Warning – image heavy post here. Illustrating a few things here (but kinda got snap-happy on this post to be honest).
In the pics below:
Terrain Mat (Flag Material)
Following the success of some Vinyl Terrain Mat printing via PixartPrinting, a subsequent sale came along for printed Flag Fabric. This made me think of what I’d read about Cigar Box cloth mats and some others that manufacturers were starting to produce.
Well, I had various art files floating around and thought I’d take a punt as it was only a few pounds to get these printed and shipped from Italy. The desert terrain mat in the pictures below are one of the ‘mats’.
I’ll maybe do a longer post about this in due course should I take pics of the other two “Flags” (one was Heroic Maps Frost Ruins and the other a larger town layout based of Dave Graffam art) but in brief, here are the conclusions;
- cheap
- light-weight, perhaps too light, but light enough that hills etc can be placed with some effect underneath
- slightly transparent, which also means a loss in vibrancy of colour and saturation
- as you can see from some of the closer images, there is a pattern to the fabric but to be honest, this is not really visible in situ and not really a deal breaker for me
Over all – a bit mixed. Not as overwhelming successful as the vinyl mats but certainly usable.
The Prang make an appearance
I had promised photos of these guys to Gavin at 15mm.co.uk/Ion Age sometime ago. They’ve been done for a while but not photographed. These are not the ‘mini’ photos – they were handy while messing with the table – but they featured quite effectively I think in this desert environment. Proper pics to follow GBS, and Eli, promise. I think they turned out quite well.
Old School Felt Fantastic
I often venture in to The Works (which UK shoppers will know as a high street Book/Craft remainder/bargain shop) in case they have some useful deals going. This can range from full-on D&D boardgames, models, paints, to various other useful ‘hobby’ things. I happened upon some packs of A4 felt sheets; one a range of greens, the other browns and sand colours. I know felt has been a common terrain item since the days of HG Wells probably but I’d never considered using it myself – until coincidentally a few weeks earlier I’d been struggling during a club game to maneuver some units through an overly dense wooded area.
So I cut out a few pieces, some to delineate ‘wooded’ areas (in this case palm groves) and a couple of crop fields. The felt took cheap craft paint well to break up the flat colour and to represent ‘crops that can be stood on by units without making them fall over or float in the air’. Look better than I thought they would.
Rogue Stars
There has been a buzz brewing at the local games club and online about Osprey’s forthcoming rules by Andrea Sfiligoi – Rogue Stars (big fan of anything he or Ganesha Games is involved with). The small unit/team/crew/squad approach is right down my street and I’ve been thinking of the rather numerous 15mm crew combinations I can muster. I think I may try hosting a club game, supply all the teams and terrain and see if I can get a convert of two to skirmishing in 15mm…. there will be great resistance. But will it be futile?
Depicted are, randomly pulled off the shelves, a motley crew of such adventurers/villains/opportunists. (More on Motley Crew on a future post… little idea brewing.)
That’s all for now – a bit of a medley of a post but hopefully a piece or two of interesting things for you.
3 thoughts on “More Terrain Mat experiments, Prang and Desert Felt…eh?”