"Space mat for ship-to-ship gaming" Topic

Hi,

I'm looking to get a space mat WITHOUT hexes or squares. A quick online search has me leaning towards Hotz ArtWorks. Does anyone have any opinions on their products (they look rather fine) or other suggestions?

Best,
Mike

do yourself a favor. go to Wal-Mart (Or appropriate substitute) and purchase 8' of Black Felt, can of Matte Red Spray paint (96 cents) can of Matte Blue Spray Paint (96 cents) and a bottle of white acrylic craft paint (84 cents).

Dust the cloth with a few strokes of color from 18 inches to 2 feet back red and blue.

Then take a cheap brush and spatter or dot stars all over it.

It will take you roughly 30 minutes and it will look great. Trivial to do.

Jo Annes Fabrics sells black felt with different colored sparkles (for kids costumes?) that I picked up awhile back… works nicely!! It's stiffer than normal felt and not as rough (doesn't catch).

That's what I use as well, Rassilon. It's sold as "glitter felt." I think it gives a nice effect of distant stars.

Black sheet, dots of white, red and blue paint. Maybe a spattering of a light brown or lavender to represent nebulae, if you feel really adventurous.

It always works for me.

Wal-Mart, Joanne, and other fabric sellers also carry fabric printed to look like stars. Some are so gaudy with planets and nebulae, the ships would disappear against them, but others are tasteful and don't look bad at all. Low price, zero effort… that's a win/win in my book.

You can see what I mean at cke1st.com/m_games2.htm ; scroll almost all the way down to the photos.

find a big and beautiful star map from the Hubble telescope (google up some images), then get it printed onto black plastic by a sign printer.

you will now have the most drop-dead gorgeous starship spacegame backdrop in the state.

If you are not into do it yourself then the Hotz mats are great (I have 2 of the space mats) but be prepared for a possible wait as Eric can take a while to get the mats out sometime, but they will get there.

Ken

have a look at these guys in the UK
terrainmat.com

Thanks very much for the input people. It's always great to hear what people have to say. I'm leaning towards buying a completed mat for two reasons:

1/ I'm 'artistically challenged'. I can paint figures to (I think) a moderately high standard, but I always refer to that as 'colouring in'. I don't think I have any talent for free hand artwork and I'm sure my carefully crafted star field would, in all likelyhood, end up looking like someone had put a black sheet down while repainting the hall ceiling.

2/ I don't get a lot of free time and I already have more miniatures than I can possibly hope to paint. I'd rather use my hobby time colouring in some of those, rather than painting a star mat that I probably wouldn't be happy with in the end.

Thanks particularly to the guy who pointed out the UK supplier. There's some nice stuff there (I'm seriously considering one of their 1/72 scale sea mats for pirate gaming) but they are significantly more expensive than the US supplier, even including shipping for that mat from America to England where I'm based.

As always, I'll listen to anyone's opinions on this, so don't hold back!

Many thanks,
Mike

I ordered a star mat from Hotz. It took about 18 days to arrive at my door, although I've heard it can often take longer. I am pleased with the quality and certainly would not have been able to lay down the hex pattern myself.

I have two Hotz Mats. They look great and really hold up well…

Hotz is well worth it if you want/need the hexes.

But you don't, so do it yourself would be much cheaper.