Lead Legionaries: Moss Mats -- A Replacement for My Strene Area Terrain Pieces?

Saturday, February 14, 2026

Moss Mats -- A Replacement for My Strene Area Terrain Pieces?

My new area terrain pieces using 'Moss Mat' found at Michaels -- looks like jungle undergrowth!

While scouring the aisles of Michaels craft store, I came upon something interesting to me. It is called a "Moss Mat" and comes in a number of different sizes. The one I bought was 16"x18" and had an adhesive backing. For all the world, it looks like shredded pieces of lichen or moss that has been tamped down into a relatively flat surface. I thought it might make an interesting material for pieces of area terrain, especially for jungle or woods. I have been using my same flocked pieces of styrene for decades, now, placing model trees or scatter atop them. Would this look better and more 3-Dimensional?

The package caught my eye while wandering the store's aisles -- I like the sticky back, too!

I thought so -- at least for my Vietnam games. I bought one pack, though I briefly considered purchasing the 18"x48" roll instead. The roll gives you three times the surface area at only double the price (but without the adhesive backing). Since this was an experiment, I went with the spending less money! The moss mat was folded into quarters inside its plastic bag. I unfolded it and tried to flatten the creases with heavy books. The creases seemed to stay, though. So, I decided to cut it into four pieces, leaving the creases out. This wasted only about a 2" strip of material horizontally and vertically. The next step was to cut four rounded rectangles of MDF material, roughly about 7"x8" (slightly smaller than my four quarters). Honestly, cutting the MDF was the hardest part! I either need to use thinner MDF or find a better way to cut it than my carpet/utility knife.

Underside of the moss mat -- you can see the material is dense & thick -- there are no holes or gaps

Once the shapes were cut, I flipped over each square of moss mat and peeled off its back. I centered the piece of MDF on it and pressed it down. After doing this for all four pieces, I used a good pair of scissors to trim the material so that only about a 1/2" was overlapping the MDF. I figured that way I wouldn't have to paint the side edges of the MDF material. You wouldn't see them on the tabletop. The flexible moss mat fabric would likely hang down a bit to cover up those edges, which honestly, were brown anyway.

I affixed the mat to four MDF pieces that are roughly a rounded 7"x9" in size

As I was working with it, I encountered the number one problem I figured that I might run into with this material. It sheds. Significantly. So, I would need to find a way to fix the material into place so that I don't leave a Hansel and Gretel trail of tiny pieces of moss/lichen behind me after every game I run. I also don't want the material to fray and fall apart, though it does seem that the adhesive backing is fixed to the mat very well and gives it strength. There's definitely no "daylight" showing through! So, there's enough of the moss adhering together and to the backing that it should never become patchy and ragged...at least I hope!

Close up of the surface of one of the pieces -- I think it really looks like tangled, jungle undergrowth

Step One to fixing the moss material together so that it doesn't shed was to give it a heavy spray of the acrylic matte can that I normally use on my miniatures. After drying, I was curious if this in itself would be enough to keep the moss from shedding. I decided that it probably wouldn't, so dug out a spray bottle filled with a mixture of acrylic matte medium and water. This is what I use when I create battle mats using ordinary felt and Woodland Scenics flocking. It typically does a pretty good job sealing flock in, so I figured that I would give it a try, too. From this point on, it will be testing out the pieces in games to see how much they shed. If they require more spraying, so be it.

Some of my 28mm Viet Cong prowling through my jungle scatter placed atop my new area pieces

I do like the way they look on the tabletop. It definitely gives it more of a thick undergrowth look compared to my venerable styrene with its irregular patches of earth brown and green grass flocking. Look for me to buy more ("Shocker!", I know...) and use them to be used in a game soon!