I may be late for this, or maybe most people don't care, but I got my 'shipped' email yesterday from MM, so I decided to check out the site and I saw that they (HCD Supplies) heard some of our complaints about producing a new HCD mat with a simple star field...

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/hcd-starfield.html

I'll buy 2 when they're ready...

Buddy of mine played on one of these a few weeks ago and was very disappointed. he said they were so slick - that your ships slid all over the place.

I own one and also own a GF9 mat. I agree that it is slicker then the GF9.

It also cushions the blow of the dice some which may or not be a benefit depending what surface below you are playing on.

If playing over 2 tables pushed together it does do better then the GF9 at minimizing the impact of slight elevation differences between the tables. As can be expected, picking up tokens or cards on the mat is much easier given it's neoprene backing.

Sometimes I've even turned it upside down and played on the back side which is plain black and very grippy.

Well that's my brain dump on the matter. I don't have any kind of huge buyer's remorse or anything, but if I had to do it all over again I likely would have just bought a yoga mat for my 2nd mat until BFR games starts mass producing 36" x 36" gripmats.

I have to disagree with saying its slicker then the GF9 mats. I would say its a little more grippy then the gf9s but its not as grippy as a yoga mat. a bump is a bump, and its part of the game, as even on super grip mats, you can still roll your dice into a ship.

I have played on many surfaces I would rank them personally like this, Grip to slip

yoga may - great for non move, but if you use custom rulers (like alot have) its a bit of a pain to get the ruler in as they don't slide in nice

HCD - no sliding when leaning on the mat, the first ones I have - didn't care for design, but they are nice and ships slide a little when bumped sometimes. - price is right, got mine for 22(+shipping)

gf9 - when brand new and not played on they are really solid for bumps and stuff, but after some plays on them, you see that the image is getting scraped and it gets a little more slick as time goes on. These are not far down the scale from hcd mats, but for the long haul and money paid(i see them going for 30-40 and please correct me if I am way off on that) for it, I personally can't justify it.

tabletop - a zero - but hey, if thats what you got to play on, you still can play!

They definitely get my vote over the GF9 mats which by the way you should measure because a lot of the ones we have seen are 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch too short. They grip just as well for me as the GF9 and they don't move if you bump the table for some reason. Like said before the are nicer when playing on tables that are pushed together and in a pinch you can roll one up and defend yourself with it.