The puzzle boards I’ve seen tend to be in a format that’s 3x as wide as they are tall (with side folding arms), and looking at the last time I set up Eldritch Horror or LotR: JiME the space was much more square (and at least 100cmx80cm). They do look kinda perfect as a portable surface, though.
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Could you make something? MDF from B&Q is very cheap and they (at least at the one near us) will cut it to size at no charge.
You’d need some hinge brackets and a covering but you could get whatever size you wanted then.
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Yeah, might need to be that. I’ll try B&Q and see what’s around!
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As a slightly off the wall suggestion, I have in the past used pieces of Laminate flooring clicked together to form a gaming surface. I mean this stuff:
Clicking together a number of the flooring panels in line will give you an extendable flat surface.
Positives:
- If you need a bigger surface you can just click in another panel.
- A single pack is pretty cheap, and if you’re lucky you can sometimes find an end of line pack that’s even cheaper. Of course if you’ve just laid a floor there will be a ton of this stuff hanging around.
- It’s easily stored, just un-click the sections and sack them.
- The cheaper stuff is sintered and seems less prone to warping than some other boards.
The Negatives:
- They have little strength along the line of the join; pressure applied along this on a soft surface, like a bed, will cause them to un-click (I ended up gluing a bunch of panels together to stop this happening).
- Lots of clicking and un-clicking them together will wear the joint making them a bit wobbly after a while.
- Because of the length of the panels you end up with quite an oblong area if you only click a few together. (I actually trimmed off the pieces that I glued together to give me a smaller square section).
You’ll still need to cover them with some sort of material if you want a softer surface.
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Alternatively have a look to see if there’s a good supplier of reclaimed wood in your area.
There’s one in Croydon that’s supplied me with loads of old scaffold boards and roof joists that I’ve made up into shelves and they’ve been really helpful with digging out appropriate bits and cutting things to size.
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If you don’t mind your table looking ‘rustic’, then I’d second what @bengeile said about re-purposing something and saving a lot of money. Dining tables with a solid frame underneath practically have a vault already made, it just needs a floor and cover put in, and the tabletop removed and converted to be removable. Over in the other forum I posted about my own foray into making my own table, which actually came out much better than I expected.
Pallets as an example may not be the best wood, but it’s solid and can polish or paint up quite nicely with a bit of TLC. And usually you can source the wood for free. From there it’s a case of buying or borrowing some basic tools - a sander and jigsaw or table saw are a must really (I bought a jigsaw and sander for about £60 in total) - making your own design so it’s the size you want, buying some table legs (again, quite cheap if you don’t want to spend a fortune), and putting in the hours and sweat. A vault wasn’t for me, it was unnecessary and would have collected rubbish, and as I made a low one as a coffee table, it would have ended up too low.
I bought a good 90 x 90 cm mat to play on for £30 and would absolutely recommend something like it. As others have said, picking cards up is easier, it feels lovely, dice rolls are much quieter, and it’s an added layer of protection for your table.
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That’s one pretty playmat 
One of my soon-to-arrive Kickstarters has a playmat with it… but as far as I remember that was game specific.
PS: is it an accident that I know that the Everdell base game is sold out in all the shops I was looking at recently?
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My dining table is that exact size. I was considering making a covering for it, but it might just be easier to buy one. Might I ask where you got yours from?
Mine was from Amazon UK. It’s an Ultimate Guard brand. I wanted to get one from an online FLGS but the only one with a 90x90 (they do lots of other sizes I found was white, and it would have gotten beastly quickly, and I like the darker background.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B016PGP1RE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_3deeFb2Z4Q40Q is the one I ordered, I don’t know if it’s still in stock.
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As far as I can tell, either 36" [91.44cm] or 90cm is a fairly standard sort of playmat size.
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I think ultimate guard have retired 90cm mats for 80cm(?)
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Thanks, will keep them in mind for when I eventually claim my dining room table back from my work computer.
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Patriot Games, who are UK-based, will do custom playmats. I’ve never bought anything from them, but they seem to have decent ratings online.
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Just a quick side note for those of you thinking about going cheaper…
Do be careful. A dear friend (and fellow gamer) offered to make me a new gaming table for a reasonable price ($400CAD, about half the cost of a comparably sized gaming table from a well-known Swedish furniture company). He had all the tools, he had a stockpile of mousepad surfacing material… and hey, I got to support a friend building a thing!
Tragically, the end result is… functional? It’s fine. But due to the size he decided to make it in 2 pieces with 4 legs on each piece and the legs are enormous which means that in the original layout you couldn’t actually sit at the middle of the table since there was a MASSIVE leg there. The two pieces didn’t line up perfectly either which meant there was a lip between the two halves, and all 8 of the legs (after relocating the 4 “middle” legs into the center of the table to reclaim more of the table edge) have since split. Not structurally a problem, but it looks… well, cheap.
Now, all that stated, the table is fine. But if I could do it over, I would rather find somebody who I was sure would do a great job for twice as much money (or three times!) than get a “fine” stop-gap measure that I’m just going to have to replace.
Vime’s “Boots” Theory of Poverty and all that.
ANYway. Just be careful.
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My Arkham Horror LCG mat is from Patriot. One small imperfection that I didn’t notice for a while because it kinda fits in with the design I chose (no ink on a small part of the edge, as if it was creased over in printing). Other than that it’s great.
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Kudos for bringing DW into the conversation.
As an amateur woodworker, I will tell you that I used to run out of equipment when working on a project. Easy enough to solve: I can buy tools – I have so many expensive tools now.
Now, when I’m working on a project I no longer run out of equipment: I run out of skill and/or talent. Which, sadly, is not so easy to solve.
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Even though I’m in the UK i ordered my PlayMat from https://www.inkedgaming.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxon_gvDR6gIViK3tCh1zuQ_ZEAAYASAAEgJQDPD_BwE
I wanted a 4’x4’ one and it was the place with the size. I got a black friday coupon which basically made the postage free. It’s lasted years and I’m so glad I got one.
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Patriot Games seems like a great vendor if you’re looking for UK-based gaming accessories and want to support a smaller company but I’ve been put off of buying anything with their logo on because it’s a bit too well, Patriotic, which I think can read in a kind of Nationalist kind of way? It’s clearly not intended, but for me the logo (and name I guess) really puts me off. Purely a personal choice, not a criticism of them and I don’t think it’s inappropriate. But it’s the first time I’ve been put off of buying a boardgame product because of the brand aesthetics.
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The association with Irish terrorism (as in the Tom Clancy novel of the same title) also strikes me as not ideal. Which again is unlikely to be their intention, but I know someone who missed an IRA bomb by about twenty seconds, so I’m a little sensitive to that kind of thing.
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That part at least seems accidental as their “About Us” says they started out as Patriot Comics before becoming more focused on games and changing their name.
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