Which Gaming Surface is Right For You? 

Despite having the ability to create good quality flocked 4x6 tables and having the ability to store/haul them in great quantities (

Were fight on a planet near the eye of terror. So chaos has turn the planet in to a huge orb of polished wood. Yep, my moms' dining room table works really well.

Many sign shops that print banners can also print on canvas, aluminum, coroplast (corogated plastic, like cardboard boxes), pvc sheets and other materials for various effects. They can also laminate the mat or apply a protective finish to help it last longer. If your material doesn't grip the table well, use small velcro squares at the corners to keep it in place.

Couple of things Atom didn't mention here. One is that a diorama style board is hell on your paint jobs. If your models fall over they usually hit sand or ballast which does a pretty good job at chipping paint. With the neoprene mats this is typically a non-issue. The neoprene/vinyl mats also have an advantage over felt in that they don't pill and grab the bases and pointy bits of your models.

My wife and I bought a Desert surface mat and a snow mat. because those cover Her Legion -> Snow My Khador -> Snow Her Menoth -> Desert My Circle -> Desert They weren't cheap at $90 each but they were well worth while.

Because of your videos, I one day thought: “You know, I really want to paint some skeletons...” Now I have a death army and I’m sick of painting skeletons.

whatever surface there is. kitchenhammer, garage-/beerhammer, "we got no terrain so we use books"-hammer, played all of them, had great fun doing so! :)

Nice to see Mats by Mars get a lengthy mention. I can remember when he was just getting started with that venture. Being able to write on them is huge!

Neoprene mats are the only way to fly. I love elaborate foam boards, but the dice work so nicely on the neoprene, and you can put terrain on top of it.

I poured Sand on my 4'X8' then poured polyurethane over that, after I dryed brushed. Came out nice.

I think a great start for people in terms of terrain are the new GW battlemats/ fold-up warscapes

I use a pool table which is useless for its original purpose.

I have one of the GW/Citadel Grass Mats, and I wish that they still made them. I like them much more than the neoprene mats because they have texture to them. I also will paint felt cloth with regular latex or acrylic paints to give them realistic colors and textures. Very inexpensive, and you can make tables at large as 6x12 feet (or larger) for mega-games.

Those Mats by Mars are perfect for what I was looking for. Thanks for the tip!

I love the neoprene printed mats - after years of playing on a painted wooden board (hinged in the middle to fold up to 6x2'), I loosened the pursestrings and got myself one. Makes a huge difference to gaming.

Hahaha, it was exactly as you described, we started many years ago on a kitchen table with books, cookie boxes and yogurt cans as terrain. We then added cardboard buildings and ruins, then added some foam and plasticard terrain. But it is complicated to move around all of this to each other's houses. We have some of those vinyl mats for D&D, and you gave me the idea to try them for wargames! Thanks!

Enjoyed this video immensely Adam. I own two Fat Mats (6x4) and I couldn’t be happier. Great products and couldn’t recommend them enough. Keep up the videos!

When I was in highschool and had plenty of free time. My friends and I made a couple boards for warhammer. We used a 6x3 or 6x4 mdf board. For one we used foam to add a few hills and then mixed sand into that leftover paint to get a nice textured look. The best one was a lava themed board that we put a thin layer of putty on before painting and carved lava trenches and pools.

I use neoprene gaming mats too... one friend of mine bought the rolling plains theme and i get the urban ruins one... As we are in Italy we get them from an italian shop that makes mats and we are happy with that...

Back in 2008 I was living in Korea and I brought some PDF wargame map sheets to a sign printer and had them print at high resolution on that vinyl banner material. It was pretty cheap for what turned out to be a nearly indestructible gaming surface.

Melee Mats are also an option, they are fabric and have very nice designs on them. Like a printed tablecloth.

I purchased one of Mats by Mars Fantasy Football mats at Adepticon last year and for $20 and it has been my favorite pitch for playing Blood Bowl and you can not beat the value for money.

One other you might or might not have heard of - Cigar Box gaming mats is doing them in a plush (fleece like by description, I have no personal experience of them) material - they not too long ago did a kickstarter where they were giving people the ability to kickstart for double sided versions, but their online shop has their designs all readily available as single sided options. I couldn't afford to get in at the time, but i remember being really impressed by what they seemed to have on offer - one of the things i remember them showing was actually being able to put elevation things under the mat and then laying the mat over to create more of a rolling terrain type of thing and it looked really quite cool

Could you do a similar topic on tables to actually play on? For example, Game Toppers, Table of Ultimate Gaming, or something else. I'd love to know your recommendations on some 6 * 4 table options that could be both functional and not look bad.

Have a Deep Cut cloth mat. Can drape over objects to give hills etc. Plus it's washable in case of spills and you can iron it to get rid of creases etc.

A third option is to print them using an online print shop. Depending on where you live, you can sometimes get 6x4 vinyl mats for under 20 USD and they look just as good as the official ones, although they feel less premium.

Just as a little addition (in the UK at least) there is a third option of cloth mats. The cloth mats are the same material on top as the mouse mats but without the black rubber. These sit in price between the mouse mat and the glossy mats and are very easy to store. You can fold a 6x4 cloth mat into a shoe box. If space is an issues I'd recommend trying those.

Good info, as always. Also, i meant to suggest a video topic last week for a future video, and promptly forgot to post it. What about a bloopers video? A gag reel, so to speak? With all the cat shenanigans we hear about, all the editing to make the videos, there HAS to be some good footage lying about.

Thanks, useful review. I do toy soldiers for kiddies (they can take up wargames if they want but they are supplied to be played with) and I include some scatter terrain (bunkers, hills, trees and the like) and often a square of green felt sprayed to mottle it. Toy soldiers on their individual bases do not work well with textured surfaces and the felt I use does crease - The thin vinyl mats look very promising. Thanks for the vid Cheers

Moon Base Klaisus is great for a place to start.

Love all these terrain related topics.

I constructed about 80 6" x 6" tiles that are mounted on foamcore and magnetized that have a city street motif using World Works Gaming TerraClips as an inspiration. I've found that it allows for near infinite variety in combinations. It looks fantastic and is super portable. It was also very inexpensive even when considering printer ink costs. I plan on eventually doing other kinds of terrain biomes and modular buildings.

dude your voice is so deep my earphones vibrated my brain

I build a lot of my own 3d terrain (such as building) but use maps as the base thank you for the links.

I ended up making a 3x3ft gaming board with some green felt and a piece of chipboard wood for smaller games and have a 6x4ft modular gaming boards (3x 2x4ft) with polystyrene, a lot of grey paint and some sand mixed into glue. It's worked out pretty damn well. I'd buy a game mat if they weren't so expensive to buy in Australia, but what I have now will do.

I dont think stains are too much of a problem as if they occur you can just make them a part of the design, especially if its a war torn landscape. For example red drink/liquid is just blood from battles of the past.

I have several Deep Cut Studio mats and they are exceptional quality.

You also have the F.A.T. Mats from Tablewar. I think they did the original mats that was sold by Frontline. But since they wanted to start producing their own they parted ways. They are very nice and of very good quality. They ship to both Europe and the US.

We've been playing on a variety of FLG mats at our local shop with terrain built specifically for each mat, and they're great. Mats by Mars also printed up a bunch of custom Blood Bowl mats with the shop logo for our league. They're great, affordable, and easier to use than the GW cardboard mats. You can't go wrong with either one. If you look closely at the Mats by Mars 4x6 mats they also have markings for 40K deployment zones.

Hi, I've recently got into 40k and I've found loads of you videos really interesting and I was wondering if you could explain what twin linking a weapon does and what weapons you can do it with? I've heard it mentioned but no really clear explanation on what you can do it with or how

I like the modular dungeon stuff from dnd and pathfinder lines, good quality cardstock and heavily customizable.

Have you heard of "Terratiles"? It is a modular tile system in stead of a matt. I am pretty new to the hobby and thinking of getting some when I get enough figures done to play

I printed a Dune board game map on a vinyl mat. It was amazing. Print and sign shops can do these if you give them a jpg.

I recently bought a doublesided plush terrain mat through a kickstarter, it's like a fleece blanket :p

Also you need a syndicated drive-time 3 hour show on FM Radio I can listen to in the afternoons.

I just got a mat on the fair in essen from deepcut studios. they are european from lithuania. I like their mats and got one for a gaming table I am planing to build that I can easily store somewhere and change the scenery from time to time. I wanna have it mostly for the upcomming star wars legion game and couldn't decide which planet to make

Mats are a must for Armada, some excellent ones (non ff) printed at full 6x3' 👍🏻

I printed my own gaming mat for Armada in vinil. I printed a 3x6 spacemat in a plotter and it works great. The only downsize is that I need to conform the material after a unroll, the tips keep rising up. Here in Brazil, you can print vinil nearly at any copy shop that has a Plotter.

Just the right topic for my xmas wishlist. I'm just deciding wheter or not to get one. Been aiming at a pretty detailed scattered city mat. Heard some people saying too much detail of the map would lead to distraction, taking away the focus from the miniatures. Do you have any experience on this? Best regards from Germany!

I love my gaming mats. Bought most of them second hand, so I saved lots of cash. I build my own scatter terrain for hills and such... works out well.

I built a massive multi 2x2 section board based on Tsaragrad around the time cites of death, even in small sections boards are a pain

2 x 2 with padding when storing or transporting them

I really like Deepcut Studios mats, they are a very good quality.

Just in time Uncle Atom

Man your videos are so fucking helpful from a new hobby guy, thank you.

I have two vinyl mats from Galeforce 9 for Xwing. They're pretty good. They move a little too easy on my felt tabletop.

I really, really, REALLY miss the GeoHex terrain system. It looked great, was configurable, and could be got with hexes printed on or not.

Tiles like heroscape are fun to play on as well,

Building Diorama for gaming table top is a huge task, the future will be using something like the new 'Augmented Reality' software chip in the new Apple 8 phones..

I like the fleece gaming mats best

Does anyone know if they have a playmat that is like, cobblestone?

6:52 Ironically the mat in the size I need is out of stock.

your videos are dominating my feed, and I'm not complaining. I'd never heard of Mats by Mars and.... well, lets just say it solves a lot of problems for me. Cheaper than neoprene, easier to find than the cardboard ones from GW, and with way way way more variety. Hardest part is deciding on just 1 (or 2...)

Best thing I ever did. Go outside and dig a hole in the mud next to a stone walled garden with a path and steps nearby. It was just weather dependent and must admit to losing a couple guys in the dirt.

Very cool stuff

Got anything about different strategies or tactics in wargames for tabletop play?

I made a folding 4 x 6 ft table, then I went and bought a pack of 1 x 2 ft flooring at the hardware store that looks like a greyish black surface. Push them together and I am good to go.

Thoughts on latex gaming mats? I'm quite keen on getting one from playmats. eu and would love your take on it :)

Pringles cans made awesome smoke stacks.

I just started playing a game called Witchborn. Their adventure maps are all vinyl and they're very nice.

nice one sir!

Also I just bought a bunch of 70% off Halloween decorations to make death world terrain. Using the skeletal animals and what not

hey, i still use forest digital camo fabric for my table top.......;)

i glued down a sheet of really thin steel to the top of my wooden 4x8 table then painted it dark grey so i could put flat thin magnets on the bottom of my buildings so the buildings dont slide around

i just want a mars terriane looking map, i'm buying the skitarii box in a few weeks

I have never played without a mat (well, I played once, in GW store on real of battle board). But then, I don't play ay (anyone's) home, just at store.

Super random question, do you still have that button up shirt? If yes, could you tell me the brand or manufacturing number?

Not sure if you've considered a flat screen TV under a glass surface?

how about latex mats?

That’s right kids, important safety tip, don’t spill red wine on your expensive gaming mat.

I would love to buy one of these sort of mats but I just find them far too expensive for what they are. I can justify the money I spend on miniatures but for a play mat I just can't do it.

I used to just play on my kitchen table but then I won a 6x4 board from my local GW

Hi, what figure is that? at 8:09

Seems like you ignored the fairly portable plastic board surfaces that are out there from GW or Secret Weapon miniatures.

Your voice is incredible

I'm starting Alarielle tomorrow. It's not important, I just wanted you to know.

Very nice.

Adam I feel like I’ve seen you. Do you work at a hobby store in Florida

Who makes the miniature at 8:10?

I literally just use a table with books for terrain

Gaming mats for the win!

Darn wish I knew the hair dryer trick. I threw that dune map away after my ex crushed it.

Why is there a Terminator lurking in the background, Uncle Adam?

Gotta get that lego terrain

What about cloth

It seems like Frontline Gaming doesn't ship to Europe anymore. I bought one of their mats a while ago via their EU store, but there doesn't seem to be an EU store anymore. Weird.

Did your momma name you Atom Smasher? That would be sort of epic if true.

What about just like, a sandbox

I kinda want the plastic tiles but the price is steep for unpainted and I wouldn't look forward to that much painting.

but can i get one in the uk?