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Clearly this picture was taken on a planet with two suns, each with a different color of light to make the mats look different.

Yeah, that clearly is a problem in the printing process.

slyphic wrote:
Final followup on the Table War blue mat. Two weeks ago, I found an eBay auction for one of the mats, and the guy selling it's pics looked normal, and it was going for $30 all told, so I bought it.

It arrived last night.

https://i.imgur.com/C8DXL4l.jpg

It's not the lighting, Table War were just lying to me.

Ooooof. They should have just sold the cyan ones at a discount. Now they just look dishonest - I'd sure be hesitant to ever order anything from them after this debacle.


Open a credit card dispute for the shipping that you had to eat. There is no reason they should have given you any less than a full refund.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Were they at least polite with you or did they come across as “I don’t give a damn”

I wrote a blog post about it. The entire correspondence with TW is included verbatim, so judge for yourself. https://yadzcb.friestman.net/review-dzc-mats.html

Slyphic, Your very informative post and follow-up has finally gotten me to un-lurk! Thank you for persevering in presenting this, especially when many posters were saying it was probably just your lighting.

I am not connected to TableWar in any way, shape, or form. However, I have met and hung out with Todd at several conventions, since at the time I also had access to the vendor area. I would like to ask folks to go to the blog post you made above and read those email exchanges for yourselves. In my opinion, in no way was Todd trying to be rude, and the moment you said you'd prefer a full refund, he provided it (albeit, minus shipping apparently). Again, I'd just ask folks to go read those email transcripts instead of assuming intent.

Secondly, and maybe more interestingly for Slyphic, I'd also like to note that I spent a few years trying to find the perfect mousepad mat, buying from all manufacturers including both TableWar and DeepCut. In one case, I was trying to get a nice space mat for Dropfleet, and it arrived to me extremely blue, unlike the pictures - but this mat was from DeepCut!

I don't know what it is about printing that makes this a possibility, but I wanted to share this because in reading those emails, to me it's clear that it is unintentional, and in my case it happened with the other manufacturer. They are all great, to me, and are also all (despite appearances) basically one-man bands.

I think the upshot for me after buying at least a dozen mousepad mats in trying to find the perfect ones (and that adds up!) is that ALL of these suppliers would do better to show actual photos of their in-stock mats, not renders. Using renders instead of photos is extremely common in wargaming businesses, but it is not fair to the consumer, imo (both with models and mats).

Thank you again for following up on this so well, Slyphic, and I hope it brings awareness of this issue to the community! I had intended to make a post just like this in accruing all those mats, with side-by-side photos, but never got to it! Please also consider cutting Todd a little slack - if you read his emails again in light of this, maybe they'll sound a little different (and anyone can do so at the blog post above if they're curious).

Back to lurking...

Actually, this is a good lesson for anyone that advertises products in this manner, as print runs can vary, they really should not vary in color that much. I have done product shots in many things over the years and have been guilty of modifying photos to show the product a bit better, as it did not take any work at all to take the OP original mat photo and enhance/contrast a bit to better match the website product photo. However, the other mat purchased showing there is indeed a bad color print batch they are sending, the company should have handled it much better.

 RiTides wrote:
In my opinion, in no way was Todd trying to be rude

Todd was never rude, and I don't think I said or implied such.

 RiTides wrote:
it's clear that it is unintentional

This was my problem. Todd (or rather his 'designer') tried to argue with me that the mat wasn't misprinted. That's my problem. It's clear to you, it's clear to me, it wasn't clear to Todd until I bought a second mat. If he was doing literally any QA whatsoever, it would have been clear to him as well. Negligence or deception are the two explanations available.

 RiTides wrote:
Please also consider cutting Todd a little slack

Todd gets my slack when one of two things happen. He either bins this whole lot of misprinted mats, since in his own words they're all this blue, or he updates the product page to accurately reflect the product he's selling.

I suspect he'll do neither, but I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised.

I also wonder, since another company did the actual printing, was that company refusing to refund Tablewar for the bad prints? Leaving Tablewar with the choice of taking the loss or trying to sell bad prints?

I've gotten an urban mat from another company that arrived bluer than I had expected. I think the biggest issues here are that we see renders, not final product, and the vendors aren't as clear as they should be that the product could vary from what's shown.

And the problem is... people buy matts to match their terrain, or their bases, and even a fairly small shift in hue changes how well the product works. I think the OP was perhaps a bit hyperbolic in the thread title, but I'm certainly sympathetic to them.

As MDSW and Polonius stated, I think this is something the whole industry can learn from and that we (as consumers) should ask for - that is, not to use renders but instead actual photos of product.

It is interesting that you also received a mat with a "bluer than expected" level, Polonius - that makes 3 of us in all different circumstances! For myself, I eventually gave up my hunt for the perfect mousepad mat as I found that I was literally having to test buy products to have any idea how they'd really look in-person (and I tried all the manufacturers at the time, even some totally custom ones).

Slyphic, I'm glad you acknowledge that Todd wasn't rude to you (and apparently never thought he was!). As Polonius states, maybe your thread title could use updating in that case. I agree that the print run is off and hopefully they'll address it (maybe point them to this thread?) now that you have shown it so clearly!

 RiTides wrote:
As MDSW and Polonius stated, I think this is something the whole industry can learn from and that we (as consumers) should ask for - that is, not to use renders but instead actual photos of product.
...
maybe your thread title could use updating in that case

The wargaming subreddit added a new rule I really like, NO RENDER-ONLY POSTS. All advertisement posts must include photos of the physical product. It's cut way down on the KS and MMF spam, and models that look good in theory but don't print worth a damn are much more obvious and get deservedly downvoted. A real 'put up or shut up' approach that frankly everywhere should adopt.

I'll update the thread title when TW gets back to me. The onus is on them to fix their false advertising or reprint and dump the bad stock. I'm not reaching out to help them save face, they know how to contact me.

The point being that even actual photos can be super misleading if there is any re-touching or simply coloring being off. I got so many questions when I did the KS for my game, Minotaur Catacombs on the photo of the Minotaur and the main photo with the table, door, etc.. The photos are of the actual printed minis that I painted, but the photos ended up looking very much like a colored render. Beyond retaking the photos, this was actually the un-retouched photos, but it just looked that way.

Sadly, my poor KS did not fund, so I just have the 6 prototype games for my family I made.

FYI — I recently (May 16) ordered a TableWar mat, the 10mm Titan one 4x4, and it also came as if it had a deep blue filter over it.

So if you are considering buying from them and don’t like this look, I would STRONGLY recommend emailing beforehand to inquire.

I own that very mat (and the urban titan one) i use for battletech and epic 40K

I got mine years ago and the color looks fine. it would not bug me any of it was a little more blue as long as the mat itself wasn't damaged or mis-sized.


I have 2 of the same desert mat (4X4 to make a 8X4 table) from different print runs and one is a little darker than the other. it doesn't stop me from using them.

 aphyon wrote:
I got mine years ago and the color looks fine. it would not bug me any of it was a little more blue as long as the mat itself wasn't damaged or mis-sized.

The older mats are fine. Somewhere along the line, they did a second print run that is far more than "a little blue", and either didn't do a QC check or they have incredibly lax standards. It's as obvious as can be if you ever see the old and new prints side by side.

 aphyon wrote:
I own that very mat (and the urban titan one) i use for battletech and epic 40K

I know, I bought it bc of your pics! I would’ve gotten the other one too (the blue doesn’t bother me much) but it is OOS.

 Manchu wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
I own that very mat (and the urban titan one) i use for battletech and epic 40K

I know, I bought it bc of your pics! I would’ve gotten the other one too (the blue doesn’t bother me much) but it is OOS.

Ah, so i see i am a bad influence on you as well.