WizKids Brings New Battle Mats To The D&D Table!
by Anton Kromoff
Welcome to the table.
When I was in my young teens I spent a lot of time playing various TTRPG games in the back of a comic shop. The shop had two massive tables covered in green carpet that the Warhammer players used and tucked in the back surrounded by rickey shelves with rusted sharp edges and a dripping brown patch on the ceiling I am fairly certain was a portal to some hell realm was a large wooden table with thick sheet of plexiglass over yellowed paper for the TTRPG players to use. I would take the money I got from collecting cans, the lunches I did not eat, and odd jobs I did around the neighborhood as a child of the ripe old age of 13 and buy packs of dry-erase markers that I would use alongside a carefully torn pizza box top to craft dungeons that would, provided the Drip did not splash on it in a weird way, create the landscape that my players using dice as miniatures would navigate.
While we worked with what we had it was less than ideal as we would often come back to the table to find a bunch of backpacks from other games that had smudged or even totally erased the dungeon the party had been exploring or the hillside they had been fighting on. We would move other people’s stuff, dry up any of the Drip that had fallen, and then try and recreate the map from memory or the graph paper we started using to record things on a smaller scale. It was never quite the same and less than ideal, but we did our best. If we had access to WizKids new wave of battle mats, things would probably have been a lot less tedious.
The Bluffs Battle Mat comes in at 3′ x 5′ with 1′ grid lines. Crafted from neoprene and non-woven fabric this battle mat is perfect for hill side battles, clashes with giants, and rocky conflicts using your dice as minis or, if you are way cooler than we were, the Icons of the Realms D&D minis. You can pre-order the Bluffs Battle Mat at this link.
The Desert Battle Mat comes in at 3′ x 5′ with 1′ grid lines and is also crafted from neoprene and non-woven fabric. Printed with vivid scenery the desert battle mat is a perfect staging ground for battles with mummies, giant scorpions, or spell-slinging blue dragons hellbent on capturing the party’s bard because he stole a scroll containing the dragon’s true name. That last one was specific for a reason… you know who you are. You can pre-order the Desert Battle Mat at this link.
Like the Desert and Bluffs Battle Mats, the Sky Battle Mat is 3′ x 5′ with 1′ grid lines and crafted from neoprene and non-woven fabric. What I really like about the Sky Battle Mat is that the art on it gives you an aerial view of a verdant landscape complete with rushing river and floating clouds. If you have Spelljammer ships, dragon riders, or flying foes this is a great way to add some dynamic scenery to your TTRPG table. You can pre-order the Sky Battle Mat at this link.
All of these make great additions to your gaming gear and, at least in my case, are a welcomed alternative to easily erased markers on bits of ancient plastic.
Until next time, the boxes these come in also look pretty cool and have a nice shelf appeal so even from a collector’s perspective these are a nice little addition to the D&D collection.
