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New GW battle mat!

Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 9:44 am
by RE.Lee
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-PL/Wa ... City-Ruins

Good to see the company back in battle mat business - the old grass one was great. This one seems a bit over the top, but I'm sure its solid quality. Lets see if they make a similar one for Fantasy and hope its not too much AoS. Give their recent forays into scenery the chances are rather slim, but just maybe it'll be usable for battles in the Old World.

Re: New GW battle mat!

Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 8:05 pm
by SpellArcher
RE.Lee wrote:the old grass one was great. This one seems a bit over the top,
I agree, nice but I always prefer playing on plain coloured surfaces with 'bits' of terrain on top. The modular stuff with painted details for example gives me a headache!

Re: New GW battle mat!

Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 8:36 pm
by Shannar, Sealord
We just had a sheet of plywood painted green, until much later when I started building nice terrain anyway. Worked pretty nice. When I was a youngin' we used the plastic mat from battle masters (picked up two copies at the outlet mall for half price) sometimes. It was a quick and easy way to have a river down the middle of the table, which is nice sometimes.

Re: New GW battle mat!

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 7:28 am
by Prince of Spires
It looks interesting enough (though only 4X4'). It would be great if they would do an old world one. I don't think AoS and WH would be too different for them not to be interchangeable. The price is however something to be considered. For this price I think there are better and nicer ones out there. Especially if we assume a 6X4 one to be 50% more expensive. 90,- euro's goes a long way...

Given that I'll be on the look-out for a new modular gaming table / playing surface I'm keeping my eyes open for options like this. :)

Rod

Re: New GW battle mat!

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 2:18 pm
by Duranthalis
There's already a pretty big market for gaming mats. One of the websites offers a pretty decent selection of them, granted a lot of them are designed with RPGs in mind and come with grids. Point is, for GW to try and break into the market with overpriced and limited selections seems ... sad.

However, I do feel that I would be more likely to purchase a battle mat than their plastic gaming table, as I really didn't care for the "you have to have these terrain features every time because that's how it's molded" aspect of it.

Re: New GW battle mat!

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 9:58 pm
by Shannar, Sealord
Duranthalis wrote:There's already a pretty big market for gaming mats. One of the websites offers a pretty decent selection of them, granted a lot of them are designed with RPGs in mind and come with grids. Point is, for GW to try and break into the market with overpriced and limited selections seems ... sad..
Agreed. But. They do still have a (shrinking) segment of the market completely under their control. It's the only way to explain how they sell any hobby tools, basing materials, glue, (and just to stir things up a bit) paint, and AoS models.

Re: New GW battle mat!

Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 8:06 am
by Prince of Spires
Shannar, Sealord wrote:
Duranthalis wrote:There's already a pretty big market for gaming mats. One of the websites offers a pretty decent selection of them, granted a lot of them are designed with RPGs in mind and come with grids. Point is, for GW to try and break into the market with overpriced and limited selections seems ... sad..
Agreed. But. They do still have a (shrinking) segment of the market completely under their control. It's the only way to explain how they sell any hobby tools, basing materials, glue, (and just to stir things up a bit) paint, and AoS models.
Indeed. If you want to be a "one-stop shop" for a group of customers then you need to have everything. Once people venture out of your walled garden once they may do so a second time as well.

I do see it as a defensive move more then as the move of a company that wants to make great products a user wants to buy. And I'm not sure many people who have occasionally looked outside of GW will pay that much for something which they can get elsewhere a lot cheaper. For miniatures they offer something that's hard to copy and lets them get away with their pricing. Here? I'm not sure.

Rod

Re: New GW battle mat!

Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 1:19 pm
by RE.Lee
Honestly I've yet to see anybody copy their grass mat's quality. For all their faults, GW can still make a good product! I'm happy with the two-sided mat I got recently, but it is rather plain. If GW would put out a detailed mat, without too much AoS symbols I'd be first in line. Same goes for more generic terrain in general - I love the Garden of Morr and I'd buy the Astronomers Lair in a second if its ever re-released!

Re: New GW battle mat!

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 7:19 am
by Prince of Spires
I really like much of the generic terrain GW has put out. The forest and Garden of Morr are lovely pieces. As are some of the LotR things they've put out. And I also like the AoS Ophidian Archway piece. That one is still on my 'to get' list. Nice piece, well priced and I think it will work nicely in both WH games (as simply some impassible terrain) or a Mordheim game. One that would probably also work in Mordheim is theNuminous Occulum, except that I'm not quite sure what it actually is... I'm not too fond of the Astronomers Lair. Too many skulls for a sensible building. But then, I'm not an empire player either, so it also wouldn't really fit in with my army.

Rod

Re: New GW battle mat!

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 2:38 pm
by RE.Lee
The Archway is decent, I agree. I'm afraid they'll go the route of the Shattered Dominion board for any upcoming mat, with the weird cogs and all...