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So I had a bit of a thought.

A lot of people complain about battlefield terrain moving about on the table. If you are using a BATTLEMAT of some brand, would sheet metal underneath the mat with magnets glued flush into the underside of the scenery have enough magnetisation to stop the terrain from moving around?

http://www.themetalstore.co.uk/products/0-8mm-thick-mild-steel-sheet

Alternatively, could you glue magnets to the underside of plastic boards in a rough grid pattern to get the same impact?

Be interesting to hear if anyone has any views on the idea.

Why not just rough up the bottom on the terriam with course sand paper? Surely that would be the 1st thing to try before buying expensive magnets.

Smooth paper (face of foamcore boards), MDF, or plastic is liable to slide on almost any surface, whether printed vinyl, static grass/flock, coarse sand, etc. Best practice is to avoid unnecessary complications (and expenditure!) and simply increase the friction.

Craft stores sell thin, self-adhesive EVA foam sheets (kids' 'craft' foam) that will settle down into and grip the texture of sand without getting immediately abraded away. Felt sheets (also have self-adhesive varieties) work wonderfully on flock and static grass, but tend to get snagged on sand - I would only use them on grass boards. MDF or plastic bases gain the most traction from either of those two additions, but can also be sanded to gain a small boost in friction without spending a single penny.

Magnets are great for many things, even just within our hobby, but unless you have lots of free time, a huge stash of magnets and no other use for them, and an existing metal table to sit under a thin game mat, I'd say you're barking up the wrong tree.

One word. Velcro.

Most boards i play on are felt tops. Velcro on the the finicky pieces of terrain tends to resolve our problems.

 Lurker wrote:
So I had a bit of a thought.

A lot of people complain about battlefield terrain moving about on the table. If you are using a BATTLEMAT of some brand, would sheet metal underneath the mat with magnets glued flush into the underside of the scenery have enough magnetisation to stop the terrain from moving around?

How thick are the mats? Magnet strength drops off rapidly when they aren't in direct contact, especially with a steel to magnet bond (since a large part of the strength of a steel <-> magnet bond is the magnet inducing magnetism in the steel which makes the bond stronger, as the magnet moves away from the steel the drop off in force is even greater than if it were magnet <-> magnet).

I've used magnets and steel at work to hold together 2 sheets of plastic with a thin plastic spacer in between, but the plastic spacer needs to be as thin as you can possibly make it otherwise the magnets don't have sufficient strength.

You can see how much the force drops off with this:
https://www.kjmagnetics.com/calculator.asp

But I don't think magnets are a great idea (who has a giant piece of steel lying around anyway? )

What about using those non-slip mats? The sort of thing you use in the kitchen. Just google "non slip mat" and you should find it, it's that rubbery stuff that.... doesn't slip.

Some options...

1 - cut your battle mats and glue them onto plywood that's 2x2. terrain won't slip on most battle mats.

2 - surface your tables (or playing surface) with felt, which is cheap, colored, and highly effective. we did this for ages!

3 - use battle boards Once you get used to them, it's so hard to go back to mats and felt. It's a bit of a pricey investment, but it's good for so many games.

Use friction tape on the bottom of your scenery. Use it on the bottom of your minis' bases. Use it everywhere.

Silicone adhesive - spread a thin layer on the bottom of the scenery, wait for it to dry completely. It now has a thin, rubberised footing that will stop it from sliding around.

Glue felt to the bottom of the terrain pieces. Sounds like a cheap and effective solution to me!

 Talys wrote:
2 - surface your tables (or playing surface) with felt, which is cheap, colored, and highly effective. we did this for ages!

Something rather obscure, and that had never occurred to me until this year: Make sure none of your players are allergic to felt before lining large areas of table with it.
Modern felt is usually acrylic and very rarely causes any issues. Older felts, like those rolls of gaming felt you've had since the 80s/90s, can cause some rather painful allergic reactions when folk rub their eyes, and I have no idea why. Wool base? The dyes? Fibre sizes? It is a mystery. A painful, itchy mystery.

Yes my friend did this, and now I have to wear gloves to game in his house. Sounds ridiculous, but it doesn't just affect commissars, it's more a more common reaction than you'd expect.

I agree with felt having fantastic traction though. Velour under the scenery also grips very well.

Easy and cheap: drawer liner. Cut it to roughly the size of your terrain base and nothing will move. You can get this stuff cheap at Home Depot / Lowes.

http://www.rabbitlaserusa.com/images/Supplies/NonSlipDrawerLiner2.jpg

 Cleatus wrote:
Glue felt to the bottom of the terrain pieces. Sounds like a cheap and effective solution to me!

I do this.

Even if it's only strips around the edge. You can also get it as a self-adhesive kind (peel backing, stick down). All of my club's boards are painted (our terrain is all modular, so it swaps out from table to table. It's a synthetic. Older felts here tended to be made from rabbit fur. Prior to Calicivirus decimating the rabbit populations, that is. Wool was far too valuable to waste on felt.

I use bluetac sometimes. As long as your board (I own a RoBG set) has been sprayed with protection (varnish, gloss etc), it works perfectly.
And about as cheap as you can get.

Another thought: painter's tape. I keep a roll handy for demarcating the DZ's, and occasionally sticking down an objective marker token. I imagine it would work well on the bottom of terrain too. It's sticky, but not too sticky.