Looking for hex-grid battlemap pre-made maps

[Tech]

Ok, if that title wasn't confusing, congrats! I'm looking for pre-made hex-grid maps I can print off to use as a battlemap for our Champions games. In particular, I'm looking for areas in a city, whether downtown, a park, a warehouse, etc. I have a 4-way street intersection map on hex paper for example. So, any suggestions?

[Chris Goodwin]

I'd recommend heading over to Drivethrurpg.com and searching there.  Might take some tweaking of your search terms, but they have a whole section for maps and terrain.  Most are $2 or less; some are free.  Make sure to add "hex" to your search terms for hex maps, although that doesn't necessarily filter out all of the square maps.

[BoloOfEarth]

I suggest you check out DramaScape (available on DriveThruRPG).  They have nicely detailed maps that you can print out in square tiles - most with 5-foot squares, hexes, as well as no overlay.  I know they have a warehouse, street scene, Japanese garden, hideout, sci-fi research lab, tavern, ... I have about 50 different sets, including two sets of 6x6 sci-fi floor/room tiles that work great for a create-your-own modular villain base. 

 

[Edited to add:  last I knew, they had some available for free, so you can get a feel for what they provide.]

 

I've also taken some floorplan image files and Google Maps screenshots, overlaid them with hex-grids, dropped them into Word documents, resized and printed them on card stock for assemble-yourself battle maps of part of the Boston Commons, a mansion, an apartment, a street scene, a yacht, a research ship, and a warehouse. 

 

Man, have I burned through a ton of toner for my color laser printer! 

[BoloOfEarth]

If you ever do an alien adventure story arc, you also may want to check out Future Armada for cool spaceship (and space station!) floorplans.  They're not hexgrids - they're 5' x 5' squares, but they are very nicely detailed and have versions to print in either color or B/W, along with color artwork so you can see what they actually look like in action.  You can find them on DriveThruRPG as well.

[dsatow]

Not maps, but useful as terrain but a little pricey is the O and HO scale buildings for trains.  HO is close to the 2m per 1" and O scale is 1m per 1".  Similarly you can use vehicles of the same scale.

[Duke Bushido]

When I need a map in a hurry, I run to any of the "print your own graph paper" sites, select "hex" and 1=1", then print out six or twelve sheets, tape them together, and draw the scene.

 

Mind you, that's usually a "when I'm in a hurry" or "when I'm recreating a map from another (and almost always smaller) source" kind of thing, but it works well enough to keep doing it when I need to.

 

 

 

Duke

 

[tkdguy]

Another option is to print a blank hex map and make a transparency. Then whenever you print out a battle map, just lay the transparency over it. You will be able to reuse the hex paper.

[BoloOfEarth]

2 hours ago, tkdguy said:

Another option is to print a blank hex map and make a transparency. Then whenever you print out a battle map, just lay the transparency over it. You will be able to reuse the hex paper.

 

I have a transparent hexmap I bought many years (2 decades+) ago.  I don't think the original manufacturer makes them any more, but I found this:

http://arcknight.squarespace.com/shop/clear-map-grids-colors-and-styles

 

[bluesguy]

If you are playing face-to-face, you can also make buildings (skyscrapers, etc) to populate your table.

 

From a Champions game, the cardboard box is actually the trailer part of a semi-truck on its side (yes you can buy vehicle paper models).  I can't find a photo from when we had the skyscrapers up.  We were using Heroclix figures and when a character was flying we used the little 'pizza tables' that come with delivery pizzas.

 

A different session, which I ran at a game day event at a local store.  Aliens crash in Northern MN.  The heroes were pre-generated and had a MN theme to them (literal man of steal - fell into a vat of molten steel, Paul Bunyan avatar, DJ who used Prince music to create sound effects, etc.)  Trees and logs...

 

 

[tkdguy]

There's a lot of terrain you can buy, although some are quite pricy. You can also make your own terrain. YouTube has a lot of channels devoted to crafting terrain for rpgs and wargames. Check out TheDMsCraft for ideas. The presenter got the ball rolling for crafting dungeons and other terrain. There are other channels with great crafters, of course.

 

Also consider paper miniatures and terrain. These can be cheaper than the metal/plastic/resin versions.

[Tech]

Thanks for the suggestions. What I'm looking for now is to print off my own 1" hex paper. I've already done my searches online. I can print off hex paper. However, none of them printed off are continuous if two sheets are placed side-by-side. All of them that I've found involve trimming - which causes problems. Has anyone found full-page printable hex paper (with no margins) which would have a smooth continuous hex grid when printed sheets are placed side-by-side? I can tape them together.

[Tech]

Well, this project is finally done and I'm glad. With the help of my older brother, I created my own full-page hex paper that is effectively a smooth transition when places printed off sheets together. Thanks for your suggestions and for the links for other material.

[Ninja-Bear]

Check out Battletech forums. Battletech uses Hex maps.