Another benefit I’ve seen used but havent tried yet is to use one of the tiles to track initiative – it’s a visual representation of the order of play that the characters can easily see. Also, any tile that you aren’t using for mapping is an instant whiteboard.

I’ll be getting more at GenCon this year.

CJ: I’ve never purposely mis-aligned my tiles — I’ll have to give that a try!

I also got an email back from Tom Belcher at BC Products that directly addressed Ken’s question above. I’ve edited Tom’s answer into the post.

I have one of the few “damaged” sets from the very first production run. The damage is a mar in the background of one tile. I don’t remember when I got it exactly, but it was immediately after release. (They released locally at our game store first, since the BC guys happen to live here. I even got to play in a game at a local Con with two of them.) So I’ve had a set almost as long as the tiles have been in existence. We play in the floor, and have had kids step on the tiles on numerous occasions.

I’ve had zero issues, except for the already mentioned easy erase. The BC guys offered to replace the damaged tile free of charge, but I decided it adds a certain character to the set. As far as I’m concerned, the one thing missing is for BC (or anyone, for that matter), to make up a reuseable plastic stand that will turn a paper counter into something more like a miniature. (I’m talking someting shaped approximately like a chess pawn, with the counter sitting horizontally on top–not one of those slot stands from the Steve Jackson games counters.) The paper counters being square and to scale means that they really don’t work well with the tiles. Since we generally use Lego, dice, pennies, and other such markers, this isn’t a big issue for us.

The ease of accidentally erasing white board is a downside to me (especially as I hate getting ink on my hands – that happens way more with white boards than with wet erase).

I’m also curious how well the puzzle pieces bit works. On a good flat table, it should be fine, but on a warped table, or dining room tables with big discontinuities where they pull apart to insert leaves, I could see a problem.

I’m curious about their lifespan. I still have my original Battlemat (the small size that you almost never see anymore). My first hex Megamat which saw extensive use in college is still completely useable (even if it has a few faint red stains).

The ease of expanding and moving part of the map is the one selling point for me. But really it’s only a minor point, especially with running Cold Iron where I don’t run big dungeons (and since I had forgotten that I still had my squares Megamat when I started running Arcana Unearthed, I bought a new double sided Megamat, so I have two each of square and hex – which has given me plenty of expansion room [and every once in a while, I pull out the small square Battlemat] the only complaint is that one mat is 1″ the other is 25mm – which shows over a large distance).

A big question will be if they come out with double sided boards when they do the hexes. If not, I’m looking at $240 to get the same area of both square and hex as I currently have. Quite a cost just to get a bit of flexibility.

I’m amused they compare themselves to Mastermaze though… Mastermaze is an entirely different product, even if it’s used for the same types of games. You use Mastermaze if you want 3-D feel.

Frank

I’ve never used an erasable battlemat that way myself, so I don’t see it as a downside. When I want to map in advance, I use pieces of 1″ gridded graph paper (cut from a giant roll) — the downside being that it’s tricky to reveal only parts of it.

There might be something — along the lines of the little foam sheets that come with the tiles — that you could carefully place over your drawn-on tiles to keep a map unsmudged/intact until you were ready to use it, but if so I haven’t heard about it. Anyone?

Other than that, I love my Tact-Tiles.