Tuesday, February 25, 2014

We're gonna need a bigger map

While the counters in the latest edition of OGRE look great, I like to use miniatures when playing with the boardgame rules.  And while the conventional armor minis fit comfortably in a hex, as you can see, the eponymous cybertank is way too large to occupy a single space on the game board.  So I'm going to need a map with larger hexes. 
At first I thought about making my own playing surface, but that's way too much work.  Instead, I'll fork over the cash for a professionally produced game mat with hexes.  But how big should they be?  I printed out some 3-inch test hexes, and while the Mark III has plenty of room, the Mark V is still busting out of the hex.
With 4-inch hexes, both Ogres have lots more room.  This is good, because I want to add some 3-D terrain to my games--and I need enough room in each space for the scenery and the vehicles!  These large hexes should give me enough room to place units as well as other visual elements to make the game look cooler.  And once I get some of the parts for what I want to build, I'll share it with you.
Meanwhile, I need to obtain a game mat with four-inch hexes inscribed on it.  I know of four companies that offer this kind of project: Corsec Engineering, Hotz Mats, Monday Knight Productions, and Terrain Mat.  Any recommendations?  Any other sellers I should be aware of?

5 comments:

BROODE said...

I've heard of the first three companies. Never heard of Terrain Mat before. I would probably go with either CorSec or Hotz. Hotz though, is known for very long waits to receive your order. Beautiful mats, just very long wait. CorSec might be the one to go with in the long run.

Ski said...

4-inch hexes will result in a tiny play area, in terms of hex coverage. I haven't pulled out my Ogre map and having just done the math, you'll need an 8 X 8 mat with giant hexes like that! That's the basically square GEV map, the Ogre map will fit on a 6 X 8 but still, that's a lot of real estate.

It would be very cool, but if you're going to go that far, Ogre Minis is probably the way to go.

 Ashley said...

If I had the room I too would go with four inch hexes, and if I had the money I would use Kallistra's Hexon range to make my dream come true. tried running the idea of large hex terrain on vinyl pass SJG, but AFAICT with no real interest.

Unknown said...

That's... huge! Are you sure you don't want to just jump the line to hexless?

HoldFast said...

I agree you should go with the hex-less option. It seems difficult to get sufficient number of large hexes on a small table. The minis look fun though. I presume the infantry and GEVs would be 6mm?