One of the things I was specifically looking for at Historicon this year was a mat for naval wargaming. While Battlefield Terrain Concepts did not have any in stock they were able to ship (no pun intended) one to me. They didn’t charge shipping and they gave a convention discount so it worked out perfectly for me! It arrived quickly and I had just cleared off enough space on my gaming table to display it so I took that as a sign to show it off!
This is the Ocean Gaming Battle Mat and is marketed as “4’x6′ plus.” The Cigar Box Battle website says the mat is approximately 56″ x 76″. This is one of the few times I’ve had a company undersell their product! My gaming table is 5′ x 8′ and as you can see the mat covers the entire 5′ width, putting the mat at 60″ wide. Length wise the mat is about 78″ long. The mat is printed on a thick fleece material and it has a nice drape to it. While this won’t matter for this particular mat as I won’t be placing this over any hills for obvious reasons if you had a grasslands or other similar mat you could put your hills under the mat rather than setting them on top. If you are playing a game that requires a 6’x4′ table the extra material would offset the fabric covering the hills.
I really like this mat, it is nice and vibrant and the shifting blues give the look of the ocean. In the below pictures I show the mat off with ships from Sails of Glory, micro-armor, and Man O’War. They look nice sailing into battle and I can’t wait to use this mat!
You might notice a bit of a crease in the mat, this will come out easily enough with either a quick iron, or a tumble in the dryer. I plan on storing the softly folded so once this crease is gone I don’t think there will be an issue, it just came tightly folded which is what caused the crease. I like how the mat is smooth it will make the Sails of Glory and the micro-armor ships slide along the mat without needing to pick them up. The Man O’War ships are a little rougher on the bottom due to not having bases so they will need to be picked up and moved along to prevent snags, better safe than sorry!
I really like this mat and am definitely looking forward to getting some ship to ship combat on them. I am already looking forward to getting in some games in the not too distant future!
-Wachtmeister
The Wachtmeister's Patrol 