I received my pack of six Dragon Mats in the mail Saturday, and I am duly impressed with both the mats and with Dragon Scale Counters (DSC) itself.
Excellent Customer Service
First, a word about DSC as a company. There was a SNAFU with my order. DSC couldn't process my credit card purchase for the Dragon Mats because DSC does not handle AmEx. Within 24 hours of placing the order, I received a very polite and professional email from Ms. Price of DSC. She explained the SNAFU, asked for my contact information, and promised to call me about getting the order processed.
Lo and behold! Ms. Price did exactly as she said she would. A brief and pleasant phone conversation had my order processed, and Ms. Price even included two free DSC monster counters for my "trouble." The order arrived FedEx within a few days after the phoncon. I also received two follow-up emails from DSC to keep me abreast of the situation with the order.
That, readers, is what I call customer service, and I give DSC much applause for the prompt, courteous, and professional way in which the entire situation was handled.
The Dragon Mats Themselves
I make extensive use of battlemats and miniatures in my twice-monthly D&D game. Unfortunately, all I have to work with is an old, stained Chessex hex mat. It is large enough, but unwieldly and the hexes are a tad too small for my tastes.
The Dragon Mats, in contrast, are 8 inches x 10 inches rectangles of durable plastic, laminated on one side so that wet-erase markers can be used on them over and over again. The laminated side is marked off with straight, light blue lines forming a grid of 1 inch squares. Each grid is 7 x 9 full squares with a border all around of half-inch squares (except for the corners, of course). The separate mats can be laid side by side so that the half-inch border squares turn become 1 inch squares.
When I placed the order, I was a bit worried that the half squares would not line up from mat to mat, thus limiting the mats' useability for mapping larger areas. Fortunately, this worry proved baseless. All six mats can be arranged so as to form a single large mat, and the grid lines match up nicely no matter what the arrangement.
Since the mats are printed on durable plastic, they should hold up quite well to any normal game table wear and tear, including drops of French onion dip, splotches of ketchup, et cetera. This is a definite plus for anyone with an over-crowded gaming table. I can't imagine how one of the mats would get damaged barring deliberate malice or gross negligence.
The mats also come in a nice ziplock baggie for easy storage. All six stacked are about a quarter-inch thick, making them easy to carry in a book bag or a folder. Since they are small and lightweight, predrawing key rooms for my next game session will be a snap. This will enable me to pull out the fight-settings when they are needed without having to delay the game while I draw, reveal too much ahead of time, or otherwise tip off the players that Something Bad is about to happen.
My Only Wish
If I could make changes to the mats (and these are honestly the only things I would change), it would be this: Increase the size of the mats to 9 inches by 12 inches and increase the size of the grid squares to 1.5 inches. I know that the D&D default is 1 inch table top equals 5 feet game scale, but the larger squares would help keep my sometimes over-complicated battles a little bit more organized.
Final Words
If use you battlemats and miniatures for your games, buy DSC's Dragon Mats. For $10 U.S. plus S&H, you get a quality product from a company that is proactive, friendly, and professional when dealing with its customers. I rate the mats themselves as a 4/5, but DSC is such a class act that they deserve a 5/5 from me.
