I love to play bombing or recon scenarios with this game. Can some one tell me how closely the new ground mats scale up to the target, AA, and mg/trench cards? I am really wanting to get a couple of mats and probably will anyhow but was wondering if the drawings on the cards will match up fairly closely or not.

Hello,

I was able to see these this past Saturday.

Quality is quite nice, the images are a bit bigger on the map than on the cards.

It really does feel like a mouse pad.

But the only think I like less than the big logo on the mat is the choice of material.

It is made just like a mouse pad, and if you have any exp. with mouse pads, after a while the corners start to come loose. I would have liked if it was just material, though they may have decided not to because of the folding wrinkles, and may not have picked poster paper and lamination because of all the sliping and sliding that would have occured. Overall I give them a B

I was also thinking about a mat, but they are quite expensive, especially when factoring in shipping to Japan. The fact that the surface, bright colors and logo made them less than perfect was also a turnoff. During my research, I came across this thread with information about a photo realistic map.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/296837

I chose to print it up at home rather than go to any fancy or expensive trouble and it came out just fine.

The map comes in a 4 x 4 grid of A4 pages. I only printed up a 3 x 4 grid in order to fit well on my table. I lay a piece of clear thick vinyl over the top (that we use on our coffee table). I'm very happy with the result, especially because of the minimal expense.

looks pretty **** good.

The Sundance Kid said:

thans so much for posting your background pics. they do look great!

ive downloaded all 16 shots and am now testing out different sizes to see whats the best to use.

my local gaming store has said they will buy 2 of the actual wow playmats which is greta but id also like to rig something up for my own dinig room table

I believe the 2 official mats are 98 x 136 cm, while the 4x4 A4 pages of the photo maps would be around 80 x 112 cm. To fit my table comfortably I left off the bottom length of the overview picture below for a 60 x 112 cm map. Since I'm now up to 8 planes, I hope to see how it works with everyone flying this next Sunday. Each of the 16 pictures comes with its own photo file, so I suppose you could resize them individually to change the map size. Because of the trimming after printing, putting it on B4 paper would give you a map around 100 x1 40 cm or about the same as the official mat. The originator may have other maps by now, so check out the thread in my original post. I believe he was also taking requests, if you knew of good coordinates for an interesting map.

y ,

With all the other games on my want list, I can't really justify purchasing FFG's mats... Think I'll try out the DIY mats as they look terrific! Thanks for sharing.

The provblem with both the official maps and the custom made here is that they don't look anything like the western front.

The best way to get one that actually does is eiher to make one by taking a black and white photo from the real western front into the right size or paint one yourself based on the pictures.

We don't use so detailed maps however, most of the fighting was on high altitudes so our maps are less detailed. I bought my mat from here: www.hotzmats.com/ instead. They are cheap, large and you can puzzle many together if you wat a truly huge mat. And you can buy a mat painted on both sides with different motives, or like in my case with Hexagons on one side. Those maps look at least a bit more like the front did even though it isn't perfect either.

If you read anything about the front youll see that it look more like a moon landscape than the usual green and fluffy places people uses for gameing boards.Here is an actual picture from Somme:

Pour Le Merite said:

So true....but, if we really wanted a a real war experience, the world still gives us plenty of opportunities. If we're going to idealize war to the extent of making it a game, we might as well do it in 'cute' planes over a 'pretty' landscape!

longagoigo said:

I want the real experience, thank you. The wars today offer nothing close to the air battles of WW1 (or, luckyly, the hell of trenches. The last trenchwar was in Korea). Many of the planes were actually were pretty but the areas abround them wasn't.

But I don't protest that there is a pretty map for the players that want that, Iprotest against the fact that there isn't a realistic alternative. Wow should also have a map with trenches and mud on. A dirty map like Somme or Verdun.

Some of the airbattles did happen over a rather idyllic place but generally it was around the trenches. In fact all our games are happening over the trenches and we often uses realistic missions for the players.

I do plan to make a game of the big raid of 12 October 1916 however far past german lines. Lafayette was escorting a bunch of allied bombers but Pilots as Udet and Kissenberth stopped them quite badly even if Lafayettes only casualty died because of a bad landing in darkness. I think it would make an awesome game, Just wish I could get some Fokker DII or DIII and some Breuget Michelin BM IV. There is a resin DIII but it is expensive and have a long delivery time. But I guess I can do my scenario with Albatross DII and the Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutters that was in the battle.

Anyways for that battle some of the background should look idyllic.

Thank you for the information on the game map.

I too was put off by the price of the original maps, I'd much rather spend my money on more planes etc.

On the other hand it must be much more fun to play on a map than on simply any surface.

I'm now thinking of trying to print the maps and than maybe seal them in plastic, oh can't remember the proper name for that.

Than again that might cause a problem during the game cause all the map pieces are indivudal.

Hm, on other option might be to buy a piece of plexi glas ( I think it's called) and glue the map pieces on that.

Ofcourse it is a good point that the map is not realistic in that it does not show the battle field and the trenches, but I wouldn't really fancy on playing on a black and white gameboard I must admit.

Yes I aggree I would like a map wich shows the battlefield, but would like it to be really collourfull like the one our japanese friend shows us.

okay I'll now stop nittpicking about game maps, as afterall we shouldn't really get to worked up about what the game map shows or doesn't, it's just a background to make our 'flying- experience more realistic, and have a go at having this printed.

Thanks for the advice.

You could always get a blanket and airbrush in fields and trenches. The original map kinda gets the battles on low altitude but most of the battles were done higher up in the air. Things look a lot smaller from 8000 feet and are not that hard to paint. Use google earth to see how fields, towns and other structures look, and some old air photos to see how the trenches look.

If you want too see trenches in colour you can also look on photos from the most recent trench war: Korea. The trenches basicly looked the same from there and you could probably use a good air-photo as a base for a map looking a lot more realistic then the official or the green fields in top.

Thinking about it, a korea expansion for Wow would be rather cool