New Naval Gaming Mat

I haven't been doing a lot of hobby stuff for a little while, which meant I didn't have much to blog about. Things started picking up again near the end of October and now I find myself with a back-log of blog items.

Some of the things for upcoming posts include the upcoming NHMGS Game Day at the Museum of Flight, preparations for Dave's Annual Naval Game (DANG) 2019, and some rule reviews.

But this post is about the new naval gaming mats I recently purchased. I've always used fabric for my gaming tables (cloth or felt) and have generally been satisfied with the results. Felt can be a little hard to keep clean and the miniature sometimes catch on the fabric. You can also run into gaming table "mini-mountains" where tables of different heights meet. But these issues are really just inconveniences. This year I decided to splurge a little and get some mouse pad material mats.

I looked around at various online stores and decided to go with the ocean mat from TABLEWAR. I ordered two 6 ft x 4 ft mats. While one would be good for most games, I got two so that I can put them together to cover a 6 ft x 8 ft table.

The link above will give you a good idea of the overall mat appearance, but here are a few photos with some of my ships in various scales.

1/700 scale escort and merchants

The same convoy from a different angle

A Cruel Seas 1/300 S-boote

1/6000 Japanese carriers

1/6000 U.S. Navy ships

The printed waves look really good with the larger scale ships. They seem a little large for 1/6000, but not too bad (just some stormy weather).

The mats are thin (but sturdy feeling) and easy to roll, they should smooth out any game table "mini-mountains" and the mouse pad backing should prevent (or minimize) any slippage on the table

Semi-folded mat with the small TABLEWAR logo.

The mats also come with carrying cases, making carrying the mats around somewhat easier.

Rolled up mats and cases

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the mats. They will get their first game use later this year at DANG.

It even looks good in black and white