Mounted or SK style boards : what do you think is the better?

Which type of board do you prefer?

  • Mounted, SK style is a shame

    Votes: 10 15.6%
  • SK style

    Votes: 49 76.6%
  • No preference

    Votes: 5 7.8%

  • Total voters
    64

Robin Reeve

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Hi all,
Having had a heated online debate with a couple newbies who consider that the switch to the SK style, lighter boards compared with the mounted ones, was a bad idea, I am interested to know what you think of the question.
I would add that the criticism both considered that the lighter boards are less stable than the older ones and that MMP is ruthlessly milking their customers with excessively high prices.
Criticisms that I don't agree with.

Now, please answer the question as if we had the choice of the board format for all published boards (not in relation with the fact that past board 52, no new board exists mounted).
 
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klasmalmstrom

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IIRC, continuing with the older mounted board would have driven up the cost way too much, so I don't think it was a realistic option - I think someone from MMP stated this.

I don't mind the SK-style thinner-mounted boards, but the old actual map illustrations are - IMO - superior to the SK-style up to board 52.
 

Robin Reeve

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I also seem to recall that the original decision was based on an augmentation of costs for the mounted boards.
The latter can be considered as aesthecally better, as they were painted - with the nice touch of being hand made.
With the drawback - for me at least - that the colours were not harmonized.
I would guess that, as the boards would have had to be remade to be printable with new, computerized, means, they would have been redrawn in a quite comparable way to the present SK boards.
I note that the new Deluxe boards have kept a look of being painted.
 

Steve H

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I played with the mounted boards for decades dating back to SL. I was a long time converting to the new SK boards, but they mate together much better than the old mounted boards. The is no "No man's land gap" between the SK boards as the artwork goes to the edge, as opposed to the gap left between two mou red boards. Not to mention the wild artwork colours that happened with the old mounted boards. Remember pink and grey hills? WTF?
 

von Marwitz

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Principally, I preferred the mounted boards.

Criticism of the mounted boards was that they wouldn't butt together precisely (which was true for many of the old boards), they would be too heavy (no factor for me), and they would be more expensive - more precisely among the most expensive parts of a whole core module (as if we had really cared about the price...).

I am convinced, that technology has moved on since the old days of SL and the advent of ASL. That said, no one can tell me that it would not have been possible to produce mounted boards that precisely fit together just as the SK-boards do. Heat of Battle showed this by their 'High Ground' mounted boards for example. Weight - well... You pack your car full of kit to drive to a tournament. I don't give a sh** if I have to pack in 5kg or 25kg of maps. [shrug]. As for the price the mounted boards were solidly made and value-equimpent. Unless you spill drink across them, I think a mounted board would outlast two SK-style boards. After all, we did use the old mouted boards for decades, didn't we? As for the higher price for better kit - I would have paid it. The old BV1 boxes were superior to the current standard and I preferred those, too.

SK-style boards - being cheaper - have made the proliferation of countless new boards possible. When mounted boards were relatively scarce, this was one of the main attractions of SK-style boards: More terrain. Nowadays, there's 100+ SK-style maps around (including the Fort-boards) and many see hardly any use beyond the publication they came with. Today, new boards do not have the attatraction any more than they used to have. I had preferred 70 high quality/precision mounted boards to 100+ of the SK-style.

Better artwork is not a question of SK-style or mounted boards. In 1985, an SK-style artwork would not have looked any better than on the mounted variant. So this is a non-argument against mounted boards.

With regard to the Deluxe boards:
Here I can clearly say that I prefer the mounted versions. The new ones fold twice which will make it a PITA to have them rest flat on the table unless you weigh them down by plexiglass (which I hate for the glare and imprecise LOS).

Whatever. This ship has sailed. There will never be a return to mounted maps be it for the sole reason that no one will produce the backlock of boards 53 til recent.


von Marwitz
 

62nd Army

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I played with the mounted boards for decades dating back to SL. I was a long time converting to the new SK boards, but they mate together much better than the old mounted boards. The is no "No man's land gap" between the SK boards as the artwork goes to the edge, as opposed to the gap left between two mou red boards. Not to mention the wild artwork colours that happened with the old mounted boards. Remember pink and grey hills? WTF?

What Steve said :)
 

JRKrejsa

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Kinda moot. I think the SK style is here to stay, due to the many reasons outlined above.

Personally, I did not like the change to begin with. But now I have far more maps to play on. So far, the have held up well. I do not have any SK boards with rub marks. Not so with my mounted boards.
 

bprobst

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I would add that the criticism both considered that the lighter boards are less stable than the older ones
If they mean that the lighter boards, being lighter, are more prone to sliding on the desktop (with possibly catastrophic consequences), then that is correct. However, to counter that argument, there are several different methods, not at all difficult to procure and not at all expensive, that can be used to prevent this from happening. Also, it could still happen anyway with the mounted boards (and the methods to prevent that are more difficult) -- the risk of slippage is inherent in the geoboard concept.

and that MMP is ruthlessly milking their customers with excessively high prices.
That seems to be just paranoid nonsense, unless they have some specific proof that they'd care to share? I mean, the modules are expensive etc. etc., but I mean specific proof that it's the ASLSK boards that have forced prices to skyrocket since the days of TAHGC -- and not, for instance, the various combinations of 20 years of inflation, general dramatic increases in prices for paper products, and the fact that TAHGC owned their own printing company and were consequently able to enjoy considerable cost-savings in terms of production.
 

asloser

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I went with laminated unmounted maps even before ASLSK was released. When the whole bundle became available for SK style I adapted my lamination method to that format and I have never looked back.

I have cut the boards in half prior to lamination and that allows me to store them in A4 sized plastic page protectors. . The same method works for DASL boards, the size is A3 in this case. I just tape them down to the table or use a Plexiglass, usually I just tape the required setup together but if there are numerous overlays the plexi gives a better playing experience.

That also allows me to use my own lamination equipment, as the A4 and A3 sizes are easy to do on your own. Each board is trimmed to get rid of the extra laminate


So I have given up with mounted boards 20 years ago. Actually I use the same box to store my maps I used for my mounted 47 maps back in year 2000 or so - now days you can fit all official, all BFP and LFT maps into the same box. That must be almost the triple amount of boards.
 
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Robin Reeve

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That seems to be just paranoid nonsense, unless they have some specific proof that they'd care to share?
They have none.
They see MMP as a rich, powerful company because they bought the rights from Hasbro and added the Gamers.
I tried to explain that without Curt Schilling, they wouldn't have the means to do that, that they were a small company, etc.
That most of the team work besides their employment, that storage has a cost which doesn't allow to keep everything available, that MMP produced their games in the USA, etc.
All those facts were brushed aside as a show of miserability.
Those newbies went on stating that MMP voluntarily created a shortage situation to make customers spend excessive prices for the reprints.
They said that it was beyond them that players accepted to be milked that way...
I explained that Curt Schilling saved the game, a fact which they refused to believe.

So I switched to sarcastic mode, answering that most ASL players were indeed beyond understanding and were naive customers in the hands of a malevolent company.
I also suggested that they contacted MMP to submit them their brilliant solutions.
Which infuriated those guys, of course.

It has been quite a time since I have read newbies trying to explain that MMP have a bad business model.
I hardly ever saw anybody state that they had bad intentions, by fixing excessive prices to make heaps of money from a crowd of naive customers.
I shouldn't be emotional about that, but I found rather disgusting that series of quasi slandering statements from people who hardly know anything of MMP's situation and who don't even want to face facts.
I stopped debating with them.
I was ready to help them learn the game - I previously offered to do it via VASL - which I quite often do with newcomers. But now, I am stepping back and I am not looking for any interaction with them anymore.
Life is too short to burden it with such annoying people.
 

olli

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Since Board 52 was the last of the amounted boards there are so many scenarios that you cannot play on no. For tourneys the weight difference is significant, SK boards are lighter more compact and the edges match up so much better . Cost is also a main reason for the publishers and less work intensive to make. I have several sets of the old mounted boards unused for well over 15 years. In the early 2000’s I was at a tourney in Blackpool UK where I bought an I mounted set of maps, I quickly got them laminated and used these a lot till the SK sets came out . Far more for’s than against with the new SK type, I use clic frames for putting the maps in to game nowadays looks better on the table .
 

peterd1973

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They have none.
They see MMP as a rich, powerful company because they bought the rights from Hasbro and added the Gamers.
I tried to explain that without Curt Schilling, they wouldn't have the means to do that, that they were a small company, etc.
That most of the team work besides their employment, that storage has a cost which doesn't allow to keep everything available, that MMP produced their games in the USA, etc.
All those facts were brushed aside as a show of miserability.
Those newbies went on stating that MMP voluntarily created a shortage situation to make customers spend excessive prices for the reprints.
They said that it was beyond them that players accepted to be milked that way...
I explained that Curt Schilling saved the game, a fact which they refused to believe.

So I switched to sarcastic mode, answering that most ASL players were indeed beyond understanding and were naive customers in the hands of a malevolent company.
I also suggested that they contacted MMP to submit them their brilliant solutions.
Which infuriated those guys, of course.

It has been quite a time since I have read newbies trying to explain that MMP have a bad business model.
I hardly ever saw anybody state that they had bad intentions, by fixing excessive prices to make heaps of money from a crowd of naive customers.
I shouldn't be emotional about that, but I found rather disgusting that series of quasi slandering statements from people who hardly know anything of MMP's situation and who don't even want to face facts.
I stopped debating with them.
I was ready to help them learn the game - I previously offered to do it via VASL - which I quite often do with newcomers. But now, I am stepping back and I am not looking for any interaction with them anymore.
Life is too short to burden it with such annoying people.
While most of what you are saying is true, if everything is out of stock, no profit can be made.

 

David Reinking

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Back in the day, I preferred the mounted versions of the boards-- mostly because that is what I knew from owning multiple AH products. However, Cortes has burned his boats and we cannot look back. The SK-style boards butt up to each other better and also deal better with overlays (IMO). Add in the weight factor (and how much space mounted boards take up, compared to SK-style boards) when attending tourneys, and SK-style wins hands-down (IMO).
 

Robin Reeve

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While most of what you are saying is true, if everything is out of stock, no profit can be made.

One can certainly debate about the delays between reprints.
But I don't see the beginning of the voluntary and ruthless creation of a shortage situation, with the objective to sell us overpriced boards and modules.
 

von Marwitz

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That seems to be just paranoid nonsense, unless they have some specific proof that they'd care to share? I mean, the modules are expensive etc. etc., but I mean specific proof that it's the ASLSK boards that have forced prices to skyrocket since the days of TAHGC -- and not, for instance, the various combinations of 20 years of inflation, general dramatic increases in prices for paper products, and the fact that TAHGC owned their own printing company and were consequently able to enjoy considerable cost-savings in terms of production.
Spot on!

I mean, let them try to play Warhammer table-top or any Games Workshop stuff over a longer period of time to get a sense of a 'ripoff'. ?

von Marwitz
 
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