Review - Cavalier's Hex Mats

There’s a lot of useful HeroScape stuff out there that isn’t made by Hasbro. You can’t swing a dead cat around here without finding somebody making custom terrain, and then you’ve got people making cool dice, turn counters, and other cool stuff – I even saw a couple people make some incredibly cool tables just for the game.

But the most useful non-Habsro Scape stuff I’ve seen are the terrain maps that Cavalier makes. These plastic mats are printed on the same stuff they use to make bulletproof glass, but they’re thin as paper. They have hex grids on them that match up to the size of HeroScape pieces, and they come in a bunch of different terrain types.

For example, say you want to make a lake. Normally, you need about six master sets worth of water, and then you have to snap each one together. But you slap down a Cavalier water mat, and the lake is done – the entire bottom level is water, and you just build on top of it. You can make the lake just about as big as you want, and if you need it bigger, you can use two mats.

Or you want to make a massive desert sprawl with rocky outcroppings. We all know there’s never enough sand for something like that – the first master set has only a few pieces, and even with the little double-space pieces they put in booster for a while, you still can’t cover a table with sand. But slap down a sand mat, and you’re in business.

And they’re not just for classic Scape. Cav makes a mat with asphalt, so you can build your city right on top of the mat. Now you don’t have to buy six copies of Marvel Scape just so you can make downtown Manhattan (though you’ll still need some buildings – Marvel needs buildings, and bad).

There are a couple things that could make you pause before you order, though. You might be a little worried that they’ll roll up and toss pieces everywhere, and you might be worried that paper-thin plastic will tear. Well, allow me to warm you a bottle of milk and put you down for a nap. Remember when I said these were made of the same plastic as bullet-proof glass? Yeah, they’re real hard to tear. And you can store them for months, all rolled up in the tube you get them in, and they’ll lay flat within minutes of unrolling them.

It’s easy to look around this site and find people who can say how much they love Cavalier’s mats – but it’s pretty dang hard to find someone who will complain. These mats are a really affordable way to make some sweet maps you couldn’t make before, and they look great. Check out Cavalier’s eBay shop, and find all new ways to make awesome terrain out of little plastic hexes.