A Mats Problem

Artist's impression of the 'Green Grass' coloured mat from those awfully nice people at Deep Cut Studios

Unfortunately my gaming mat from Deep Cut Studios did not arrive before Christmas but it has now. I cannot fault the material – I went for the ‘mouse mat’ option - but there are a couple of issues with it. To begin with I ordered the colour option described as ‘meadow’. Deep Cut sent me a picture of what it would look like with the superimposed grid and I was pretty happy with the resultant ‘artist’s impression’. The mat duly arrived and the first thing that struck me was how dark it looked. I have yet to see the mat under natural daylight (this time of year I do not see my house in daylight!) but it looks quite oppressive and rather than being a meadow looks rather more like a shaded wooded copse or similar. I expect I would have gotten used to it but then another problem surfaced. The grid had been printed on the mat so that it was not square with the edges. This has the effect of cutting off by degrees a portion of each hex along the long edge of the mat. It is not much but it is noticeable. This was the risk when printing a grid to the edge of the material I suspect. In a nutshell it was slightly wonky, to use a highly detailed and technical term.

I contacted Deep Cut and explained the issue to them and I have to say their customer service is absolutely top drawer. Not only are they going to send me a replacement free of charge but they are also going to increase the mat size slightly (from 48” x 32.5” to 54” by 36”) meaning that the 13 x 9 hex grid will have a small border and they are also going to change the colour to grass green from the original meadow - which was a cheeky request I made, not expecting a positive response (it was changing the original order after all).

The faulty mat – which is perfectly serviceable, albeit slightly skewed – they asked me to destroy which seems a waste. With my natural cunning and inventiveness (who am I kidding?) I have already earmarked a use for it.

The replacement mat should be with me in a week or so which has, ironically, done me a little bit of a favour as I wanted to sneak in a cheeky game using it this weekend. Instead I will focus on the rather more pressing task of sorting out Eric’s painted 18^th century stuff.