Zuzzy 'Terra-Flex' System Review

It's easy to spend lots of money on time on great army, we spend a huge amount of time and money on our hobby. I personally like to allocate a fair amount of that time and money to my gaming board.

When I do get time to play a game of Warhammer 40k, I want it to be epic, scenic and great to look at. A friend of mine sent me a link a while back to www.zuzzy.com. I was blown away by what I saw. Here was a great product, an innovative, flexible, practical and durable way to create nice gaming table. I looked at a number of other products before I purchased the Zuzzy Mat. I'd made a city fight table myself, which turned out OK for a first attempt but the materials (I live in Norway so everything is pricy) were expensive. It was also time consuming and ended up being large and unwieldy.

For the sake of ease and familiarity I'll be comparing this to the Games Workshop Realm of Battle board. I went for the 'Ruined Land' 6x4 foot mat.

Here it is all painted up!, still a few bits to touch up.

1) LOOKS

This mat looks great!, even straight out of the box, unpainted and a dull grey. The detail struck me. There is SO much to this mat. Dried out swamps, broken trees, stones of all different shapes and sizes and about 4-5 different textures spread out across the map. I'm SUPER happy with the finished result. It looks great and when painted, the detail really pops! Here is a gaming table that will look fantastic with a fully painted army on it. No longer a drab single flat colour. Now a detailed, textured and characterful battlefield. Compared to the games workshop realm of battle this wins easily. The detail is evenly spread and crisp.

All in all a really nice, detailed and cool mat. Impressive - 5/5

2) PRACTICALITY / EASE OF USE

First of I washed the mat with some soapy water. This wasn't easy as this mat is a 6x4. I ended up washing it nicely and then having to rinse it off in the shower. The texture really foams the soap up.
The matt really smells when you first get it. (It's made from Latex) After washing though, it was fine.

A quick brown wash, followed by green, brown and grey on the various bits. A quick drybrush all over with a light ochre colour and voila!. The little rocks and broken trees were a bit of a pain to paint but worht the effort. The little details really make this mat pop. So it's worth spending the time to do it right.

All in all it gets high marks for being flexible (it be rolled up nice and small). It gets dragged down a little because, although it rolls up nicely, it's quite heavy. It was also quite a pain to get the strong smell away. - 4/5

3) PRICE

I live in Norway. Getting things here is expensive. The zuzzy sells for 53 dollars or 35 pounds sterling. But after normal shipping it ends up being around 70 quid, and that's if customs don't bone you. Either way, the Citadel Realm of battle costs a whopping 175 quid. The Zuzzy mat is well worth it. It's got more detail, is more durable, and is much cheaper. It also takes up less space.

As far as I can tell Zuzzy is a one man operation. Many have had trouble getting their mat. Delays in shipment, emails that aren't replied to etc. Either way I hope he gets better. Because this is a winning product. So much so that I'm contemplating taking a trip to the States and seeing if I can get licensing to make them in Europe.... They're that good!