For anyone interested, I was a guest on the “Minis Mayham” podcast this last Sunday.  Tune in to hear me ramble on at length with the occasional worthwhile insight into how I got into the gaming profession, my thoughts on rules and squad building, the ins and outs of building encounter packs and campaign packs here in the store, the highs and lows of being a freelancer, and lots more!

I finally have the chance to do something I’ve been wanting to pursue for quite some time: Printing my own custom battle maps. Initial test prints look exceptional, so we’ve started producing our first design and added it to the store’s inventory.

Ultimately, I want to produce new maps with some regularity — most likely once a month, drawing from my own Saga Edition campaign to create exciting adventure locales.  This not only allows me to show off to my players (”Look! Brand new full-color maps!”) but also gives me a chance to take the map for an extensive test drive during the game, hopefully allowing me to spot any unexpected tactical quirks that might need adjustment.

This is still in its earliest stages and we’re evaluating paper and ink costs as we go, but at least for the time being we’re making these new 24″ x 36″ single-sided maps available at an introductory price of just $4.99.

In addition, we will very shortly be providing a map-printing service: You send us a full-scale, full-color 24″ x 36″ image, and we’ll print it up for the same introductory price of $4.99.  In you have an oversize map you need printed, we can do larger prints — for example, a 36″ x 48″ map (twice as big as normal) would cost $9.99. (We can print maps of up to several feet in length, but no more than 36″ wide.)

We’re still working out the final details (hence the introductory price, as we still need to see it in action to calculate our actual overhead), but I’m confident that this service will remain far less expensive than any print-on-demand alternative.  I’ve never seen a custom 23″ x 35″ poster for anything less than $15 to $20, and even offset printing requires you to print hundreds or thousands of posters to get a price this low.
Here’s the complete item description for our first custom map:

CUSTOM MAPS: Deep Space (Starship Battles) - $4.99 Original map: GMSarli Games exclusive! This single-sided map is printed on high-quality heavyweight matte paper (210 g/m^2, 10.2 mil) measuring 24 x 36 inches. It shows a stellar grid compatible with the Starship Battles set and the starship combat rules in Saga Edition. It represents deep space, with the distant glow of the galaxy in the background (much like the Milky Way in the Earth’s sky). Unlike most battle maps, it uses 2-inch squares in its grid, making it the same scale as that used in the Saga Edition rulebook as well as that used in the miniatures game. In addition, it is compatible with a 1-inch grid as well because the center of each square has hash marks to show where the edges of each 1-inch square would be. (A close-up is provided in the product image here.) Because of this, you can play at whatever scale is most convenient for any given encounter.

No matter where you are on the political spectrum, if you’re into Star Wars, this has to bring a smile:

One of us! One of us!