Data Sphere

Once in a while I'll see these awesome gaming mats pop up. MAS has a couple, I've seen more brands. My beef is that they're usually quite expensive, even though they look awesome and are very practical.

I've love to hear from you guys: who has one? It is worth the price?

Here's an option if you have more time than money:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtRMoIZfPPg

Our FLGS has a couple. They work well for laying over a couple folding tables to define the proper play area, soften the surface, cover the gaps and provide a nice background. For the price I probably wouldn't use one at home, but they do seem handy for on the go.

And as a separate thought I have seen something along the lines of a shipboard interior game mat work well, especially for those without a lot of space/money for terrain. It easily provides all your big line of sight blockers, you just need a bunch of scatter for cover.

Has anyone considered some of the older 2D RPG/Mini maps for use with Infinity?
Personally I like the home made 3D terrain, but there were some very interesting and modular maps for the old Star Wars mini game, mostly interiors.... I might speak to a buddy of mine about that.
I could probably use them as design templates and make some 'real' terrain based on them... hmmmmm

Oh, you also get a lot of nice ones with the Shadowrun RPG, IIRC there was a whole sourcebook of them once... I'm not sure about the scale, but it is not something you couldn't scale up with a xerox copier. Or, indeed, use as inspiration to make proper terrain.

Being (roughly) a cyberpunk world in theme, Shadowrun floorplans would fit here nicely.

You're probably talking about the DMZ game set they brought out for FIRST ED SHADOWRUN. :d (I've still got my full set of mats and pieces for it. Whilst it did have conversion rules for taking SR characters and using them, it was a stand alone product.

Used it for cyberpunk rpg gaming up until a couple of years ago - when my last group folded (the club we played in folded and several players moved away).

They probably did an update for it along the way, though.

A friend got 2 gaming mats printed and sent from China (based on high quality pictures he grabbed I don't remember where)
The mats are 4x6 (40K/WHFB size) and cost about 15-20€ each, including (free) postage ...
I don't have the discussion in my mailbox anymore though

Do you at least have a link or email adress?

The older DMZ ones were on a 25mm kinda hex grid (except you moved point to point, not hex to hex) and you could use the old RP SR minis on it. I've got all mine digitised - the mall and the grey streetscape sheets (you added the smaller layouts onto it to make your own sprawl scene. The base sheets were poster sized. Around A0.

There are a bunch of old Traveller ones around, too. Seeker Gaming Systems did a few with a 25mm grid.

TanKoL wrote:A friend got 2 gaming mats printed and sent from China (based on high quality pictures he grabbed I don't remember where)
The mats are 4x6 (40K/WHFB size) and cost about 15-20€ each, including (free) postage ...
I don't have the discussion in my mailbox anymore though

Now we're talking, that's very interesting pricing right there! Tell us more... where can we get this? ;D

Arachas wrote:

TanKoL wrote:A friend got 2 gaming mats printed and sent from China (based on high quality pictures he grabbed I don't remember where)
The mats are 4x6 (40K/WHFB size) and cost about 15-20€ each, including (free) postage ...
I don't have the discussion in my mailbox anymore though

Now we're talking, that's very interesting pricing right there! Tell us more... where can we get this? ;D

Agreed!

Edit: double post

There's some local people called spectre gaming doing 4x4 mats that are made of durable PVC. They are about £40 though.

sent an email to my buddy to get the coordinates of the people that did the gaming mats for him, will keep you posted

So, here's the supplier he used, he selected the cheapest material ("extreme classic PVC 500 gsm") and the result is very nice, seems pretty sturdy as well
He has to provide the texture, finding one with a good resolution that would adapt well was in fact the tough part

For anyone looking to create their own from a printer this might be of use, it has a bunch of fairly high quality tiles that can be composed into one image. The design also allow you to put as many tiles as you need to make it the correct size.

http://www.toposolitario.es/workshop/ta ... strial.pdf

Spears, I actually just ordered a mat from http://www.bannersonthecheap.com/ of exactly that. Heard good things from people who made maps for X-wing. I'm sure there is a large format vinyl printer somewhere around for the non-US/Canada based forumites.

It is coming Monday, I'll post it here to show you all how it turned out.


I resized textures to have 4" roads and rotated them back to square, rather than diagonal. (The real file is quite a bit larger!)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ekuIskwNFho/VAE40RQ9VFI/AAAAAAAACZU/VMI3H3-OCpY/s1600/Map.png

Was ~$20 USD.

Looks good, intrigued to see how it turns out. Was postage much?

The FLGS got some really nice mats, including a beautiful snowfield w/ bare rocks one that would be perfect for Operation Icestorm. Can't remember where Malik said he got the mats, but the 4x6 was $90 for something that's basically a 4x6 mousepad.

Spears wrote:Looks good, intrigued to see how it turns out. Was postage much?

Was actually free, mat was $20 shipped. Worth a flyer, at least.

I own 4 gaming mats for Infinity. Tow of them are 90x120 cm with a 90x90 (36'' x 36'') playing area, and were originally X-Wing playmat PDF downloads from Dave Graffam, printed on vinyl mat at a local shop. They are blue, have various interesting hexagon and radar-screen shapes on them, and are ideal for demo games or small games, with an ample area for managing orders and army list or rolling dice on both sides. I love them. If I have the space available, I place my small blue demo table atop one of these mats for added space (for tape measures, templates, tokens and other stuff).

The other two are bigger mats with a nice cityfight background (roads, rubble, pavement, sidewalks, container yards etc.), 120x180 and 120x120 (48'' x 72'' and 48'' square), same stuff, but printed an demand over the internet. They cost me 20 € each, including shipping, and the PDFs I had to buy beforehand were 6'' each.

All four of my mats see much use in our games, along with our FLGS's three conventionally sanded/flocked tables which represent desert, frozen water and green grass, respectively.

Vinyl mats have the great advantage that the miniatures, if toppled over, don't tend to take damage, and if someone spills coffee over the table, you can easily wipe it off. If they're not needed, they roll up nicely and can easily be stored in a corner. I have a foldable MDF table to support them (three 60x120 / 24''x48'' sectiones taped together in a zigzag pattern that forms a 120x180 / 48''x72'' table).

Seems much like one could get a pretty nice gaming map anywhere if they can find a local company doing prints on vinyl, apparently rather a common option available for the advertising market.

The only requirement is to provide a proper texture to be used as background.

I sense an opportunity for our dear forumites to create a set of downloadable textures to be used for that purpose
some are freely available on the net - for example, this is perhaps not a perfect Infinity hexagon-esqe design, but close enough for my taste - http://www.freevectors.net/details/Metal+Background+Texture+Design

Okay, what about the mats from Customeeple and MAS?

They look pretty ace!

Indeed, they do look ace.
Haven't seen any of them yet (I feel like MAS has been introduced within the last few days), though - and I find the MAS one to be pretty expensive (by local standards of myself and / or my local community).

I'm also not 100% convinced if I like the idea of streets with fixed spaces for buildings (and obviously, the MAS District 5 ones, though I could naturally make some carboard ones with the same footprint, hmm...). I mean, the idea is nice, but... I dunno whether it would work for me and my group.
And I'm kinda reluctant about risking the money in case it wouldn't...

I like the 'earth' mat that they're currently using in the http://www.miniwargaming.com Infinity Batreps, but I'd be prone to finding a sheet of vinyl or something locally and just applying some vinyl caulking and airbrushing cheap acrylics onto it... but only if it were cheaper.

When I get time and $$ again, I'm going to get some space mats made up. Download some NASA Hubble pictures, get them printed on a large vinyl banner.

For a DIY solution, I've seen one guy buy a canvas dropcloth from the paint store, grab a bunch of brown silicone caulk tubes (in different colors) and some of the Woodland Scenics ground foam in different colors of green. You need a hard plastic squeegee to work the silicone caulk into the dropcloth, then put a bunch of the ground foam onto the caulk while it's still wet. Work in small patches, say 12" square or so. Looks really good, and the caulk is an excellent glue for ground foam. Even if some of that ground foam sheds, the caulk underneath is dirt-colored. Very long-lasting and durable.

Acrylic caulk is better. Silicone takes paint "poorly", for example for variations or drybrushing effects. "Poorly".

It really does depend on the silicone caulk, though. Some of them can be readily painted - others not so much. These will generally be noted on the cart or tube if they can be. The same goes for textured and tinted silicone "grouts". I worked in the building trade SELLING this stuff, and all grouts/caulks are not the same.

So maybe we should refer to them as "paintable caulk"? And stress the paintable part.

Now that I check again, brands that sell paintable silicone seem very proud of the fact they managed to find such formulas.

On the topic of mats - especially the MAS one - what would you consider to be a typical hazard for that kind of product?

I guess I'm not going to test-cut it, as this is not something I'd consider a typical hazard. We use cutting mats for cutting, and playing mats
for playing - but there are some things that can happen during a game...

For starters, I'd like to know how it behaves:
- bent - does it warp, or form more-or-less permanent bend-lines?
- washed with your average detergent and a kitchen sponge, after someone spilled some soda or food on it?
- stamped with hot object (a mug of hot tea, for example) being casually placed on the gaming table?

What else, guys?