Battle Mats - Your thoughts…

[George1863]

I use basic mats, as other contributors have said, and complement with the usual terrain pieces. I have one gaming-table painted to represent a field in Flanders, over which I can fight just about any European power of the last 500 years. My Carthaginians and ACW require something a little different, so I have a desert mat and a semi-arid mat I can overlay. These are in cloth so I can have elevations if necessary. Elevations have always posed a problem for me. I have tried many systems over the years, including some fantastic foam modules down which all my miniatures tumbled if aligned the wrong way. I have gone back to contoured hills using mdf sub-layers which look ok beneath a fabic mat. The real problem of elevation is how to represent ditches, waterways and dykes haha. 

[ced1106]

I'm using TerraTiles. These things work great, although they're OOP. KS relaunch soon.
* Modularity: I can also randomize the tiles for different setups.
* Artwork: It's very clear what's a tree/shrub, forest, hill, swamp, river, road.
* 3D compatibility: I place trees on the forest hexes for aesthetics. Individual trees I put on tree spaces. No unique terrain (eg. farm fields), so I can place a building wherever I'd like. Fences alongside rivers and roads, no problem.

For dungeons, I have a OOP Loke Battlemat cobblestone mat, and some vinyl floor tiles for a more rocky or cave lair. I then use 3D game tiles on them for the actual dungeon, or use the mat / floor tiles as "negative space". I am trying the CMON Black Plague game tiles as dungeons for miniature skirmish games. Miniature skirmish games, I think, require larger areas than conventional dungeoncrawl boardgames, so most RPG dungeon floor plans are too small. (Bottom pic shows brown vinyl floor tiles and negative space for passages with a certain popular dungeoncrawler... 

EDIT: Terra Tiles pre-order instead of KS : https://ravenkeep.net/

[Gilbo71]

I tend to use a basic mat with physical terrain like most people have said, if it could be double sided I would definitely go for that.
Also roads/rivers/paths etc printed on a slightly thicker mat would be good for me, more flexible than cardboard so you could place it up hills.