"Advice for making low lost Naval Hex mats?" Topic

Hi,

With budget constraints rapidly kicking in (and a wedding to pay for next year!) my question is does anyone have any good advice as to how I could make my own gaming mat at low cost?

My only requirements are that the mat be blue (or grey), covered with 2" hexes, and large enough to fight fleet actions (so probably in the range of 6 by 10 feet, possibly in two pieces).

I have access to an A0 printer at work, which may come in useful, but I am struggling to find a hex generator at the moment. Stencils the best option here?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Note that alternating rows of squares with each row offset half a square from the preceding row is geometrically equivalent to a hex grid for movement and may be easier to generate than hexes.

Chris

You can get stencil from Litko but they are expensive. You need a vector drawing package on your computer or a friend to draw them up for you. You could then make a stencil. You only really need to mark the nodes.

Cheap cotton sheet(s) from WalMart or similar store in appropriate color. Paint to break up the solid color to suit. Stencil on the hexes. Hey presto – (nearly) instant ocean!

The Litko templates ARE expensive, but they'll last basically forever – or you could roll your own. Microsoft Visio, if you have access to it, does a VERY good job of producing precise printer output (i.e. 1" really IS 1" on the paper). Printed on some heavy stock, and carefully cut (I like Ys at the vertices myself, but a simple dot would do as well), they should work fine.

Doug

Think I can help, saw this somewhere but don't know where. The guy used some cheap felt/cloth in the appropriate colour . He then got a cheap Hex shaped cardboard box sized as close to the size you need from the craft shops, you start in the top corner and just putting a fabric craft paint on the corner each time use this as a. Stamp template, press it down, continue straight down an make a row of hex points. I'd use a strip of masking tape on the edge to make it straight. Continue using the previous line adding hexes top to bottom until full sheet covered. hey presto hex cloth. (Anyone have the link with pictures about this- I don't think I've done a good job explaining except to say that this is an inexpencive way to do it)

There was an article linked here on TMP just recently about making your own hex mats.

Basically, the author used a hex shaped gift box, painted the corners and used it like a stamp to make the hex mat.

I've used the Litko stencil and while tough and durable, the dots are very large – at least they are on the 1" template.

Here's the blog entry:

link

Yip that's the one, bookmarked for my 2014 spaceships project thanks. Cheers

The hexes on these, represented by the central dot,may be a little bit big, depending on the size of the ships, but they are easily scalable.

PDF link

Now the advantage of the tiles is that the table is easy to move, as the two sides sail and jockey for position. We changed the boards very couple of moves play this Suffren v Hughes game at NavCon in October:

link

Your local fabric store will have "school picture background" cloth. It is mottled blue and comes in light and dark. Looks very good for naval games. If you want you can do it yourself quite easily with a blue sharpie and a 2" triangle:

TMP link

You want a big space so it might take a while. At that size be sure to use some guide lines to get your rows straight.

First, try…

printfreegraphpaper.com

and

incompetech.com/graphpaper

I would do the following:

Get to the fabric store and get either some "bottomw weight" or vinyl in a color you like. Don't get felt.

Get a piece of posterboard.

Print out the size hexes you want.

Interpolate here to what you're comfortable with, but transfer the hexes to the poster board. You can also just get a yard stick and make the hex intersections on the poster board yourself.

Now cut into the poster board little three-arned holes at the hex intersections.

Now use that a template to mark your fabric or vinyl with fabric paint or a sharpie.

This gives a relatively inexpensive and very nice map you can use for the rest of your life.

This is an old school method and keeping the hexes straight is a challenge but I actually just used a hexagon piece from Settlers of Catan (Not 2 inches)and traced around it with a black sharpee. Then moved it next door and keep repeating. You have to practice a bit on paper to make sure you have the alignment right each time to avoid drift… and it does take a while but I have several mats of my own that I did this way that only cost me the cost of the fabric and some time.

Make a template yourself, and just paint dots, or three-pronged "stars" in the corners, for the hexes.

Mark with a color close to that of your mat, so the points of the hexes blend into the background, when observed from a distance, but can still be seen up close.

Forego the hexmat entirely, by making movement templates, and using rulers. You can modify any rules set to make them hexless.

I use an 8-point compass when gaming Age of Sail battles, and it works very well, since 45 degree angles are pretty easy to judge.

You can use plastic canvas from craft/needlepoint shops to make a template yourself. All you have to do is mark which square the corners of the hex are in (actually, you can mark several hexes whatever size you want on it) then carefully lay it on the cloth (I use marine vinyl) and mark those corners with a Sharpie. Then you remove the canvas, and you can either connect the dots, or just add dots between them to form the outlines of the hexes. It takes a while, but it's fairly simple and inexpensive to make nice mats.

I "borrowed" my wife's set of acylic patchwork hex templates. They come in many different sizes. Just traced around the size I wanted onto a cheap blue sheet with a marker pen one evening watching the TV. Regards Alan

I printed a hex grid and then enlarged it on a photocopier until it was the right size (and on A3 paper) then laminated it and cut out the vertices to make a template.

Robert

Thanks guys, plenty of great ideas there.