G'day...I've been on leave for a few weeks, going a bit stir crazy...and after clicking around I found a tutorial on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWObMlqTuJ4 about making battle-mats from EVA foam tiles.
As it happens, we were recently given a bunch of these by a family posting out of Darwin so I thought I'd give it a crack. Over the years I've collected quite a few different card war-games such as Eagles, Dixie and more recently, The Last Crusade. After attempting to learn Yu Gi Oh with my son (another saga...dear oh dear don't get me started...) I noticed that all the players had battle-mats to keep track of things and safeguard the cards as well.
After following the the tutorial I measured up, scored and painted this one for Eagles etc. I didn't like the 'interlockable' look of the tiles so I cut the jigsaw-like nubs off...it was probably a rookie error, all things considered. My first attempt was a little bit how's-your-father so to speak but I could see the potential.
I was pretty happy with the outcome and got a little bit too excited and finshed another 3 grid mats a few days later, with a mind to playing those games on an 'epic' scale.
This time I probably got a bit too clever for my own good, and heated the surface of each grid square over the oven, and imprinted the playing surface with a scouring pad to provide a little more texture. This worked well, but unfortunately the tiles contracted a little and the surface won't sit perfectly flat, as you can probably see below. I've sat them under books etc, and it has improved somewhat but still...I may have to heat the opposing side of the titles to fix them. The grids are just shy of 8 x 8 inches. Maybe i'll have to live with it.
After clicking around a little more I found a link to the Quick Start guide for Peter Pig's 'Poor Bloody Infantry', and this afternoon I tested it out with help from my son's 11yr old mate from down the street. He really enjoyed the game BTW. It's excellent and I can see myself delving into that rule set further.
Are there any other grid based systems out there that would suit this board/mat? The grids seem to be a perfect started for newbie wargamers and players, so I'd love to check out different systems & different eras too.
I have thought about Rommel, but I'm invested in 1/72 and reluctant to buy/paint/bite off more than I can chew. The scale looks great though.
I also have a 3/4 finished Russian 1812 army in 15mm that is sitting there mocking me...
I've kind of fallen down the rabbit hole with this...apologies for the lengthy post, and hopefully it's in the correct sub-forum. It's just that I'm a little bit undecided about where to put more efforts for the next year or so. All my plastic pile has been painted!