Manufacture: DS'tone Art
Retail Cost: $50
Total Cost w/Shipping: $58
Link: http://www.ds-tone.com/products-wave-2/
Ordered Date: May 3rd
Delivery Date: May 13th
Since I have been itching to get back into a space based table top game. I needed to find a game mat that really popped out to me. Something original, Something realistic and Something that will give me the best bang for the buck! I spent a good week searching the net a good hour a day comparing other mats and reviews. There are a lot of mats out on the market right now and most of them are not easy to find on the net and new companies keep popping up. One lesson I wish these companies would do is; to better promote their product to their intended audience. Even myself can be guilty of not promoting my competed model kits enough. I understand how much of a time sink it is to do all of this and still maintain a full time job and spend time with your family.
Quality: 9/10
With all game mats and especially vinyl game mats, like this one, it is often hard to achieve good image quality. The color depth is hard to balance and yet keep the darkness of space in that rich dark hue. Most of these issues is due in part to the naturally reflective quality of vinyl and there is nothing any manufacture can presently do about it. The picture above was taken with no flash at noon next to a patio door. So some of the light from the out side is bleeding out upon the mat and making it appear lighter in color.
The quality of their product is top notch! You will have a hard time finding anything out there even close to what they have to offer at this price point. Like I said earlier in this review, I was looking for something original and realistic. Well as it turns out I could not get any more realistic than this. DS'tone art specializes in astrophotography, all of the images on their game mats are actual pictures from outer space. You can not get any more realistic than this and to have a 3ft by 6ft game mat with excellent image quality is out standing. The mat it self is fairly thin, probably close to 1mm thick. The surface area seems a little tacky with a nice smooth surface. Then again I unrolled this mat shortly after receiving it after several days in transit. In either case, none of these things diminish the over all quality of the mat. I would have given this a 10 out of 10 for the quality but there was one feature I was looking for in a vinyl mat and that was its thickness. I originally set out looking for a game mat that was 2-3mm thick. A thickness that you can find in neoprene mats and or mouse pad.
The thickness of these mats seems to give it more flexibility and durability. Not that a 1mm mat can be just as flexible and durable. But if you are a textile person like me, the feel of those thicker mats are hard to beat. With all that being said, I still purchased a thinner mat. At the price point and image quality I was willing to do with out a thicker mat. I hope in the future that they offer thicker gaming mats. I know I would be willing to throw down another $10-$20 more with out question for a thicker style mat with the level of detail they currently produce.
(Here you can see how thick the mat is)
Customer Service & Shipping: 10/10
The whole process of ordering and shipping was extremely smooth. A ten day turn around from the time I placed my order till the time it reached my door is hard to find. The vinyl mat arrived in a USPS triangular priority mail box. The mat it self was wrapped in four places with shrink wrap awhile both ends had some more padding to them to help prevent any unnecessary damage during shipping. I can not currently report on their customer service but if they treat their product with this much care I would speculate it to be good as well.
Bang for the buck: 10/10
Like I have stated before. You are not going to find any other vinyl mat out there that can met this level of quality. These are useable art pieces that just happen to be in the form of gaming mats.
If you are looking to have large fleet battles on a table top a 3ft by 6ft gaming mat might be the perfect fit for you. These mats are easy to unroll but they do suffer from the edges not wanting to uncurl down just like all vinyl mats. Again, I don't blame this on the mat, it is just something that comes with the material used. It would function great for you, if you have a dedicated table to just leave the mat laid out. It can still be used as a portable gaming mat. My recommendation would be to either buy a large clear acrylic sheet to lay over the top of it or to have two 6 inch by 36 inch clear acrylic pieces to go on both ends of the mat. These two acrylic pieces can also be used to keep all of your fleet cards in place on the edges of the table. The down side with clear acrylic sheeting, is that it is extremely smooth so your models may be easily bumped out of place and that its very light reflective. Not to mention that a 3 by 6 sheet will most likely cost you $70 plus dollars.
Over all: I would recommend this vinyl mat to anyone! Just as long as they are aware of the issues you are going to run into with any vinyl mat. It is portable but you will have to weigh down the ends. Don't expect to crumple this up into a ball and throw it in a bag for storage with out it causing issues of unwanted creasing. If this is for a permanent table, I wouldn't think twice about not purchasing one. You can find felt mats for a similar price but with felt mats you are going to run into creasing problems because the mats are folded up for shipping. Granted you can steam them out but felt also is a magnet for collecting dust and small fibrous materials all over it. With vinyl you don't run into these issues plus they are more durable than fabric. If this was a thicker neoprene or mouse pad style type of mat with the same image quality you would have to be out of your mind not to pick one up!
Please check out DS'tone art for more mats that they offer.
