Countryside is very helpful for above ground encounters. One cannot describe adequately the colors and depth that this product has. Absolutely the best I have seen so far in the Map Pack series. As for the title, there is little contryside other than locations of interest one would find in the country side. There is no hill or bend. There is no slightly forested path such as one saw in Lord of the Rings. There are however bridges and the like which a major encounter would surround itself. So, for those looking for a path ambush, you may have to go to another Game Mastery product. I will say the same complaint that everyone else has said. The "L" shaped ruin is the one you see in the preview above, but it is missing all that green that makes the above the square shape it appears as. That thing above has 4 pages put together, where the "L" shaped one has just three. Maybe I am missing something. Eer, nope. Just looked at the thing and there is no doublesided tile or anything like that.

Regardless of these quibbles, I am very pleased to own this product.

It would be cool if the rope bridge was a bit longer - maybe 50 feet or so. Other than that, I like these, they're nicer than boring tan battle mats. I swear, whenever I see the color beige I reach for a d20...

I put my map packs in a heavy duty ziplock bag, and that seems to work fine for storage. You might also find a plastic pencil case that would hold them and protect them a bit more.

I was thinking that you could lay some of these on top of the back side of a flip mat to get a larger playing area

First of all the art on these guys is just amazing; absolutely top notch.

I have two main problems with them:

First, they are too thin. Something like the WOTC Dungeon Tiles are much easier to handle and will probably hold up better over time. This can be overcome by mounting on foamcore, but that sort of defeats the purpose of buying pre-made tiles.

Second, the tiles are either free standing, or designed to link together in two or three pieces...they doesn't seem to have been any thought toward making the edges of various tiles match up to allow for different combinations of larger areas. You are pretty much stuck using the ones explicitly designed to go together; other tiles just won't match up correctly.

I could live with #1, but to me #2 is just too big a blow to the utility of this product. (**---)

These are great tiles. They are on medium cardstock, and the artwork is creative and easy to understand. The Ropebridge makes this set worth it alone!

I agree with the other reviews: the art on the maps is fantastic, and the tiles that fit together to form larger maps are a nice touch. I'm already plotting how to use start using these in my games.

I'd like to see future sets printed on the back with generic environment art (plain grass tiles on the backs of the Countryside set, for example), and packaging that could store the tiles, like the box for the Three Dragon Ante deck that has a flap with a locking tab, would make these sets just about perfect.