Game Mats: UrbanMatz

My buddy Salibaba introduced me to this idea of playing table top games on a pre printed image of terrain on a neoprene mat or similar.  I was like "WHAT?  THAT'S BLASPHEMY!" 

Fast forward a bit, and I am hooked.  It started with playing X-Wing on a 3x3 vinyl matt and now I have a small collection of neoprene mats.  The thing is though, I only have Urbanmatz mats.  Nothing else.  For an excellent comparative review, please see my friend Salibaba's blog at: http://paintingtheleadpile.blogspot.com/2017/02/comparative-mat-review.html

My review here will be on UrbanMatZ products, their customer service and my experience with them and their product. 

What drew me to their products was that they included the carry bag into their price AND removed the entire VAT for American (non-EU) customers.  I was torn between their product and Deepcutstudio's products.  Deepcut does not remove the full value of the VAT and you have to purchase the bag separately.  More on Deepcut another time though, this is about Urbanmatz (UMZ). 

UMZ has a selection of nice mats.  They offer them in 4x4, 4x6, 3x3, 3x6 and they are all neoprene.  Their website is https://www.urbanmatz.com/.  The neoprene (mousepad material) it great.  The mat is heavy enough to lay flat (most of the times) and light enough to put away or carry and not hurt yourself with some heavy bag (hahaha).  The print quality is very good and as I mentioned, they offer a number of different types of "terrain" patterns. 

My first order was the 4x4 grassland, the 4x6 Dirty Roads mat and  4x4 cobblestone with NO blood stains mat.  My second order was the 6x3 space mat, the 4x4 dirty roads mat and the 3x3 space mat.

All of them were good and came quickly, after all, you are paying top dollar for air freight shipping.  They arrive in protective tubes.  I did have a problem with my 3x3 space matt though and minor issues with some others.  It was badly wrinkled, could not stay flat and the 4x4 dirty roads carry bag was damaged.  I took photos and emailed them to UMZ.  Within 1 hour, I had a response from UMZ (Martin) and he was very helpful.  He asked me to confirm my address and that he would send me a new mat and a replacement 4x4 bag to take care of the damaged bag.  He also asked me to check my other products to make sure they were ok.  I did.  The 6x3 space matt was NOT perfect, BUT it wasn't that bad.  I didn't want to be that critical.  I could live with the minor wrinkles.  You can see them in the photos. 

Within a week I had my replacement items.  The funny part was I got a 3x3 mat and a 3x3 bag, NOT a 4x4 bag, BUT....that's ok.  Martin was very helpful, and very on top of the issue until completion.  Even emailing me later to make sure I received my replacements.  I felt silly telling him of the error.  I made the damaged bag work.  So no harm after all. 

Here are some photos of the mats.  Some pics I have thrown some models on top to show them in scale. 

Grassland.  I am going to buy a 6x4 as well.   

Here is a photo from a recent Kings Of War game using the UMZ Grassland mat.  The river is not part of it. 

 4x4 Dirty Roads.  This is perfect for Bolt Action, Mordehim or any other 28mm miniature game that you can set up a city or town. 

 AS you can see, this one had a fold at the end that did not want to stay flat.  I rolled it the other way and it was somewhat corrected. 

 Some models for effect. 

 Cobblestone Mat.  One of my favorites. 

 Details

 4x4 mat and carry bag.

 Name tag for easy identification.

 Just for scale and effect.  I plan on making a nice Mordheim type town soon. 

 6x3 space mat for X-Wing Epic.

 Waves...annoying, but not end of the world.

 Rebel Scum!

 Evil Empire on the move. 

 You can see the wrinkles here.  The pattern is very nice.  Just plain ol' space.  No distractions. 

 6x4 Dirty Roads.  I liked this pattern so much, I bough both the 4x4 and 6x4.

 Close Up.

Here is the 4x4 Dirty Roads with a bunch of terrain on it to look like a realistic scene.  Items are unfinished (hedgerows, and trees) but you get the idea.  Great for any WW2 skirmish game, Modheim or fantasy or other skirmish game that will take advantage of this type of terrain. 

 

Easy storage under the gaming tables (IKEA).

 

In conclusion, I highly recommend UrbanMatZ.  They have a very nice product, very nice looking patterns to choose from, all the standard sizes and their customer service is TOP NOTCH.  I was SO satisfied with them, I placed my THIRD order for a 4x4 Desert mat.  I just hope that UMZ comes out with some more patterns. They are due for some new ones.  They also have some pre-painted terrain now.  Def worth the time and money.  So, order up! 

 

*UMZ did not pay me or supply free samples to me at any time to date of the posting of this review.  I purchased all these on my own. 

 



King of War Presidents' Day game

Got another game in with my boys.  These guys LOVE Kings of War.  It reminds them of the Total War video game series.  Problem is, they are giving me MORE work to do, as in building and painting (finishing up armies really). 

 Constantine's turn.  This is turn 2.

 This is end of turn 3.  Their Soul Reaver Regiment (lower left) defeated my Heavy Pike Unit in the first charge! Brutal unit.  My Berserkers defeated his Skeleton Spears and in turn, his Soul Reveras charged the newly repositioned Berzerkers in the front and defeated them too.  The Foot Guard did prolonged battle with the Revenants and failed to route them a few times, but in the end, the Undead routed them!  The rifles on the hill blew away the Soul Reaver Cav after a few turns of shooting and that allowed my Knights to flank his Revenants. 

Here you see how the game ended.  No extra turn which caused a draw (25 point difference).  If we would of had a new turn, my plan was to run past his Soul Reaver Infantry with the Knights to get out of their arc and shoot them with my rifles and hopefully cause them to break OR shoot the standard or Necromancer. 

 

 

This game is fun.  Problem is, once things start to go bad, they go VERY bad.  And dice matter more than ever.  A few times I had wounded the Undead with crazy numbers but I rolled low and that was that!  I cant seem to roll high wit the nerve test in this game. 

 

Another mechanic i like is the use of movement trays to identify unit size.  This helps A LOT when you don't have enough models.  Say a horde of something, but you have 12-20 models.  Just spread them out on the base and you are good to go!  

Kings Of War Game Night, Unscheduled Game #1

My buddies and I are playing a friendly campaign.  As my buddy calls it (his campaign), CAMP PAIN.  Last night's game was at my place, Kingdom of Men vs. the Abyssals (nasty demons).

We used my terrain and Urban Matz mat (4x4 grassland) as our battle field.  The terrain placement was random, 2D6 and a scatter die. 

It was a fun game, but as usual, I had some bad rolling, I was rolling low....when I really needed to roll high and as a result, was crushed.  My buddy is also a master gamer which added to my demise. 

Here are some photos from the game.

Start of turn 2.  My left flank was not set up correctly.  Nino did a great job placing his forces. In this photo you can see me trying to set up a trap for him to slam hi flank. 

Turn 3.  Thing on the left look bad for me.  My knights didn't do much on the charge and the scouts with their pistols didn't do anything on the hounds. The cannon was 100% useless never hitting a thing.

 

Nino saw the trap and used his two wing units to block a potential counter charge of his General Devil (as I call him) and charged my unit of Foot Guard.

Here is an example of shit luck....which is my life story with rolling dice.  I got off a flank charge and front charge.  34 dice to hit.  Hit a good amount causing a ton of wounds...all I needed to do was NOT get snake eyes.  Guess what I got.......see photo above. 

Only unit left was Spears.  They took a charge from 2 of Nino's best units.  The General and Wizard didn't do much and I called the game at start of Turn 6 as there was NO WAY to win or draw once the spearmen went down.  Good Game Nino!

 

I like King Of War much better than the older War Hammer from GW.  Game is quicker, easier, less to remember and just as fun!  Plus magic isn't sooo powerful that one super mage can wreck your entire army.  I prefer this game 100%.

 

PS: In progress of painting my army....