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i have both a RoB and FAT mats. i like the FAT mat better.

Played a tournament on some front line gaming mats (destroyed city ones) and they were awesome. They're not just the cheap option but a quality one as well. Tons of detail and if you put nice terrain on the mat it even looks cooler than some 3d tables imo.

yukondal wrote:
Played a tournament on some front line gaming mats (destroyed city ones) and they were awesome. They're not just the cheap option but a quality one as well. Tons of detail and if you put nice terrain on the mat it even looks cooler than some 3d tables imo.

This makes me happy as mine will be here this week!

Realms of battle are mostly cooler and better-looking with additional features such as texture and stuff, but they're harder to transport(you only have to roll up the mat) and get boring after some time once you figure that there's only so much you can do with the setup.

Then again game mats are pretty with nice prints on them and the stability(any kind of terrain will slide around on the Realm of Battle tiles while the mat will have better grip on the models and scenery, although they're even less customizable.

http://www.zuzzy.com/

They are the bees knees and/or the cat's pajamas.
They are the perfect balance between durable, customizable, portable and textured, with the cost being reasonable.

If you like easy 3D terrain there are various tile systems on the market, for example the "Hexon" system by Kallistra Games

Total Scenic System offers square tiles with separate hill features to create millions of layouts.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another alternative to GW Realm of Battle.

http://www.ghqmodels.com/store/military-models-terrain-maker.html

Eww those look terrible.

I like mats and I like my RoB. I think most people play on terrible terrain and there is a stark contrast between their painted models and scenery and the barren and horrible surface they place it on. Mats help when you are starting out or when you have to move it around a lot. Custom terrain and 3d terrain are for when you have everything ready in your army and want to make something epic. I think a RoB with some work is the best, there is a guy on this forum who made a chaos wasteland with skin and stuff and wow it looked amazing. Way better than any mat or board I have seen.

20 years and counting, and I still play my games on felt that costs $5 for a 4x6 piece. Or in the case of urban games, grey twill (blue jean-type fabric) with sewn-over edges so they don't fray.

I would rather use the money from a RoB and buy a ton of miniatures.

I like mats and I like my RoB. I think most people play on terrible terrain and there is a stark contrast between their painted models and scenery and the barren and horrible surface they place it on.

I think that's a pretty horrible sweeping generalization.

Forgive me if I'm going in an unintended direction, but what ever happened to making your own game board? A bit of plywood or MDF with some texture, some cheap paint, and voila!

Having said that, give me a game mat any day. The Realm of Battle (both models) are goofy and overpriced, and modern game mats are more than fine.

Simply, modern GW has trained many people to buy everything off the shelf, rather than scratch build it. All the way down to the gaming surface.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

I think that's a pretty horrible sweeping generalization.

Yeah I guess it's horrible. I do search pictures of scenery samples for fun and most of the pictures I find are beautifully painted scenery and models over monochromatic surfaces. Must be only google showing me the terrible ones in abundance.

On your point about custom made, yeah those don't happen as often since it requires more time than buying a pre-made mat or 3d board.

Some people do have more time and skill and make beautiful terrain pieces that are just glorious to look at (and play at too I would think.) Some other people have more money than time and buy either mats or RoBs or those terrible things that killkrazy linked. No reason to dismiss them as trained monkeys as you alluded with GW training people comment. You might not like RoBs and that's completely ok. But, to insinuate people are dumb because they want to spend their money on something you don't like is not very nice is it?

I very carefully never said ALL 40K gamers. But the lack of GW showing anything but their off-the-shelf terrain versus how it's been in the past is telling of their modern theory on things. The 4th edition Rulebook actually had many pages on making custom terrain.

Lots of 40K games can be improved with X-Wing style printed mats that the terrain is placed on top of, and such things can be printed out at Staples/Office Max for a HUGE amoung cheaper than GW boards, mousepad mats.

For instance, a good urban mat could be something like this, printed as a poster at an office store:

We are going through some big scenery changes right now, but we usually try our best to have presentable boards.

I think the key with boards and terrain is to have the balance between:

Good looks
Easy packing and unpacking
Modulability
Practicality

Hence why I personally prefer gaming mats. Although I have used some cool boards, over all I find mats to be superior when taking the above into consideration.



All those are from the last games day my club had. The boards are initially stunning, but over time lose appeal as you notice the lack of options and looks you can do with it.

The mats have a bland texture but this can me mitigated by being smart about how you put all the pieces together. Overall, unless you make the boards modular really, really well, you will end up playing the same few variations forever.

I think boards would be great, if you could store 10 different gaming boards for variation. Otherwise weekly games will suck. After a year, you would have used up a lot of ideas on making the board interesting.

Of course, it depends how its all done.

Having played on both RoBBs and FAT mats. The mats win by a mile. The Realm of Battle terrain simply isn't easily compatible with the models you're meant to play on them. My infantry slide down the hills constantly, and it's hard to place custom (or even official) terrain pieces on them. Dice rolls are also haywire on the boards, rolling down the hills and usually off the table.

I much prefer a flat playing surface that we then flavor with our own hills and buildings. So the mats work really well, models don't slide around, dice rolls are smooth and don't clack around on the plastic.

The mats could probably actually use a little bit less detail (to function more as a background). I love playing on the city map, but after a while it might look a bit weird if we try to move the terrain off the mats arranged city blocks.

 deviantduck wrote:
http://www.zuzzy.com/

They are the bees knees and/or the cat's pajamas.
They are the perfect balance between durable, customizable, portable and textured, with the cost being reasonable.

I liked those before i ordered my FLG mat, but i heard nothing but horror story's on how long it took people to get there product, and i'm not much of a wait and see guy. Im a lil perturbed honestly, that i ordered my mat last Thursday, and it just now shipped out, hopefully the quality is worth the wait.

 Deathwing Terminator wrote:
The Realm of Battle has been a staple of many gamers for a while (at least in my area), but with the advent of much cheaper game mats that is starting to change. Which do you like better, a $300 detailed plastic board or an $85 giant mousepad?

Regarding "advent of cheaper gaming mats", it's a bit of a misnomer. Gaming mats were around for decades before the RoB Board and will be around long after.

The RoB isn't a bad product persay, and it is a way to quickly acquire a terrain board. However:
1)It's incredibly limiting in it's configurations.
2)You end up with the same terrain as everyone else
3)Unless you do some modifications, it's really mostly suitable for WHFB and 40k, where pits of SKULLS makes a bit of sense.
4) Its a big bag to lug around. and you still have to haul some terrain
5) Is quite expensive

Mats on the other hand…
1) Are considerably cheaper, so it's easy to have multiple types.
2) Are available in textured, vinyl surfaces that are just as detailed as the flatter sections of a RoB
3) Dont limit where terrain is positioned or decree that every battle has hills.
4) Easier to transport.
5) Are relatively genre-less so most games work well on any of them.

My gaming table is a desert board made from closet doors and it only cost me an old can of white housepaint and a few cans of textured spray paint. Sure it's flat, but it' looks realistic and is incredibly flexible in terms of terrain positioning. Further, when I want to play some other game I just roll a matt over it. I've got old wool army blankets that look like grass, but my other clubmates have zuzzy mats of several types, and others.

As a few examples of how a Zuzzy looks in different uses:
Here's a zuzzy being used as the basis for a town. Not perfect (the roads are awfully green), but how would you set up a level town on a RoB?


The same being used for woodlands


Fabric (as is or slightly modified) can offer some surprisingly good looking surfaces.
Here's one of just a plain piece of grey fabric that has had a touch of paint here and there. It's no zuzzy, but it's also less than $10!


And here's a similarly-priced desert mat made of unmodified fleece in a tye-dyed pattern.

I purchased a MegaMat from Frontline Gaming and hired a commissar to build & paint urban looking terrain for about $300 all together. I would never pay the outrageously overpriced $hit GW puts out. I mean it's like £20 of plastic and you have to paint it! £500 for the same setup I have for $300! Clearly I made the better choice

Give me the giant mousepad!

Or, better, a big grass mat - I can put stuff on it myself.

The Auld Grump