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mods delete, found and bought a mat

The cheapest will be a roll of beige linoleum, I would have thought. or felt.

A couple yards of beige fabric, lightly crumpled and hit with some tan spraypaint.



Might not be the sexiest thing out there, but it provides a base to play on. And costs peanuts.

Go to Joanns and have them cut a piece of sand-colored felt. Use a 40% off coupon too. Mez

Yep...felt w/ a $3-4 can of spray paint - dust it with some browns for variety. Not amazing, but simple.

Flannel bed sheet is also a good candidate. Can be dusted with spray paint. Or water down cheap acrylic craft paint 15+:1 with water and use a spritz bottle to mist it on to stain it.

Agreed - and while I rarely see them in a desert or beige colour any old military surplus wool blankets can be had for like $5 via various online shops --- many in a rather excellent dark brown or drab colour.

1. Buy cloth, nylon is good enough and its dirt cheap and very strong.

2. Dye it the colour you want.

3. Drybrush it or lightly spray paint it.

4. Cut it to fit board panels with overlap.

5. Glue it to the panels with wallpaper glue. If you wish you can join two or three panels together with a continuous piece of cloth, nylon is easily strong enough for that.

6. Take the rest and wrap it around foam hill pieces, cut it neat. Now your hills will exactly match the terrain.

7. Glue more to thin plasticard, cut it neat with a tiny fringe so the features blend into the boards, glue (palm) trees, rocks etc to those. Now your terrain features will also blend in.

8. Highlight select terrain features with a spray can, but don't highlight board sections, keep those mostly static unless you want built in terrain features on your panels. This way your terrain features will always blend in anywhere on the play surface.

9. As a bonus paint any movement trays to match your terrain set.

You can use exactly the same principle for temperate, tropical, desert, tundra, wasteland, concrete or ice. With exact matching terrain for each project.

Also avoid just using cloth, instead glue cloth to backing boards. one careless nudge and everything feths up.

I guess i should have been more specific. I'm looking for one of the "giant mouse pad" type game mats, Just not looking to spend more than $50. Would prefer not to use felt/a sheet.

About a year ago I discovered sand in a spray can. I kid you not.
Local DIY shop. Comes under textured spray paint or surface texturing paint.
I love the stuff.
Some of that on a beige sheet would work quite well I think.

Ah, okay. You will not find a neoprene mat beneath $50, anywhere. Until someone starts that shop (maybe in Russia eventually?).

Doesn't exist that I've seen. Shipping included, at least in the United States there is not a neoprene mat option under $85-90 USD. Would love to know if someone has found a company selling cheap neoprene mats (surely someone in China could get in on this action and churn them out).

http://www.meeplemart.com/store/c/3065-Game-Mats-3065.aspx

$33.95 just not in the Desert style....

Those are not neoprene mats...they're grass mats for rail roading model builds (i.e. the same paper-esque grass mats we've used since the 1980's for wargaming).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Battle-mat-Hagland-desert-landscape-scenery-for-wargames-Runewars-72x36/292189965414?_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D41375%26meid%3Db51eed930ab641589f8ba069fe16875c%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D381959973440&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

or literally any of this guys stuff, $85 is on the high end of anything I've seen. like the MOST expensive mats are $85...

I googled "cheap game mats" and cant find anything over $60 I just wanted to know the best quality for cheapest. Guess sometimes your own research is the best

Okay, well I guess I'm confused by what you're asking...

You said: "Mat"...people gave you suggestions. Then you said "big mouse pad" mat...meaning neoprene. Which I informed you is not available for less than $85 that I can find. Now you're posting other non-mousepad mats and saying they're cheaper. Neoprene or "mouse pad" mats are not going to be "cheap" gaming mats.

What exactly are you looking for? Neoprene mats or "mouse pad" mats are much more expensive than grass mats or vinyl gaming mats (which you'ved linked to).