Battle mat dimensions - your input appreciated

[Boll Weevil]

Hi, Heroes. I am in the process of making some battle maps for some games I am planning. These will be very specifically battle mats, meaning I will use them for epic battles. For the inside of buildings or subway tunnels (most of the game, really) I am happy to rough sketch the area on a piece of paper. For a full on battle royale I enjoy the old school battle map of a city block or giant temple. I used the hell out of the map that came with my 3rd edition game. That bank and Rosie's Diner still can't get affordable insurance 30 years later. 

 

If I make a battle mat say 4x3', one that takes up most of my gaming table, what scale would you suggest? I don't really use miniatures much so I'm not familiar with their general scale. I also use 6th ed so this will be my first map without hexes although I may keep them for nostalgia purposes. 

 

I can easily scale the squares (or hexes) to be 1/meter or so. So, if I make a map with a pretty good overhead view of a city block or some such how many meters would you fit to an inch given that the overall map is 48x36 inches? For users of traditional miniatures, that scale may be proscribed by the size of ur doodz. 

[Netzilla]

if you're going hexless, then 2m to the inch is a pretty common scale and equivalent to Hero's historic scale of 2m per hex.

 

By that measurement, 48 inches would get you 96 meters (slightly longer than a football field at 105 yards).  36 inches would be 72 meter (!79 yards).

[assault]

The 2m per 1" hex scale is related to 25mm miniatures, the most common at the time. This is the scale used by early superhero miniatures and things like the old Steve Jackson Games Cardboard Heroes.

 

Since then, 28mm miniatures have become popular, mainly because of Warhammer. The slightly bigger scale allows more cinematic sculpting. They would work with the same scale as 25mm minis, although you visually probably wouldn't want to mix them. I don't know if there are superhero minis available at this scale, but nearly every other genre is well represented.

 

Heroclix are roughly within this scale range too.

 

The thing is that it's not necessary for the scale of minis to match the map scale. The minis are, after all, essentially just aesthetically pleasing markers. You could just as easily use a piece of paper.

 

So with or without minis, you can use any scale you find convenient and visually pleasing.

[megaplayboy]

Chessex also makes MondoMats which are 48" x 96".  I have occasionally fantasized about buying 8 and laying out a truly EPIC battle map!  Using 1"= 2m, you could have a 384m x 384m map, roughly 20+ city blocks in size.  

[tkdguy]

Have you looked at Gaming Paper? It comes in grids or hexes. The colors come in white, gray, and (I think) tan.

 

It's a huge roll: 2.5 feet wide, 12 feet long. You can cut it to the length you need and save the rest for later games. I used some of it to craft a set of dungeon tiles, and I still have most of it intact.

 

The grids are 1 square inch, so you could use a scale of (for example) 1 inch = 5 feet. This would work for 25 mm or 28 mm miniatures. If you don't use miniatures, you can use tokens, coins, dice, etc. to represent characters.

 

Here's a video of the product:

 

 

[bluesguy]

You might also look into DramaScape maps.  You can print them out and 'tape' them together using a regular B&W printer or color printer.  If you think you will use them over and over again then printing them onto card stock and using 'self-laminating' material is useful

 

[dmjalund]

I recommend 2 dimensions

1 or less is not very useful

3 or more is too bulky

 

[assault]

9 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

I recommend 2 dimensions

1 or less is not very useful

3 or more is too bulky

 

 

4 would make getting it into position ahead of time easier.

[dsatow]

On 3/11/2018 at 9:19 AM, Boll Weevil said:

If I make a battle mat say 4x3', one that takes up most of my gaming table, what scale would you suggest? I don't really use miniatures much so I'm not familiar with their general scale. I also use 6th ed so this will be my first map without hexes although I may keep them for nostalgia purposes. 

 

That would depend on what you use the battlemat for.  If you use knockback, routinely use fast movement (over 20m per phase) or extended range firefights, I would suggest 1"=2m.  If you use knockdown and have relatively slow moving firefights, 1"=1m would be fine.  

 

Edit: Another nice note, at the 1"=1m, you can use ready made drafting stencils for furniture, trees, generic shapes found in most drafting stores (I've found them in Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, etc.)

 

[patransom]

I have started using the convention that 1.5" = 2m for two reasons: (1) 1.5" hexes conveniently fit the bases of Heroclix miniatures, (2) 1.5" = 2m is 1:52 scale, which is actually closer to the 1" = 5 ft (1:60) scale convention that so many other miniatures/terrain bits are designed to represent than 1" = 2m (1:79) or 1" = 1m (1:39).