While theatre of the mind">theatre of the mind is some peoples’ preferred method for gaming, I think it suits the Call of Cthulhu RPG much better than the Dungeons and Dragons game. For me, the D&D experience is totally taken to the next level with battle mats!
Silipi Technology are exported all over the world and different industries with quality first. Our belief is to provide our customers with more and better high value-added products. Let's create a better future together.
Battle mats; grid maps full of miniatures, hand-drawn notations and delicate plastic walls that fall over as soon as someone rolls a D20 anywhere near them.
But with so many battle mats and adventure maps out there – how do you know which one to buy?
Below you’ll find my suggestions of the best battle mats, maps and adventure tile sets you can buy for D&D, Pathfinder and many other role playing games. The first two suggestions are my two highest recommendations for battle mats – the remaining mat suggestions aren’t in any order.
If you’re looking for your first battle mat and don’t have any other maps or tiles, I can’t recommend this simple and cheap Pathfinder Flip Battle Mat enough. In fact this battle mat was the first one I purchased when I picked up the mantle of Dungeon Master.
Double sided, this mat has both a dark and a light stone texture printed on the dry-wipe surfaces. Yes artistically they’re not the most intricate exciting designs, but the generic pattern makes these gaming mats very versatile. The can be used for everything from town streets to cave interiors, Elven monasteries to Dwarven mines. In fact, I think I have used them for all four of those!
Buy the Bigger Basic Flip-Mat for just £15
They’re pretty rugged too. Fold-able, roll-able and printed on thick-card. If you leave board marker on them for months – a bit of elbow grease may be needed to shift them, but I’ve used mine dozens and dozens of times and couldn’t be happier.
The one I use is the ‘bigger’ variant, measuring a very decent 100cm x 70cm (39″ by 27″). However that’s sometimes a bit hard to purchase, so I’ve linked to the enormous version (you can always cut them down). I have the luxury of having a gaming table that would accommodate the dimensions, however there is a smaller Pathfinder basic flip-mat with the same pattern if table space is of concern.
Looking for grass or water textures – check out the pack of 4 textures later on…
If you’ve already got your basic large-scale battle mat sorted (like the Pathfinder bigger basic mat mentioned above) I would highly recommend Loke’s Giant Book of Battle Mats as your next purchase.
I hadn’t heard of these books till I stumbled across a finished Kickstarter campaign by the author. I quickly snapped up this larger variant of their Battle Mats book (as they also do a smaller A4/letter sized one).
Each book contains over 60 laminated pages of highly detailed adventure mats to play across.
What is nice is that all the designs are double paged – so you can game on one page for an intimate or claustrophobic encounter – or open it up and use a double-page spread.
Double page is big enough to accommodate the center of most tables.
All Loke’s books use a tight spiral binding, so if you’re playing across the double-page you technically have that in the center. However once the gaming is underway, I’ve forgotten about it 100% of the time.
(Note: the dimensions listed on Amazon are wrong. Closed, the book is 30cm x 42cm (12″ x 16″) and opened its 60cm by 42cm)
Buy the Giant Book of Battle Mats for £30
Each page is wipe clean and contains a 1″ grid. Perfect for any beginner or experience Dungeon Master looking for their next battle mat fix.
As the name suggests, this is NOT a standard sized book. The height of the book (~17″) makes this much larger than your DM handbook (etc), so would be difficult to throw in a rucksack if you D&D on the move.
Didn’t bother me, but couldn’t review the battle mats without pointing that dimension issue out.
Question: Could I really have written a Dungeons and Dragons article without suggesting something from Wizards of the Coast?
Answer: Of course I could. They don’t pay me.
That doesn’t stop me from wanting to recommend their Dungeons & Dragons Tactical Maps Reincarnated set. This product contains 10 double sided poster-sized battle mats. Naturally all with 1″ grid markings too.
Unlike the rest of the battle mat suggestions on this page, these tactical maps from WOTC are re-prints of RPG adventures they’ve previously published. This means most of the maps are encounter maps, such as the Orcs of Stonefang Pass or the Red Hand of Doom.
If you’re looking for very abstract locations you use once in a blue moon, these truly beautiful pieces of artwork are for you. If you want generic open battle mats for use in every-other session, you may want to give these mats a miss. The picture above shows what I mean, a nice generic open rural track in the foreground … in the background a stepped alter in a water filled dungeons, followed by a ritualistic stone circle encampment.
Get these WOTC Battle Mats for just £14
I’ve already mentioned above about Loke’s Giant Book of Battle Mats, well now I’m going to suggest their latest Kickstarter (it’s smashed its final target) – Loke’s Towns & Taverns Battle Mats.
This set of books contains THREE books of Battle Mats. Volume 1 and 2 contain 80 wipe clean modular adventure maps, each measuring 30cm x 30cm (12″ x 12″), or opened up for a double spread again, as 60cm x 30cm.
One thing I love about Loke’s books is that they can be placed next to each other for larger environments (See my photo below). On top of that, the foot paths, rivers and battlements from one book flow into the designs in the other books.
They’ve been pretty clever with how they’ve done this.
Loke now produce a ‘tiny book of battle mats‘, to accompany their bigger books… so cute! This tiny book measuring a dinky 15cm x 15cm (6″ x 6″).
Get the Tiny Book of Battle Mats
For more Rollable Wargaming Matsinformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.
UPDATE! Alongside their Towns and Taverns set, Loke also now produce an incredible twin book set of Dungeons!
Get the Double Battle Mat of Dungeons
One thing that I missed when I bought my first battle mats was grass! Now that I think of it, it seems strange the Pathfinder Basic set has a double sided battle mat, both of stone!
For a couple of quid / dollar more than the Pathfinder Bigger Basic pack (listed at the very start), you can get this Pathfinder 4x terrain mat pack, including the precious grass mat!
I also think the artwork on the stone work is slightly nicer (they’ve gone for a cobbled stone effect in this pack).
This pack contains two double-sided battle mats, each one is still a very usable 24″ x 30″. You get water, flagstone, grass and cobblestone. The only thing that stops me from rating this as the ‘go to’ or default purchase is they don’t do it in the big variant.
I can tell you from experience, you can’t substitute anything for water if you don’t have a water-mat. Your players will notice if you sail your pirate ship over cobbles!
Get the Pathfinder Basic Terrain Multi-Mat Pack
One thing that always plagues me as a Dungeon Master, is that my players can always see the whole map or battle mat when the encounter starts. Obviously you can cover bits up with spare card etc, but it gets a bit faffy.
Enter – these amazing interlocking modular dungeon map tiles!
This simple and ingenious product from ‘Role 4 Initiative’ allows the DM to draw up rooms, corridors and streets beforehand, but only play them onto the table when that door is finally opened, or the corner turned.
It basically allows you a mechanic similar to fog-of-war!
Made of some pretty sturdy chip board, they’ll last you for many, many adventures. Stylistic wise, they come in either ‘dungeon grey’, ‘warm natural stone’ or plain white. All sets have a standard 1″ grid worked into their design, but its pretty hard to spot on the dungeon grey design.
The set pictured above is probably the best bundle IMHO, supplying you with five 10″ modular square tiles and sixteen 5″ tiles. You can also get a pack with just thirty-six 5″ tiles – but I find the lack of larger tiles more of a nuisance and isn’t worth the extra flexibility IMHO.
At the time of writing, the following packs all cost £40:
As mentioned previously, the grey stone (pictured right) is made with their 5×5 grid in mind, but its a lot less noticeable than the Earthtone or blank designs.
UPDATE I’ve noticed a few more variants are now available, such as the nine pack of large blank tiles and the mixed pack of greystone.
Buy Mixed Earthtone Battle Mat Bundle Now
There we have it, my best SIX suggestions for the Dungeon Master looking to pick up their next Battle Mat! I really hope these mat suggestions have helped.
Happy gaming!
Greetings CoGs.
I’m starting to look at upgrading the size of my games so I have started shopping around for a game mat to start off with as a step up from the skirmish battle boards I have been using so far. Thought I would look to the sagely experience of the community for some advice before I take the plunge.
So far I have been looking at Gamemat.eu, Deep-cut Studios and PWork Wargames as the big three I most often hear about. I’m thinking of going for one of the Gamemat.eu double sided to get more bang for the initial buck.
The only other thought I had was to get something in cloth and then maybe hunt around for features that could go under the mat but none of the companies selling the mats seem to have these and I’m thinking it would be less flexible. Maybe something for down the line? Anyone know of anyone who actually sells these?
So, what are people’s own experiences? Any other hidden gems or companies anyone would recommend I look at first?
Not sure what size you are looking for but for the smaller sized 2×2 and 3×3 Battle Systems is great and very affordable, I have several.
Deep Cut is hands down my favourite although since Brexit I’m not sure how easy/ expensive they are now. I know a few years ago they usually dispatch same day and take via courier around 5 days for delivery to the UK.
I have one double sided mat from Gamemat.eu and it’s my least favourite, mainly because it have a bit of a sheen on it and the details aren’t as well defined and my other mats, although it is the oldest of my mats. It also had rounded corners.
I have one mat from Pworks and while it looks good it has a Frostgrave (TM) logo printed in one corner which I don’t like, and which wasn’t shown in the picture on the site.
Hope this helps.
Personally I am a massive fan of the custom double sided mats from Deep Cut studio.https://www.deepcutstudio.com/printomat/
I love the fact that I can order the exact combination of sides I want for the games I have.
For example my last purchase was a 3×3 with tarmac on one side for Batman and a star field on the other for X-wing.
I am really short on space so the double sided mats are a great advantage.