tomorrow.

Yes, the Mat looks great, really nice picture on it (I have the desert mat). And you could cut the Advert off, but then it would be too short for standard gaming. If that does not bother you then knock yourself out, by all means, it is of very high quality, much better than most of the other mats I have seen.

GW used to do a green felt / static grass covered matt
just plain, it was allways falling apart, its not very thick, so tends to rip, it comes rolled up in a packet, so it has a natural curl to it, which took me 3 weeks to get it flat again.
the grassy effect rubbed off very quickly.
and it was £20.


so all in all, this matt is a win compaired to GW's efforts.

Yeah, I know the Mat you are talking about, my friend has one. It is pretty crappy. His has creases in it and the flock falls off constantly. Its still better than a table top by far, though.

The Combatmat is much higher quality, no doubt, it looks like it will last for ages, just feels solid. It also comes rolled up though and has a curl to it but I think that will come out if I leave it under the bed for a while.

Its just the dumb, dumb, dumb giant logo that irks me. Some people may not care, if they don't care, then go for it as the Mat really does look beautiful other than that.

im not sure about that, the back is laminated
so on a flat surface it tends to slip alot.


ill have to buy a combatmat and see how easy it is to paint out the logo and address.

I guess that would be possible, but difficult, you would be painting on cloth and so it may end up looking even worse, although I am not an expert at that kind of thing by any means.

I'd still like to see a nice pic of it whenever you get a chance Reecius, I am interested in picking something like this up to start doing more gaming at my place. Thanks, and also a big thanks for the warning about the advent

Reecius should have pictures soon, probably> I know he was taking pictures while he was playing on the mat tonight.

Hey Platuan, we need to get a game in before you head out. Hopefully your chaos wont ream me like Abe's did tonight, that was the worst shilacking I have had in a loooong time!


Ok here are some pics, the Mat looks great and is very durable, but you can see in the last pic the long advert, I couldn't fit it in frame from a standing position, but you get the idea. It sticks out 3.5" from the edge and is just about 4' long, it is the name of the company and the website repeating down the short length of the Mat.

Other than that, I really like the mat a lot. It looks great with brown terrain. It curled up a lot during game play, but we put out books down on the corners to keep it in place. Also, I have a GW modular gaming hill which I put together so that it was long and skinny and it covered a good chunk of the advert, it would just get annoying to have to do that every time.

So people can decide for themselves if it is worth buying. I can post more pics if anyone wants.

I am storing it between my matress and my box spring right now so hopefully by next week's game it will no longer curl up.

That looks like a great set up you have got there.
The advert is ridiculous.
I love the Army Transport system so I shan't be boycotting Sabol,
but I will be staying well clear of this mat until that advert goes!

Perhaps making this shortcoming more widely known will convince Sabol to change future runs of the product. That terrible print is totally uncalled-for in a paid product.

Thanks Alex, we do have a good game club here, lots of guys are building terrain right now too so it helps add some variety.

Yeah, that is how I felt, I was unrolling the mat and I was so stoked until the end and I was like, what the hell is that big flipping advert doing on my brand new mat? It was such a shame because otherwise it is a kick ass product. It did not slide one inch during game play.

I hope he does take it off for his sake, it is a real eye sore unless you cover it up.

Wow, what a stupid decision.

That text could easily be moved right to the corner and made much, much smaller.

Sales would more likely be lost from seeing that, just like how they lost my sale. I was considering buying one until you pointed out that text.

They would have gotten more sales via word of mouth and general awe of the mat as people come over to see the photorealistic print.

If it would have the logo in a corner of the mat it would be a good product. But with the logo all over the place it will turn a lot of customers ( me included ) away from the product.

To me the boulders with shadows do not look realistic at all. the sand on bare stone was ok, but boulders on flat 2d doesnt even look good from a photo, to me it would look even worse up close.

I would rasther use textured wallpaper.


I checked the Zuzzy website, their textureed terrain mats are also made of rubber and are the same size and cost slightly less. No comparison in quality.


http://www.zuzzy.com/

There is no desert terrain mat but they do have:

Moorlands:
http://www.zuzzy.com/vf-ml-001_terra_flex_gaming_mat.html

Basic green terrain, the texturing looks rather simplistic, the weakest of the three sets.

Scourged Forest:
http://www.zuzzy.com/rl-tf-001_terra_flex_gaming_mat.html

Plenty of grimdark part live, part dead, desecrated rather than hostile terrain. My pick of the three.

Sulfur Fields:
http://www.zuzzy.com/dr-tf-001_terra_flex_gaming_mat.html

Chaos wastes, volcanic terrain, surface of Mars whatever you want. Dead dead lands.

I am happy to use dyed cloth personally, but if I were to buy the Zuzzy sets are no brainer when compared to Sabol.

The Zuzzies look awesome. Of course, the Zuzzy mats need to be painted, while the Sabols are ready to go right out of the bag...

Reecius wrote:Then the mat would be about 6" too short. It is exactly 4' by 6'.

You was robbed!

that print is ridiculous on a battlemat. the whole point of scenery and a play mat is to pretend you're fighting on a battlefield of that nature. i can't think of any fluff story in the 40k universe that had armies fighting on planets with giant writing advertising wares from a rogue trader on every patch of land... this was a bone headed move from a company that should know better. if we're BUYING from them we already know about them!!!!