I backed a recent Kickstarter by Loke Battle Mats for the Dungeon Reignited map books. I'm genuinely not sure what makes the dungeons reignited, nor why they needed reigniting. All I knew was that I'd purchased a Loke Battle Mat book in my local game store and have been so happy with it that I wanted more maps. That's exactly what the new books provide, and this is my review of Dungeon Reignited volumes 1 and 2.
Loke Battle Mats are spiral-bound books full of illustrated maps you can use in your tabletop roleplaying games. Because they're in spiral binding, they lay flat on the table, allowing you to open a book to any map and end up with a 2page sized map. The book I bought in my local game shop was A4 sized (or thereabouts), but Dungeon Reignited is 12 inches by 12 inches. Is that too big? Well, it's too big for my backpack, but boy is it nice to play on.
As Loke Battle Mats diligently point out, you can of course place 2 map books side by side to end up with a map that's twice the size.
In fact, Dungeon Reignited comes in 2 volumes to capitalise on this feature. In previous battle map books, you could obviously combine maps by placing them next to one another (that's just a feature of physical grid paper), but there was no guarantee of any kind of cohesion. You open one book to a dungeon interiour, and then open another book to, say, a castle interiour. They're similar, and you can pretend like it's a continuous space, but a pedant might point out that actually the tiles are definitely a different shade here, and doesn't that wall end rather abruptly there? Dungeon Reignited solves this with its 2-volume structure.
Dungeon Reignited volumes 1 and 2 each consists of the same locations, but each one has a different section of it. In other words, page 1 and 2 of Volume 1 is a cavernous ruined stronghold, with ramshackle bridges across decaying outcroppings. Likewise, page 1 and 2 of Volume 2 features a cavernous ruined stronghold, but an entirely unique section of that location. You can use one or the other, or you can lay both books side by side and get a 24-inch bt 24-inch mega map. It's a simple trick, but that doesn't make it any less cool.
Location, location, location
Obviously a book of maps is all about locations. That's why you buy Loke Battle Maps over blank grid paper. It's also the thing that can't possibly satisfy everyone. The title of the book says it all: These are dungeon maps. It's not a book of grasslands or oceans or mountain passes (otherwise the title would probably be "The Great Outdoors Reignited.")
Even with the limited scope of locations, Loke Battle Mats cannot provide literally every possible dungeon interiour. But to be honest, they can get surprisingly close. Dungeon Reignited includes caverns, stately conjuration chambers, barracks, sewers, temples, an empty expanse of generic tiles, a maze, a tomb, and more. Or at least that's how I classify the locations, but I could repurpose most of them as, for instance, parts of Strahd's castle, or sections of the Black Monastery, or whatever.
It's not everything I'll ever need, but there are 18 maps (or 36, if you count each volume as distinct, which they are) plus 1 blank slate, so it's a lot to work with.
Modding the map
They really fun thing about Loke Battle Mats is that the books include cut-out sections you can lay over any map for a quick customisation. I did this for a game I ran at a convention, and it enabled me to stay agile in my dungeon design even though the dungeon appeared to be already laid out. After player characters open a door to a room, you can slap down a surprise trap, or some furniture, or whatever. The variety of add-ons isn't as good in these books as my other Loke book, which has a staircase and a treasure hoard, but of course the consistent artwork and standard grid size means you can use components from one book with any other book.
Probably not for travel
At 12 inches by 12 inches, these books probably aren't fitting into your backpack. These aren't the books you're going to take to a game conference. These are books you're probably going to store on your gaming shelf, and use when you have a need for an unforeseen dungeon. It's the most efficient and durable method of storing 2d terrain I know of, so I'm happy with that.
Loke Battle Mats
I valure consistency, and so far every product I've gotten from Loke Battle Mats has been pragmatic, durable, and useful. In my constant effort to reimplement HeroQuest, I recently laid out one of the dungeon maps in Volume 1 and played a custom variant of Battle in Balin's Tomb. It was a cimple Lord of the Rings-themed dungeon crawl, with goblins and a cave troll wandering the halls or springing from nehind closed doors, and it was exactly the *Quest experience I was looking for. The beautiful thing was that I was able to play it with miniatures I already owned, specialty dice I already owned, and maps I could use with any other game. This is the kind of tabletop gaming synergy I love. It's simple, it could be done with any grid papaer and handful of miniatures, but playing with nice commodity (to me, at least_ components felt great. I look forward to many future dungeon crawls, not just with the Fellowship, but also with Cursed City rules, and who knows what else.
In short, a Loke Battle Mats book is a sound investment, If you play tabletop games, you're going to find a use for them.