The problem is not if ffg mats are well priced or overpriced. The problema is the cost to the entry point of the tournament.

You need the basic and expansión just for tiles, and then the miniaturas you want to try. This is a cool luxury ítem, but make your printed ones legal, make your own PDF maps and tell people and tos they can printed those and use it for tournament play. Just make the game more accesible,thats goint to increase sales at the end of the day because probable the guy who just prints the maps and buy some ally packs to try it un a tournament and lunes it will buy the whole thing.

The problem is not if ffg mats are well priced or overpriced. The problema is the cost to the entry point of the tournament.

Really no one should care about tournament entry point. First, it's only a TINY minority that play tournaments. Second, of that minority, it's an insignificant sliver that play at stores with other players that aren't going to accommodate you and require every single player to have all the maps. Third these don't change the entry point as you can still buy the box sets, and FF expecting people to actually buy the game they're playing is hardly unreasonable.

Coming from Descent 2 but having IA in my collection but not having played it for a while my question is the following one :

How a pre-printed playmat is a plus to IA than building your battleground tile by tile ? Is it only for the purpose of the skirmish mode ? To improve the pace of the game by simplifying the "preparation phase" ?

I'm not sure I like this combined with the new rule that says all setup is officially inside your 65 minute timer. That means that it is now basically necessary to buy the oversized, overpriced first party mats, because if you don't have a mat, you'll be at a time disadvantage compared to those that do.

I don't agree. It doesn't matter, if you can beat an opponent in five rounds in 65 minutes, or in 3 rounds in 45 minutes. You have to beat that opponent.

This mats are not for campaign mode, just for skirmish mode, the majority in my community plays this game for skirmish and tournaments, of course we have played campaign, two groups have done it but it is not the main focus here.

Furthemore this items are directly targeted to skirmish tournament players,so they care about that minority you report, if it wasnt for those players why do they make the tournament legal maps and not the others aswell?

They clearly find the maps for skirmish tournaments a problem, does this fix the problem at least i, and others have posted, see? I think it does a poor job at that.

@cdr : Thanks for the answer :-) didn't realize the skirmish mode of IA had gained such importance :-)

They clearly find the maps for skirmish tournaments a problem, does this fix the problem at least i, and others have posted, see? I think it does a poor job at that.

People have been printing them out illegally. They've given you a reasonable, legal solution, at a price point comparable to similar products. It's also a very niche product that won't sell enough to even be worth their time making in the first place. But yeah, complain.

Ok people are saying that the FFG maps are cheaper than getting the unofficial ones printed. If you go to pixartprinting.com string together 5 of them. It will cost 14.86 for a size of 86 inches width by 24 inches height. That is the price when they are not having a half off sale. So if you go with FFG's at 25 a pop and you need 3. HMMMMM that is 75 bucks!!! So I think there is a huge cost savings using the unofficial ones. I will be using ibsh ones over FFG's and I only play local anyways but the unofficial are cheaper. The quality is really good because I have been using them since January of this year.

I haven't seen anyone say that these are cheaper in fact they ARE more expensive but MUCH higher quality.

The problem is not if ffg mats are well priced or overpriced. The problema is the cost to the entry point of the tournament.

Really no one should care about tournament entry point. First, it's only a TINY minority that play tournaments. Second, of that minority, it's an insignificant sliver that play at stores with other players that aren't going to accommodate you and require every single player to have all the maps. Third these don't change the entry point as you can still buy the box sets, and FF expecting people to actually buy the game they're playing is hardly unreasonable.

Skirmish and tournament play is ultimately a bigger driver for this game than Campaign play could ever be. In campaign play, you likely have a single person a group of 2-5 players buying product. There is no game related reason for these people to buy more that one of any expansion. Compare that to skirmish players who all buy the game and expansions and in some cases need to buy multiple copies of some expansions. Putting a high price of entry and the need to constantly be being product that is unrelated to the squads that you run isn't a good way to encourage growth.

YOU: "COMPLAINT ABOUT THE LACK OF PRINTED MAPS!!"

FFG: *starts offering printed maps*

YOU: "COMPLAINT ABOUT PRINTED MAPS!!"

---

You guys really have a knack for finding a reason to complain about anything everything.

I think the player base that will actually make use of these will be nationals and up players, so probably not near as many as one might think. Just like with the X-Wing mats, every store in my area and others I've heard of make exceptions and allow unofficial printouts. Especially since most players that play skirmish regularly already have "illegal" printouts. Of the 11 people that went to the regional in my area, I think 1 will actually purchase these.

YOU: "COMPLAINT ABOUT THE LACK OF PRINTED MAPS!!"

FFG: *starts offering printed maps*

YOU: "COMPLAINT ABOUT PRINTED MAPS!!"

---

You guys really have a knack for finding a reason to complain about anything everything.

People wanted printed maps. They didn't want deluxe printed on mousepad material printed maps. These maps only need to survive for three months or so and should be constructed as such.

YOU: "COMPLAINT ABOUT THE LACK OF PRINTED MAPS!!"

FFG: *starts offering printed maps*

YOU: "COMPLAINT ABOUT PRINTED MAPS!!"

---

You guys really have a knack for finding a reason to complain about anything everything.

People wanted printed maps. They didn't want deluxe printed on mousepad material printed maps. These maps only need to survive for three months or so and should be constructed as such.

I somehow doubt that making shoddy quality products is FFG's MO.

I guess I'm off to start a thread about how FFG is gouging me on Imperial Assault product prices. I mean come on, I only need black-and-white paper tokens to slide around a piece of paper with doodles on it, and they have the AUDACITY to charge me EXORBITANT prices for FIGURES and THICK CARDBOARD! Those sick bastards!

YOU: "COMPLAINT ABOUT THE LACK OF PRINTED MAPS!!"

FFG: *starts offering printed maps*

YOU: "COMPLAINT ABOUT PRINTED MAPS!!"

---

You guys really have a knack for finding a reason to complain about anything everything.

People wanted printed maps. They didn't want deluxe printed on mousepad material printed maps. These maps only need to survive for three months or so and should be constructed as such.

I somehow doubt that making shoddy quality products is FFG's MO.

I guess I'm off to start a thread about how FFG is gouging me on Imperial Assault product prices. I mean come on, I only need black-and-white paper tokens to slide around a piece of paper with doodles on it, and they have the AUDACITY to charge me EXORBITANT prices for FIGURES and THICK CARDBOARD! Those sick bastards!

It's not that FFG is overcharging for the product they made, they made a product other than what their customers were asking for. $75 bucks for a set of mats that are going to get used for a few months isn't very appealing to most people.

It's not that FFG is overcharging for the product they made, they made a product other than what their customers were asking for. $75 bucks for a set of mats that are going to get used for a few months isn't very appealing to most people.

I disagree. Think about it that way:

You are just starting out IA skirmish. You got your core box and are looking at some decent lists to build. Rebels come to mind as they can be pieced together pretty fast with Ally packs. But you still need to buy at least RtH if you want to go a tournament because of Nelvaanian Warzone. With the mats, you can already save 25-30$ just by skipping RtH entirely as it adds little value to a starting rebel list. With the next rotation (that will probably phase in a bespin map) this could apply to mercenaries and the bespin box too, though the saving are not as big of course.

With upcoming boxes, this will only apply to more and more lists and list types (probably not to imperial trooper lists, as they always pull their ranks from the boxes ... at least from what we know now). Initially I thought the 25$ is too high (I still think it is, 15 would make Skirmish much more appealing of course). But since you get everything (including the mission cards) with these maps, it's okay for now and should gain in value in the future.

It's not that FFG is overcharging for the product they made, they made a product other than what their customers were asking for. $75 bucks for a set of mats that are going to get used for a few months isn't very appealing to most people.

I disagree. Think about it that way:

You are just starting out IA skirmish. You got your core box and are looking at some decent lists to build. Rebels come to mind as they can be pieced together pretty fast with Ally packs. But you still need to buy at least RtH if you want to go a tournament because of Nelvaanian Warzone. With the mats, you can already save 25-30$

I would never advise to save 15$ on the bespin gambit buying the playmat instead, for just a few more you get all the miniatures and all the cards. This is a luxury component, not a replacement neither a solution to the problems skirmish tournament players are raising.

So i agree with WWHSD, if you dont want to do low quality just allow them in tournament play. Is astonishing how easy to setup with all printed maps a tournament is, you can save a lot of time each round. And if the answer is, "well every TOs are allowing unnofficial ones" then why dont the rules? why dont they skip this product and allow everybody to use them?

Without having done any research, it seems that these mats have a reasonable cost compared to the quality and materiel. I don't think the cost is so horribly exorbitant. The first buy-in might, but then it's 25$ every three months? Could be worse. Getting these will occasionally save me from buying a figure pack or something since I mostly play Scum (though I still buy 'most' of the products if I think the figures are cool, interesting or there seems to be 'must-have' CC for Scum in the pack). Furthermore, I don't see any reason why a map would be obsolete when it rotates out - you can still have a friendly brawl on it - or if you are that much of a tournament hardliner, sell them off at half price to more casual players.

Depending on the final cost in Denmark, I can imagine getting some of these, as I envision they'll allow me to get more games of IA played than I do now. That is definitely worth 25$ now and then.

They are officially available, only they aren't, once again.

FFG can be such crap sometimes.

I've checked with all three local stores. None of them knew about these mats and all of them contacted their distributor sources also who didn't know of these mats and don't have them available for order. Of course because of some licensing hasbro BS FFG can't sell them in their web store. It's quite obnoxious.

I've even contacted some online vendors to see if they will stock them and they didn't know about them either.

For months we had to stare at the Obi-wan, Greedo, Inquistor banner telling us to preorder now (yet when you clicked on it they of course weren't available on the FFG site). And now we are told things are available when in reality no one can stock them.

The vinyl from pixartprinting.com is really good. As long as you can get it done on extreme classic. The colors are bright and vibrant. The outdoor is a bit darker. That is only here in the United States. Plus you can carry many more in a single tube than you can the mouse pad material. They switched ours from Italy to the US and they only have the outdoor vinyl instead of the extreme classic. Also it is cheaper to get printed on vinyl than the other and you don't really save. You still have to purchase the figures and cards. The boxed expansions would still have to be purchased. The supposed savings would be negated by having to get the needed cards and figures another way. Through buying them on ebay or even at the LGS. So these are only saving setup time not any money.

I do not play IA in tournaments, nor do I intend to. (same with X-Wing and Armada)

I have played both campaign and skirmish modes, and enjoy them greatly.

I am no longer young with lots of free time. Back-in-the-day, every single weekend was dedicated to gaming with my friends, crashing on couches or floors during these epic marathon sessions. Now I am married, have a full-time career, and two active kids. Many of my gaming friends are in the same situation. This means that when we actually do manage to find a day where we can get together (perhaps once every month or three), we have very little time available on those rare days.

What this all means is that, setting up a map from tiles - while endearing - is not as fun as the game itself. We have a hard time justifying playing IA because it takes as long to set it up as it does to play it. Or longer in the case of some skirmish games I've played.

I have printed most of the skirmish maps on vinyl as an experiment, and I was rewarded - people were suddenly willing to play! I will certainly be buying these neoprene maps from FFG as they come out, since they are of better quality than my vinyl maps which they will replace.

In my case, since I don't do the tournaments, the maps do not expire. We put all the skirmish cards in the stack to pick from, not just 3 pair from the official tournament maps.

Of course, I will still continue to work on getting my campaign maps assembled so I can get them printed up on vinyl. That way I can push the campaign mode again - probably pick up where we left off, then move on to some of the newer campaigns that have come out recently.

Thank you FFG! Keep the quality high, don't skimp on materials!

How is the printing on vinyl worse than the mouse pad material? I have the star field one from FFG. If the maps for IA look like the mat for x-wing. I will take the extreme classic vinyl over the mats any time. I look forward to seeing these mats up close and comparing the quality between those and the vinyl.

they are nice, and they are convenient.

but you're sure paying for it.

in between games, our preferred Imperial Player, assembles, and copies the maps.

what an awesome time saver during the game.

it prevents some numb-nutz spilling his 'Dew on the pieces

He's even been making copies of the skirmish maps too.

It's not that FFG is overcharging for the product they made, they made a product other than what their customers were asking for. $75 bucks for a set of mats that are going to get used for a few months isn't very appealing to most people.

I disagree. Think about it that way:

You are just starting out IA skirmish. You got your core box and are looking at some decent lists to build. Rebels come to mind as they can be pieced together pretty fast with Ally packs. But you still need to buy at least RtH if you want to go a tournament because of Nelvaanian Warzone. With the mats, you can already save 25-30$

I would never advise to save 15$ on the bespin gambit buying the playmat instead, for just a few more you get all the miniatures and all the cards. This is a luxury component, not a replacement neither a solution to the problems skirmish tournament players are raising.

So i agree with WWHSD, if you dont want to do low quality just allow them in tournament play. Is astonishing how easy to setup with all printed maps a tournament is, you can save a lot of time each round. And if the answer is, "well every TOs are allowing unnofficial ones" then why dont the rules? why dont they skip this product and allow everybody to use them?

The problem with the Unofficial mats, is the measure ments and verification that the measurments and spacing of the grid items is correct. I played on some printed maps at the Ohio Regional, and while the mats were nice, the were printed a bit to large so. Movement, judgement of spacing, line of sight were all off a bit. Unofficial maps are fine, as long as the measure ments and grid are correct.

This is why I'll pay for the official FFG items.

Ok people are saying that the FFG maps are cheaper than getting the unofficial ones printed. If you go to pixartprinting.com string together 5 of them. It will cost 14.86 for a size of 86 inches width by 24 inches height. That is the price when they are not having a half off sale. So if you go with FFG's at 25 a pop and you need 3. HMMMMM that is 75 bucks!!! So I think there is a huge cost savings using the unofficial ones. I will be using ibsh ones over FFG's and I only play local anyways but the unofficial are cheaper. The quality is really good because I have been using them since January of this year.

You have to be careful here though. Pixart Printing is walking a fine edge. Since they have't licensed the maps or the imagery and are making money from printing them, they could run afoul of LFL and Disney for copyright infringement. In order to get maps printed at Staples, I had to remove anything from the imagery and text that was copyright by LFL. Wasn't difficult, but it is something to know. Again the official mats don't run into this problem.