Monday 17 August 2015

Deep Cut Studios Cobble Mat

Since starting playing "In Her Majesty's Name" I'd started to become unhappy with my terrain options for playing in that period, having too many similar "old house in the woods" tables set up.

Having a decent looking surface on the table was a stumbling block. My fantasy town games had made do with an earthy ground in the past, and I'd tried to do some cobbled streets on the reverse of my modern roads (made from vinyl tiles) but the edges curl annoyingly. I've looked round the web at some home made cobble tables, but on pricing it up the costs were not that different, and with so many other projects on my list I decided to take the plunge and get a cobbled cloth mat from Deep Cut Studios. My gaming table is 6' x 3' and I really only play skirmish games so I went for the 3' x 3' option.


The company is in Lithuania, so I wasn't surprised by the quoted 1-2 weeks delivery time. However I was surprised as my Wednesday order was on my desk on Monday morning - great work!

I haven't bought a printed texture mat before, so I wasn't entirely sure what it would be like in hand, despite a few video reviews and product photos. So these comments maybe show about as much my expectations as the product itself.

I went for the cloth mat over the pvc version to avoid a glossy finish and to have a more durable surface. The cloth mat comes folded in zip-lock bag which I was concerned about, but straight out of the envelope and unfolded there are only 2, non-sharp creases which may flatten out themselves if not easily iron out. The textures are heat printed on are part of the cloth so ironing should be OK (in fact the blurb says you can put them in a 40 degree wash if necessary!)

The material is thinner than I'd expected. I had maybe been expected something with the thickness and weight of the old Games Workshop Gaming Cloth, but it is lighter than that. The thinness, however may well help keep out the creases, and it lies nicely on the table without any real slippage.

Mat on the left (with manhole cover) and the
Graffam textured tile on right.
The print is all of good quality and varied. There isn't any obvious pattern tiling. The cobbles are a bit bigger than I'd expected from the pictures. The drain cover on the map and measure in at 25mm diameter.

However with some terrain on the table the cobble size becomes a bit less of an issue. I took a couple of pictures to demonstrate. Note that this is on the table straight from the packet (with a bit of a shake) and most the creases are out.

Table overview
Closeup.
Overall pleased with the mat. The material and print is good. The cobble size on this print is my onlt issue, but it's not so bad that I'll not get used to it. Other print themes I doubt have this problem, so I would recommend the product.

10 comments:

  1. Nice review Sam. I have the PVC vinyl version at 3x3 and am very happy with it. Interesting to see what the cloth version is like. Hopefully it'll keep you gaming for years to come :-)

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    1. Thanks Blaxk'. The surface seems pretty hardy and it's not going to rip. The worse wear I can see at the moemnt would either be fading (which packing away should solve) or muck (which a machine wash will solve).

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  2. I've been eyeing that mat up for a while but have never seen any decent photos of it...up until now! Definitely on my to-buy list now!

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    1. Glad to be of service, Gordon. Lack of photos left it as a slight leap of faith for me as well, so good if I can help a decision (one way or t'other).

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  3. I look forward to seeing this in action, maybe for my inaugural visit to the new Sam shed ;)

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  4. looks great with your terrain

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    1. I'm sure it'll do the business just fine. Just need to get used to it.

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  5. Take my eye off the ball and you get busy! Looks good to me. Like you I'm a bit of a Graffam fanboy too. I've kind of locked myself in to 10x10 gaming tiles mounted on foam core. Here's a little table I was messing with recently with some Graffam cobbles... http://warchest.co.uk/blog/index.php/fantasy-vibe-terrain-randomness/

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    1. The Graffam cobbles set is what I used for my Skirmish Board. Great textures (as ever from Dave Graffam). Nice layout of the town, by the way. Canals\waterfront is yet another project for another day!!

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