While the sheets are only one use, it could work well when players are going to revisit areas repeatedly and again let’s you have the locations prepped ahead of time ( saving a good bit of time at the table and letting the GM be a little more created and detailed by advance planning). I can vouch for the staining part; an overnight stay with the exact pens they recommend left marks on mine I actually never quite could get off. They sell black plastic tubes, about 3-5 inches in diameter, that come with a shoulder strap and can be adjusted (twist and pull, then twist back to lock in place) to varying lengths. In my experience, they'll accumulate some marker residue no matter what, but dry erase + damp wipe is your best path to a long life. PERFECT TO USE WITH A HUGE VARIETY OF GAMES - All battle grid mats are great for wargaming and popular fantasy roleplaying games such as Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer, Pathfinder, X Wing, and other tabletop and multiplayer miniatures games.

square grid hand-drawn on poster board underneath a sheet of plexiglass that can be drawn on with grease pencil and wet/dry erase markers to the preprinted maps sold by game companies. Traditionally these gaming mats were made in an off-white eggshell color, but after 42 years they decided to change things up! It’s definitely a solid option and I think it fits most of your preferences, except you have to draw twrrain yourself. I love my Chessex battlemats, but 1) the vinyl doesn't play well with dry-erase and 2) they're blank grids (squares on one side, hexes on the other, as Borbetomagnus noted) so you're constantly having to draw in terrain features, usually in a very abstract style. I generally don't draw anything until right before a fight, then erase it immediately after with a spray bottle and paper towels.They usually laid flat if they were not folded (never fold them as that creates a crease that never goes away). My pastry mat rolls up nicely and, as silicone, is intentionally a non-stick surface, so I'd expect wet-erase markers should work fine. It lets you have at least a couple ready and a spare when they hare off and you have to draw one up In a hurry . I figured I can start with the 26 * 23 1/2 inches of the standard Chessex battlemat, but advice is welcomed. Boxed items are listed as "code/code" where the first code represents the box, and the second code describes the contents.

It curls a little if left rolled for long periods of time, but we pin the corners with books and then it flattens.I can always be certain that the older one-sided Chessex hex mats I have will always lay flat when unrolled.

I've kicked around the idea of plexiglass for a while now, but there's the storage and transportability issue, so I've been looking into transparency film - like what is used for overhead projectors. I have Stabilo OH projector pens at present, but generally only use the black ones due to this problem.

portable: I think that this solution is a bit less encumbering than a dry-erase board, especially at the sizes I'm thinking: I want something I can carry with a backpack, if possible. You can draw on the polystyrene cover with dry-erase markers and wipe it down when you're done with your fingers or paper towels. When you see that one of the pens you have tends to set-in too fast, wipe it off sooner and/or just stop using it. I was thinking of either drawing them with permanent marker, or, if the material is plastic, etching the battlemats with a hot knife, perhaps only with a small cross at the corners of the squares like you see in the official printed mats of DnD.