Gaming mats for LI

[Burni]

I prefer playing on mouse pad style gaming mats. I’ve got a nice 6x4 Mars terrain one I use for 40K and could obviously use for LI but I’d like an urban mat that complements the civitas imperialis buildings.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations or know of anything that might suit? Preferably from a supplier that can ship to the UK without huge shipping costs. 

[General Zodd]

Deep-Cut Studios do a good range, including a cityscape mat initially designed for Titanicus, which would obviously be suitable for LI as well. They’re not cheap, but they’re good quality. As for shipping, they’re in Lithuania, so it may have gotten worse since Brexit, but I think it’s still quite reasonable.

[Pacific81]

One neat thing I have found with the Epic scale, and to take advantage of something you can't normally do at 28mm, is that it allows you to have a mix of surface types so you can incorporate city, industrial, forest, rivers and grassland areas for example. I went for a standard grassland mat, then got a fairly cheap 'city terrain' then cut areas out and mounted them on thin cork board. You can then move this around between games to keep some variety. Sorry for the photo spam here @Burni!

 

 

Because forests work as an area terrain in Epic (I assume they will in LI, as it has worked that way in every previous edition) you can have forest areas (these are just some loose trees you can move around on a base so its easy to place miniatures in them), that then offer a different tactical dynamic to the city areas. 

 

You can have road areas between city and industrial zones. Again, in some previous versions of Epic roads offered a movement bonus. Do you travel on the roads for the additional movement but then leave yourself open to being more easily targeted?

 

Final one! This is also set up amongst the grassland (we had some toxic swamps nearby that counted as a 'dangerous terrain') but with the railway track running from one side of the board to the other. 

 

This kind of references the way that Epic landscapes used to be set up in the old WD battle reports, except you're taking it a bit further by not just having the buildings placed directly on the grassland - although I think that is just a consequence of the detail and scale of Epic gradually increasing over the years, and so it is less abstract these days. 

 

Anyway just an idea, just a full AT table as General Zodd referenced above would look great as well I think.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Pacific81

[Burni]

5 hours ago, General Zodd said:

Deep-Cut Studios do a good range, including a cityscape mat initially designed for Titanicus, which would obviously be suitable for LI as well. They’re not cheap, but they’re good quality. As for shipping, they’re in Lithuania, so it may have gotten worse since Brexit, but I think it’s still quite reasonable.

Looks like Element Games stock the AT mat, so that’s a really good option thanks. I like the print on that one and think it would work well. 
 

And those are some brilliant ideas Pacific81 (and amazing photos!) I’ve just ordered some of the Troublemaker Games plastic scenery so hope to have a good mix on the table and hope it looks half as good as yours! They do different terrain types like siege works, ruins, spires and landing pads so hopefully it will create similar ‘zoned’ areas when mixed with the GW civitas and manufactorium stuff. 
 

I’m undecided whether to put the scenery on bases. As far as I know it should all be fine without.

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

Maybe BT terrain could be an alternative to GW´s terrain:

 

 

[Mandragola]

I got a good mousepad mat from Deepcut. It's double-sided with a pretty generic muddy green field on the other side. Pretty happy with it - just wish I got to use it more.

 

 

More of the terrain is painted now than in this pic... but not all of it.

[Pacific81]

That's pretty nice Mangradola, think it perfectly goes with that game. And have you got the scissors out to cut it down to 5 x 4, so it's legal with Legions? ;) 

 

Found another pic from a Firestorm Games event a few friends and I ran earlier in the year, probably shows the different terrain demarcations a little better. Having defined and varied terrain areas helps with some of the objective placement (you have very clear areas that could be a strategic objective, such as the industrial areas, train station, runway, an Ork town etc.) and as focal points for the game - you ended up with some really cool, very bloody battles around those areas (you can still just about see some Termites at the bottom, they emerged smack in the middle of a Snakebite Ork Clan and just disappeared into the horde of Orks!) but then some flanking attempts around those battles. An Ork Mekboy Gargant somehow survived several fusilades from the Warlord, got behind the Marine lines and had great fun picking up Predator tanks with a lifta-droppa and throwing them about. The Marines used their mobility at the end of the game to try and claim some objectives that the Orks had moved away from, but it was too little, too late.