Welcome back me! To get started I have a review of the fantastic Sector B-12 Gaming Mat from Warzone Studio. So lets get started on 2018’s hobby with this Warzone Studio Review.

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It’s been a while since my last post, months in fact. Mainly due to the birth of my second daughter in October! Anyway, onto the important stuff :-)

Purchase Options

This mat is available is a variety of sizes in either vinyl or laminated vinyl.

72 х 48″ (6 x 4ft)

72 x 36″ (6 x 3ft)

48 x 48″ (4 x 4ft)

36 x 36″ (3 x 3ft)

30 x 30″ (2½ x 2½ft)

Prices vary, but a 6 x 4ft vinyl mat is around £40 + £15 postage to the U.K. from Russia. Too much? Split it between you and your friends. The cost becomes a lot better once it split it between two or three of you.

These sizes give you a good selection and mean this mat is great for not only Warhammer 40K, Necromunda and Shadow War: Armageddon but many other model war games played at the ~28mm scale.

Delivery

As well as the Sector B-12 Gaming Mat I also got two MDF buildings (not yet built – review coming later). The buildings (flat packed) and the mat’s tube came tightly taped together and wrapped in brown paper. An odd shape but it worked and all items arrived intact from Russia to the U.K.

The tube that the mat was inside had taken a little bit of a battering in transit. But that has had no negative effect on the contents or my ability to use the tube to store the mat in for the future. A sturdy tube!

Storage

The tube is made of thick card, has a metal lid which fits snuggly into the top and a carry string too – which is handy. I can hook the string around one finger while carrying my board or a few cases of miniatures. You know when you’re trying to make it from the car to the gaming table in one trip, in the rain, in January.

The Warzone Studio logo appears on the tube – which is a minor but nice touch – it makes the mat easier to locate when you have a few. Or when you’re rummaging in a dark loft or garage.

Deployment & Use

Setting up the mat is easy, as you would expect. It unrolls easily but does not seem to maintain its rolled curl as much as some other mats I have used. This is a good feature of the vinyl. The edges only slightly peel upwards so pinning them down with tape or BluTak is easy and takes seconds. In fact, with some decent/specific placement of terrain it won’t need securing at all at the short edges or corners. The long edges naturally stay down on the table top.

Edit: During my first game with the mat the edges were stuck with BluTak, some of the edges came away from the BluTak, as expected – BluTak is not great. But where this happened the edges did remain relatively down and against the table. It seems that the vinyl gradually moves itself to being flat anyway over the course of a game.

The material is a thin vinyl which is smooth on the top side and slightly rough on the underside. Its light too, lighter than PVC versions and much much lighter than the mouse pad material used by some mats. Despite its lightness it doesn’t shift easily once placed down.

I thought it would be fairly hard to describe how the mat moves, rolls and reacts to touch. So I made a simple and short video of it being manipulated on my 6 x 4ft board. I think it shows how the material moves and reacts when manipulated with a human handy much better than words can describe.

Visuals

Design wise the mat is superb. Battle mats I generally think of coming in two different types. Structured or Loose. This mat is what I would called structured or designed. Its pleading with you to place buildings and terrain in specific areas because of the way it is laid out.

The other type is a generic or loose mat. Their surfaces tend to be all the same and represent a generic type of battlefield such as a desert or swamp – terrain fits anywhere on these types of mats. Both types are equally good and useful.

The Sector B-12 Mat has dusty/desert/arid areas which are neatly split up with a number of scorched roads that have varying widths and markings on them. An off centre fortification in the shape of a triangle/star makes for a nice central piece or perhaps some narrative play. Aegis Defence Line anyone? The cracked effect on the arid areas breaks everything up really nicely so that even the largest areas of dust are interesting and not flat or plain.

The dusty terrain, roads and markings make the Sector B-12 Mat a perfect battlefield setting for a military base, airport or sea port. A few buildings, cargo containers, industrial debris and you’ll be good to go!

While the mat is designed and structured in such a way that you’re almost forced to place terrain into certain areas and not others. The disjointed nature of the design means that no game would be the same.

Its not a grid like city with clear lanes of fire. But a perfect canvas for you to create a battle scene fit for your own purposes.

I write this on the eve of my first game using the Sector B-12 Mat and I cannot wait to paint it with Eldar blood! Not literally of course. Eldar blood is a xenos material and must be turned over to the nearest Inquisitor, always. A Guardsman MUST NEVER paint with xenos blood.

Summary

In short the mat is great. Its various roads and asymmetric design means that there is a lot you can do with the mat and your terrain. The vinyl is a thing and lightweight material which easily lays flat on your table top. Its easy to store and put away in 30 seconds of rolling.

Warzone Studio Review – Gallery

Links

Main Web Site: Warzone Studio.

Etsy: Warzone Studio Etsy Store.

My Board: Making a 6 x 4ft Game Board