So, being a cheapskate (because I want to have more money to spend on actual ships), I decided to make a pauper's playmat by cutting a 6'x3' rectangle out of felt.

Sadly, it's not a perfect rectangle, as its width does vary by a few (less than 5) mm across the length of the mat. My question is, would you be happy to play on such a mat regardless? For friendlies only? Or wouldn't even care if it was a tournament? (That said, if someone can pull out a more professionally made mat to play on instead, I'd happily switch to that instead )

So long as it defines a play area that both players can agree to, it's fine. I find felt to be a decent surface for traction. And for the what it's worth, 5mm over 6ft is far better than most home made solutions.

I would suggest a 900x600x3mm board under the felt. (which is a 3x2' think board) You glue the felt to that and trim and you have a good board that can be put edge to edge to make a 6x3' board and can be stored away as needed.

A 5mm variance is just under a quarter inch. Sometimes my two FFG mats don't lay out that accurately especially when spreading them out on the felt topped game tables at my FLGS. I don't see 5mm as being bad at all.

I wouldn't mind playing on it, but I'd expect to be informed in advance. It's common to use the edges as guides for placement, so if you lined up a ship with a side as perfectly as possible, then performed nothing but straight maneuvers, and somehow ended up off the board, it would... suck.

5mm is not going to matter. I also have a felt one (a near-3x3) that I made for X-Wing, which is bends a little short in the middle of one edge. It's playable in a pinch.

For tournaments, bring it in case of emergencies. Most of the time there will be plenty of nicer mats to play on, but just in case there isn't you're the hero. You can do as Gibarian says , but unless you got an anal crowd, nobody should care.

So, being a cheapskate (because I want to have more money to spend on actual ships), I decided to make a pauper's playmat by cutting a 6'x3' rectangle out of felt.

Sadly, it's not a perfect rectangle, as its width does vary by a few (less than 5) mm across the length of the mat. My question is, would you be happy to play on such a mat regardless? For friendlies only? Or wouldn't even care if it was a tournament? (That said, if someone can pull out a more professionally made mat to play on instead, I'd happily switch to that instead )

If you get your felt at JoAnn's (or similar stores), you can have the folks there cut it for you. I know my cuts would be all over the place .

i have a 3x6 yoga mat that may be a bit longer like 1/2" tops we use it all the time and no one cares

I played X-Wing on felt. It was terrible. I quickly switched to a GF9 mat and have never regretted it. I have a 72" x 36" custom mat coming shortly from one of our local guys with printing connections which will see use with both Armada and X-Wing Epic.

We use black science project display boards for xwing and I imagine two next to each other would work great for this.

I think 5mm is pretty minor. I could not cut it that well. for others reading this, buy a peice of plywood at home depot or lows and they have a panel saw and can cut it to the exact size that you want. then you can wrap it with felt, staple it under the edge, and use a razor knife to trim off the excess. quick, cheap, easy, and looks decent. (I'm art challenged, so decorating it up to you, however.

Thanks for the feedback guys - I can be a little happier about it being slightly off now (I'm the sort of person who wouldn't worry about it myself, but worries about how others might take it >.<). I probably will get a professional mat at some point, but for the moment I can't argue too much with something that costs about 1/20th of the official pair of mats.

With regards to the board ideas, they were an idea I was playing around with at first, but I decided I really needed to be able to roll or fold it up for travel and storage. If it wasn't for that, I would have probably prefered working in such materials, as I find them easier to cut accurately than fabrics.

I took three pieces of 2' x 4' x 5/8" plywood pressboard and spray-painted them black. They turn our 3' x 5' dining table into a 4' x 6' playspace just fine and have proven secure enough for regular play. They only stick out 6" on any given side and, if it were needed, could be made more snug with panel brackets. We could wrap them with felt at some point (sounds nice), but no one has complained about the play surface to date.

My mind is a graveyard.
There is buried
a thousand and one dreams,
one hundred friendships,
countless fantasies,
hidden beneath layers
worn smooth by the years,
marked by fading tombstones reading,
simply,
"memory."

But in the night
comes a character,
cloaked in dark fabric
and protected by solitude,
to wake the dead from their slumber,
to reanimate even
the long deceased,
blood leaking
from reopened wounds.
With blade in hand
the figure marks each memory,
carves into flesh
(living and dead alike)
lines that read out the truth:
*"eternity"

The Graveyard and the Necromancer

Abby

On 7/4/2018 at 2:30 PM, Vondy said:

I took three pieces of 2' x 4' x 5/8" plywood pressboard and spray-painted them black. They turn our 3' x 5' dining table into a 4' x 6' playspace just fine and have proven secure enough for regular play. They only stick out 6" on any given side and, if it were needed, could be made more snug with panel brackets. We could wrap them with felt at some point (sounds nice), but no one has complained about the play surface to date.

I have done the exact same thing and it has worked much better than expected. The only concern we occasionally have is one someone really leans on one of the edges.

On 7/4/2018 at 12:51 PM, Mikael Hasselstein said:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand now this thread is alive again. I don't blame you, but most people generally get by better with memes these days.

32 minutes ago, Fraggle_Rock said:

I have done the exact same thing and it has worked much better than expected. The only concern we occasionally have is one someone really leans on one of the edges.

That does lead to a certain gut-clenching "uh-oh" reaction, but no accidents to date!

33 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

I don't blame you, but most people generally get by better with memes these days.

Yup, I've usually posted a similar image to the one you did (see it here ), but I was on my phone and wanted to make it easy on myself.