So I bought a Cigar Box mat for my ACW project.

[Gripweed]

Last year I painted about 700 ACW minis, mostly Blue Moon. I decided to buy one of the Cigar Box Mats because they are so nice.

[Lysandros]

Personally they are a good middle ground .  A vast improvement on cloths and can be dressed up to give a good feel .
They still lack that realism and texture of rolling terrain for my taste.
Your fig count is impressive.

[FierceKitty]

"So"?

[vtsaogames]

Put hills under the mat and voila, rolling terrain.

[Lysandros]

Put hills under the mat and voila, rolling terrain.

True but it's not the same , a  quick good alternative but lacks the texture , depth , beauty.

[jon_1066]

Alternative to what?  Terrain boards?  There are a number of problems with boards such as storage, the fact they are the same each time, if you make them very flexible by shrinking them in size you end up with the worst problem - lots of visible joints.  No system is perfect but you should check out these pages to see what can be achieved with cloths/mats:

https://wargamecampaign.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/bruces-terrain/

[Lysandros]

The Bruce boards are brilliant and bespoke . They are not made to be practical but glorious in style.
They are a world away from manufactured  terrian mats . He is just using a soft flexible material to build his landscape terrian around .
Really l like to aim high even if fail . I understand that game mats have there purpose and effective .
I am not practical as lm very lucky to have a permenant set up in my barn . Personally l prefer railway/diorama terrian over any wargame set up . Below is my table .
This is not a critism but it's not for me .

[Lysandros]

The Bruce boards are brilli

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Impressive board, Lysandros. But also a Ferrari is impressive and I can't afford it either! 

Luckily for those of us with limited budget and storage space (specially) Cigar Box is a good alternative. 

[Lysandros]

I agree.