A couple weeks ago I won a brand new Star Wars Armada gaming mat in a radio contest put on by B.I.G. Unnamed Armada Podcast and ImperialStarShop. I feel like I owe those people some advertising, so here’s a review! I know that all parties involved in me getting this mat will read this, and I hope to provide an honest, but not brutally honest, review based on my opinions and experiences.
I’m not a gaming mat connoisseur, but I’ve used a couple in my life.
Here’s some pictures.
TL;DR: Buy this mat, it’s pretty great.
The first thing I notice is that this is a heavy mat. The box it comes in feels like the right weight, but it isn’t until you take the mat out that I noted that most of that weight is in the mat. It came well packaged in a perfectly sized box and with a thin protective plastic sheet around it.
Rolling it out, I sat it next to my Gale Force Nine vinyl mat. The GF9 mat is comparatively light, and has some scratches and feels like it may tear or crease at some point. The ImperialStarShop mat will very clearly do none of that. Another notable difference is that the vinyl “holds” it’s curl from being rolled up, where the mouse-pad material lies very flat. The ImperialStarShop one has a slight curl at the very end where the roll is tightest, but all of us are used to much worse than this.
I have a couple mouse pad mats for other games, and this one feels higher quality. The edges don’t just end, they are sewn down in a really nice finish. The additional weight has a bunch of benefits. It stands up on it’s own when rolled up — that photo against my kitchen island I expected it to slouch a bit, but it held itself up really good. The thickness feels like it gives the mat a sturdiness that some other mats don’t have.
The colours have some really strong pop to them in the brighter areas like the lens flare off the planet, or the nebula in the other corner. However, from a distance of “standing above it with it on my floor”, the middle star area looks somewhat barren and dark. It’s not until you get closer (maybe tabletop distance?) that the stars in the non-planet side appear brighter. That lens flare off the planet looks just as awesome in person as it does on the screen!
I really like that this mousepad mat is matte, rather than the glossy look of the GF9 vinyl mat.
While the mats weight brings a lot of benefits, it has one downside to me. I often take public transit to gaming events and the weight may be enough to decide not to bring it along. If you’re driving, maybe this isn’t as important. I also have a nice mat carry-bag (currently full of mats for games I don’t play anymore) that may be useful here.
Lastly, and nothing to do with the mat, but I feel like the ImperialStarShop website design and layout doesn’t showcase the quality you’re getting out of this company. Their website doesn’t look great, but the mat does. I’m not sure I would have bought this mat from them based on how the website looked. That’s me, I sometimes make superficial decisions.
Summary: Great mat, so stoked to have it and I look forward to playing more in-person Armada so I can show it off!!
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