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Sunday 4 January 2015

Hotz Felt Fields

I recently came across these Hotz Flocked Felt Fields, from the same people who produce the wargaming mats, of course. I was interested in getting some to break up the plain green of my wargaming table, especially now I am trying out an S&A Scenics felt wargaming mat.

They are made to order, and Hotz are based in Canada, so be prepared to wait 2 or 3 weeks for them to arrive. The website says they are posted out rolled, but mine arrived loosely folded. There was some light creasing, but a bit of gentle counter-folding was all that was needed to sort this out. There is an advice sheet sent with the product that tells you the best way to cure any problems with gentle ironing if you need to.

The mats are treated and flocked, and seem to be very durable - there was no shedding of flock evident during shipping or during my bit of counter-folding. I selected the '20-30mm' size of fields, and I got a standard set of 4 fields, each in a different colour. Sizes were roughly 35 x 27cm, 28 x 23cm, and 2 small fields each 14 x 11cm. They do lay nice and flat, and overall I am very pleased with them. They look fine as they are, breaking up the plain colour of my table. But of course combining them with trees and hedges or walls  would be great too. They would follow an uneven table up to a point, and could be used across simple, straight hill contours.

Pricing is very reasonable in my opinion - $16 for the mats and $8 postage.

The mats with 15mm German tanks and infantry, and some 30mm SYW infantry.
Close up of one of the fields.

I heartily endorse this product!

11 comments:

DeanM said...

I can attest to agreeing with you that Eric's products are top-notch. He's a great bloke too.

Steve J. said...

They look rather effective I must say.

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said...

From Canada actually, but they do look good. Time I bought some myself.

Neil said...

I've have one of their mats and love it.

Keith Flint said...

Canada eh? Thanks for the correction Ross.

Prufrock said...

They look good all right. Quite tempting, in fact.

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised you weren't deterred by the widespread complaints he has provoked (an example of which can be found in the link below).

I think I shall have to place a trial order, based on just this one post!

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=343365

Keith Flint said...

Perhaps I just got lucky. Hope everything goes well if you do order.

Eric Hotz said...

We just lowered the price of the Flocked Felt Fields from $16 each to $13 USD each. This is due to us being able to obtain the materials to make the product line at a much lower price. We have new suppliers -- one of our suppliers changed their franchise/brands and the other stopped making what we usually purchased. This forced us to look for other suppliers, but in the end, it actually helped quite a bit, at least for our Flocked Felt Field sets.

Unknown said...

My Mats haven't turned up - ordered them 5 weeks ago - Eric not yet responded to my emails. Come on Eric - - please let me know when I can expect the goods, as you have already taken the money!

Anonymous said...

I'm looking for any of these old Hotz Field mats if anyone is looking to part with them.

Michael Phineas
mphineas1@gmail.com