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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I think I read on their page that they don’t print their logo on custom items, but I can see why you would find it off-putting!
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Can I say that I love the idea that your students’ final papers are fair game, but for one of your board games a glass of liquid is verboten? 
Even worse, the papers were all submitted electronically (hooray pandemic) so it was mostly my laptop that was at risk. That, a textbook, my printed copies of the semester grade spreadsheets, and a few random notepads and scraps of paper. Still willing to risk it all more than most of my games! Though I did grab the laptop and get it out of the way of the liquid first thing.
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I second this (mostly). One of the huge benefits of having someone local build something for you is the interaction on the design process, but both parties need to take advantage of it. I drive myself batty getting costumers to take pics of their space, come test the fit and finish of tables, bring their own chairs so they can test table height, or the mechanics of whatever I’m making for them. It nightmare-level anxiety that I’ll put my skills to work for someone, take their money, and find out they’re not happy with what they got because of something foreseeable. I’ve started not taking payment until they’ve lived with their table, or dice tower, or box or whatever for a month or so, and then offer moderate alterations for free for basically ever. (I don’t do this for a living)
My point is that you’ll almost always get an objectively higher-caliber project for the money by ordering from a professional outfit. They have more people, better tools, and have likely built dozens of not hundreds of whatever you’re ordering. What you get from a local guy, for less money, is focused passion on meeting your exact needs, and a better story.
In the end, though, as someone who happily wears my woodworking mask all the time now, building something yourself, even if it’s just felt glued to plywood on top of your dining room table, is worth doing, just to get a really good idea of what you might want to buy or commission later. Also, making sawdust is cool.
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I really rate rounded tables if a space can swing it–especially with a central support rather than legs. It’s a lot easier to cram extra chairs around and to make sure everyone can reach things. The table is the same one I grew up with so I have no idea how much it would cost new, but it’s got a single leaf in the middle that makes it a slightly larger oval and otherwise it’s a 4-ish person circle with a central support trunk. Leaves in general are, I think, much more useful than vaults. It’s nice to be able to shrink the table to purpose even from a games-only perspective.
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A style I really love, though I have nowhere to put one nor the budget for it, is the expanding circular table. Typically this has six segments and a hidden asterism in the middle.
One of my remaining 3d-print customers makes them, and every month or two I run off a set of oddly-shaped components for him…
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I can’t even imagine a house having a room wide enough for a round table. The British live in corridors!
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I’ve seen photos of them in expensive boats, so that you have a small table most of the time but when nobody needs to move around you can expand it for a large dinner.
I have a fairly large main room at home, but that’s where the 1m×2.7m table lives. If I replaced it with a large circular table, I’m not sure there would be any point in ever collapsing it, except for aesthetics.
I do still slightly lust after one, though.
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I believe those are called Fletcher tables aren’t they?
I think they’re amazing
In action if you haven’t got 8 minutes to watch your video.
Even closed I think thats bigger than any table I have…
@KIR2 @RogerBW I’m a bit lost, honestly. The trouble with round tables is that they don’t snug up against a wall perfectly, but they’re not necessarily bigger it’s just about how the room is shaped and how you’ve laid out other furniture. My round table is a meter with a leaf that takes it up to 1x1.4–but I’ve been in places with much smaller ones. In it’s current place it takes up a pretty large corner of the apartment and is only expandable if I shove the couch out of the way for an event, but it was a free table.
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Honestly, I think circular tables are symbols of luxury and status – in that they are not the most space efficient option for any given space or table size.
It’s just like my theory about why people put carpet in their dining rooms.
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That’s wild to me. It’s a shape. It has pros and cons. It’s not less “efficient.” As mentioned, it’s a lot easier to crowd more people around a round table in the same amount of space. Certainly for gaming purposes I tend to find more dead space in rectangles than in squares or circles and squares match up to circles only with 4 or fewer players.
Multiple people in the thread have mentioned houses with multiple rooms, so I can’t much see what’s so luxurious about a rounded table that fits in a two-room apartment. It’s less efficient if you’ve shoved it up against a wall and aren’t using a whole side of your rectangle or square anyway. Otherwise its efficiency depends intimately on the layout of the other furniture.
Fair point. And I agree, round tables have advantages when trying to get many people seated equitably around a single table.
In general, however, as most people have houses with straight walls, only those who are placing a table in a large open area are likely to benefit from the advantages of round tables. And, seemingly, having open areas in your home for that is a luxury that not everyone has.
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