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I'm looking to pickup a gaming mat for 40k. Gamemat looks the best option with guarantee of no import fee, it's the holding fee that tends to be the stinger i've found from experience on international items. Unless anyone can suggest something better? I'm looking for some reinforcement of my decision, as it's a big investment for me. I imagine they hold value quite well.

What i'm looking at is a 44x30" and a 44x60" both double sided. Grass and Desert sided.

The postage is quite cheap considering. Cost wise (all in) it's £60 for a single sided 60x44" versus £130 for dbl sided 30" and 60" mats.

This means i can host some of the big games, but also have 2x small games on the go. As together they allow 2x 44x45" boards, which is perfect for two 1500pts games. This also means i have extra hobby freedom on the terrain, i can't wait to make some terrain as i enjoy doing basing on models very much so.

After playing on card or pvc mats i really do appreciate these neoprene mats, they make the game that much more immersive and a joy to use, simply sliding models along and quiet dice that actually roll nicely.

The only negative is i feel that the plain green and desert orange could be boring? But is this just over thinking it as they are quite detailed (high dpi print) and terrain is what finishes the board really.

Thanks

The fleece mats sold by Geek Villain are gorgeous. The print on them is great, they lay nice and flat, and they pack up relatively small and light. The fleece texture is barely noticeable, closer to microfleece really.

Take a look on their website. Not so sure about the range of sizes, as I always go for a 6'x4'.

Don't buy the FLG mats, I made that mistake 2 years ago, and they are WAAAAY off on the margins. Like an inch at the extreme end. Better to go with your local Hardware store, that sells that cheap green plastic carpet. Have them cut you an 8x4 cut, and then take it home and measure it out, make clips or cuts where needed, and bam. Costs about half what the neoprene mats from a store would.

We've got GameMat mats at our club, and they're fine. Have you looked to see if Element / Wayland / Goblin Gaming have the one you're after? You might be able to get them a bit cheaper.

The mats themselves don't get boring, as you're moving terrain around so they're never the same. The biggest issue is if your basing doesn't match it look off.

As a general point I'd avoid snow mats as they mark / stain far too easily.

beast_gts wrote:
We've got GameMat mats at our club, and they're fine. Have you looked to see if Element / Wayland / Goblin Gaming have the one you're after? You might be able to get them a bit cheaper.

The mats themselves don't get boring, as you're moving terrain around so they're never the same. The biggest issue is if your basing doesn't match it look off.

As a general point I'd avoid snow mats as they mark / stain far too easily.

I've got a 6x4 FLG grass mat which is great and a 6x4 FLG urban mat (which seems to have naturally shrunk over time by an inch or two). Both are great and look fantastic, add in painted terrain and they are very immersive, even more so if you base the terrain.

The other issue as beast mentions is that models on a specific surface not based to match can look weird, but few people have the luxury of only ever playing on 1 surface without the same terrain game in/out making it a little stale. Odds are you'll be at a friends house/club with a different table at some point and the basing won't match.

It's not a problem for me as I got bored of basing everything the same way, often the colour schemes lend themselves to a different type of base too, so go nuts there but just make the terrain match the mat and the rest is gravy.