I have finally recieved my Hotz star double sided mat yesterday. When I made the order, after they cleared the payment and confirmed the order, they told me to wait at least 5 weeks but I should get it MUCH sooner, believe it or not I recieved my mat exactly 10 weeks on the dot after I recieved that email.

Besides that, I also ordered it as rolled in a tube as my shipping cost and paid an additional 10 dollar fee for that. Needless to say they couldn't even follow that and sent it folded instead.

I understand mistakes happen, but their customer service is also absolutely disgusting, the entire ordeal from ordering it, to asking for shipping / tracking numbers, to trying to figure out everything else, it took me DAYS sometimes even a full week, just to get a reply on a simple question or order detail corrected.

While the quality of the mat is half decent, I don't like that they're spraying their logo on the bottom of my mat either, I ordered a space playmat for a more realistic feel to my game, not so that my x-wing will fly past a "Hotz Matz" logo floating near the gravitational pull of Tattoine. I feel I could have ordered a mat anywhere else for the same quality, and better service.

TLDR; took them 10 weeks to deliver my mat, ignored my shipping while charging me 10$ more for it, and their response / customer service is god awful.

When making a purchase from them expect purchasing it to take at least 1-2 weeks, recieving it 10weeks, and then have your shipping downgraded.

Sorry to hear that man, if anything gets up my skirt its lousy customer service. I was going to suggest a refund on shipping (its a new ship) but that will likely take 1-2 weeks before they acknowledge it and then stuff it up by sending you only five Pesos.

I hope others read this and are aware of dodgey retailers.

My mat is a 3x4 sheet of MFD, painted black and speckled white for stars, simple and smooth.

Gale force nine is making what appears to be good mats, though admittedly I have not yet seen them personally just photos on line. I have ordered thier stuff before for other mini games and have never been disappointed.

Flames of War has a mat that looks like the surface of the Deathstar.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=79&ProductID=5221

That is a bumer about Hitz Matz. They look very cool online (I've never ordered or seen one in person).

I did pick up a yard of this:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Party-Time-Organdy-Stars-Fabric-Black/21668317

for playing x-wing. I weighted down the corners and edges with magnets and it has worked out pretty well. Id prefer a thicker surface that feels more like a mouse pad, but this was cheap and it beats having the ships slide around with the slightest tough on the wood table.

I have the GF9/Flames of War star map and it is great quality, comes in a carry tube all nicely rolled up.

Harleequin said:

My experience mirrors yours. It took around 9 weeks for me to get mine, and I ordered it to be rolled, but they folded it instead. When people ask about my mat I tell them to go someplace else.

I have ordered from Hotz twice in recent history and a few times prior to that also. I've never had a problem

CarWashKid said:

would a spray adhesive work to a 1/4" piece of foam board from Staples? It might give you the mouse pad feel, but not foldable.

jetsetter said:

Ships were still sliding on the Walmart star fabric because its made of polyester. It wasnot as bad as playing on a wood table, but still not great. I picked up a 36" x 60" roll of craft foam (about 1/8" thick) from Michael's for $8. Totally stopped the sliding issue. I'm flattening it and using a silver paint pen to give it some sci-fi flair. Good to go.

I'm rather happy with my HotzMat. I did hear bad things about their delivery times before, and assumed that it'd take 3-4 months. It did.

The quality of the mat is good, playing on it feels great. It's single-sided though, and larger than any game I'd want to play on it, so the logo on the bottom doesn't bother me.

I built mine into a table I already had for gaming:

Just black paint, a few spots and a bit of glitter. Oh and 40 LEDs attached to the underside of the table with holes to shine the light through. Seemingly a lot less hassle than a Hotzmat.

I like the LEDs! We already use some halhemisphere planets on mechanical rotating bases on our boards. They give the visual of a planets rotation. We were considering building a new table with a airbrushed plexiglass surface and fiber optic lights for a starfield but with a pulsing color change.

Now I'm worried, I only ordered mine the other week, didn't know they had a bad rep.

Hello,

I am new to this forum. This is my first post. I have a 6 X 4 mat from Monday Knight Productions. It is a good quality product. And they have them in a 3X3 format. I have put the link below. They have pictures of there mat. What you see is what you get. Shipping is okay and quicker than most.

Jean

http://www.mondayknight.com/Index-Mats.html

I also have a mat from Monday Knight, it is okay for the money but the Hotz is far better quality IMHO. I'm keeping my Hotz mats but giving away the MK mat that I bought (sorry it is sea not space). Just my $0.02

Keep your sea mat in case there is a "Battle of Kamino" scenario published.

Funny how things are. Ordered a mat from hotz 3 weeks ago, as soon as I ordered I sent him an email to ask about delivery, got a reply the next day telling me that he was making some the following week and I should receive mine within the 3 weeks, probably sooner.

Well it's been 3 weeks, sent him 2 more emails and I am yet to receive a reply. I googled their name with delivery delay and I get here, how ironic. If I had known about those really long delays, I would have ordered elsewhere. Since I am Canadian, I wanted to encourage him but now regretting it.

I also paid extra to have it rolled in a tube. They better not ship it folded to me. Considering bringing him some bad rep with PayPal since I paid with it. I am going to give him a little more time to reply and give me a delivery eta.

sonofabitch. i just ordered a mat from them 2 days ago. i wish i saw this post sooner.

I sent a request and a second a few weeks later - That was last year, I never heard back.

Also had a miserable experience. I had to file a paypal complaint to get reimbursed for undelivered product and unresponsiveness. In this day and age, this sort of stuff is just unacceptable. The market will eventually kill this guy's business or force him to adapt. Given the nonexistent customer service, I'm guessing the former.

I ordered this map off of Ebay for about $15.00. Fast shipping and decent looking maps. I recommend this seller highly. Also the GF9 maps are very nice and come rolled in tubes. I have the Battlestation/Death Star map and love it. However those are around $40.00.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Space-gaming-mat-XWing-Star-Trek-more-/161100565258?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT&nma=true&si=jPjvxZnVfpgjPejcsCSjPOE8IOg%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

I ordered 2 one-sided mats from Hotz. Both Enhanced Deep Space, one standard and one with alternative nebula colour (IMO far better than standard). It took them few weeks (less than 10) to make and the response was always delayed (about a day) but the mats are great and well worth it. Moreover, I ordered those mats just when the X-Wing game was set to preorder so the market for 36"x36" space mats was quite young and empty. At that time Hotz Mats was one of a very few out there and it had the cheapest mats (about twice compared to the other companies). I ordered them to EU, believe me I checked, everyone else was more expensive in product or had outrageous shipping cost..

Also had a miserable experience. I had to file a paypal complaint to get reimbursed for undelivered product and unresponsiveness. In this day and age, this sort of stuff is just unacceptable. The market will eventually kill this guy's business or force him to adapt. Given the nonexistent customer service, I'm guessing the former.

Well I am afraid my experience may end up similar to yours. If I don't hear from him this week, I will fill a refund complain through paypal as well and look elsewhere for my mat.

With X-wing picking up he may be under a lot of pressure and that will affect the attitudes of his employees. Hope he get this taken care of so all of you get your mats. They sound like they are good quality for the price.