Tim Sleigh of Unreal Estates
sent us a selection of his terrain tiles. These are designed for use
with 15mm figures, and come in a useful selection of types: marsh,
plantation, field, vineyard to name a few, as well as road and
coastline. The tiles are 400mm square, with the road 2mx50mm and the
coast 2mx140mm. All are printed with an aerial view of the terrain in
bold but not overpowering colour on heavy canvas, and can be easily cut
to size/shape with scissors.
Tim
says they are designed to give you 'area' terrain without scenery
models getting in the way of moving figures about, and will prove a
boon to anyone who has had to adapt their deployment to fit the nicely
sculpted terrain rather than where you would actually like your troops
to go. They also make a relatively inexpensive way of filling the
table with terrain, and can be stored and transported with ease. It's
ideal stuff for the gamer on the move, with limited storage space or
who wants to minimise set-up and pack-up times.
To
my mind, this is just half the story. One of the problems with area
terrain can be the way it moves about. Have you encountered the wood
that seems to creep forward with your opponent's advancing troops?
Fine if gaming the climactic scenes from 'MacBeth', otherwise deeply
annoying. Using a tile allows you to define a wooded area and then
deploy and move with ease, moving tree models (for example) around
without having to worry about where the edge of the terrain has gone.
The idea of the terrain mat is not new, but I've lost count of the
number of bits of cloth I've tried using only to discard because they
always look like bits of cloth rather than terain. These tiles get
around this by giving you something that looks like it should be
there. The forest tiles work particularly well for this, and when
combined with tree models the printed aerial view on the tile gives a
nice impression of undergrowth.
The
tiles also allow you to define an open area within a largely wooded
landscape, such as Western theatre battles from the American Civil
War. Using the field tile defines the open area clearly and in an
aesthetically pleasing manner, allowing you to scatter your tree models
across the rest of the table in whatever manner takes your fancy.
The
photos illustrate these two uses. The tiles were simply cut to shape
and laid out with a quick backfold to help them lie flat. (Tim
suggests a warm to hot iron applied to the unprinted side should they
curl up.) The river is simply the coast strip cut in half and butted
together.
All
in all, I liked the tiles a lot. They give a pleasing look to the
table and provide well defined area terrain and a flexible road system
that doesn't stand proud of the table. The printing and the cloth are
both robust and look like they will stand years of use. I certainly
look forward to them doing stalwart service on my table for a long time
to come.
The mats cost AUD$35.00 each (around £17.00) the roads are AUD$15 (£7.00) and the coastline is AUD$25.00 (12.00).
You can contact Tim for details here:
and you can download a small pdf catalogue of the range here:
Printed Scenery from Unreal Estates
Market Stalls from Black Cat Bases
Two of the three stalls pictured here with a couple of Britannia 28mm Somali civilians.
I received these new market stalls in place of the old versions because Ben at Black Cat said he thought they'd be better for what I needed. How right he was.
The
set contains three identical resin stalls with roofs and three
different metal trays of goods. There are also several metal castings
of extra sacks, pots and baskets included.
When
they're assembled the stalls measure 60mm across the front, 50mm high
and 25mm deep. I have based mine on 100m x 50mm bases to allow room for
the extra items that are placed around them.
The stalls themselves are made from the white resin that Black cat
use. It holds detail well and is easy to cut and sand. It glues with
regular super glue like other resin. I've never personally had to wash
black cat resin items to remove release agent before painting but this
is usuallly a good idea to avoid problems later.
Both
ends
of each stall had a sheet of resin linking the upright posts that
I decided to remove; you can leave it in place, it's cloth textured
like the front and top, but I wanted open sides. This was achieved in a
couple of minutes with a razor
saw and a file and most of the metal pieces needed mold lugs removing
with a knife. There were no bubbles or gaps that needed fillling.
It
took me a day to paint everything. I glued the metal trays to the
stalls before painting but left the roofs off until the end. All the
little pieces were glued to temporary painting bases to make handling
them easier.
I
should mention here that I'm not entirely sure which pieces of the
extra kit that I've used actually come with the stalls. The big
spherical pots are separate items which I ordered (also from Black Cat Bases)
and everything else except the other two big pots, the terracotta ones,
seems to match the stall goods in style and content. However, Ben has a
habit of putting extra bits in my orders, so some of the smaller pots
might not be included in the basic market stalls pack.
Everything
got a basic quick paint job because I like my background scenery to
stay in the background, I kept details and patterning to a minimum.
Originally I painted the stalls' cloth covers with stripes but this
made them look too busy so I reverted to plain white. There is a very
nice fine woven texture to the cloth that would reward a decent paint
job if you felt you had the time. In fact, the overall detail on the
castings is excellent.
The
trays of goods gave me cause for concern originally. The containers and
plates are very close together which makes getting a brush in between
them very difficult and there is a wide variety of different goods on
sale that could easily suck up all your available painting time.
I
got around this problem by cheating. I painted everything dark brown
and then drybrushed up through several (four in fact) lighter browns
and tans to end with a bleached bone/cream highlight. This picked out
the wood grain on the base board and brought out the detail on the
trade goods making everything look good and 3D.
I then went over the fruit, leaves and grains with various translucent colours; red, orange, yellow and a couple of Games Workshop
greens which allowed the underpainted shading and highlighting to show
through. A couple of the plates of leaves got a dark green ink wash
too. There are some rifles and metal items on one stall that were
touched in with Boltgun metal before getting a chestnut ink wash. This
whole process took about five minutes per stall.
Once
everything was dry I arranged the small items around the stalls and
based everything in my normal way with Basetex. The finished stalls are
strong, sturdy and surprisingly heavy.
I've left the price until last because, as with many Black Cat items, it's remarkably low for the amount of stuff you get. The three market stalls and accessories cost just £15.00 and that gets them an extra point or two on the scoreboard.
Market Stall set: Three stalls and trade goods £15.00
A Load of Old Rubbish
On the left are two bases of wheelie bins, a dustbin and a stack of black bin bags from Black Cat Bases and on the right is a big bin and an accompanying pile of rubbish from Ainsty Castings which are now owned by Old Crow. The BTD Cyberman is there to ambush scavengers or to give an idea of scale, whichever you prefer. I was given the Black Cat items at Colours 2006 by Ben Parker who made them and owns Black Cat Bases so
that I could paint them up and see what I thought. The Ainsty items had
been lying around for some time and it seemed natural to paint
everything at once and compare the results.
Both companies make
their scenery items in resin; it's usual to wash resin in warm soapy
water before you begin painting to remove any grease from the casting
process, I didn't bother because I'm lazy and there was no release
agent on any of the pieces anyway. I mounted everything either
singularly or in groups on some 60mm round bases and got to work.
Everything was quick to paint, after a black undercoat the bins were
given a coat of Foundry 26A Forest Green and then washed with GW Chestnut Ink
to dirty them down. The ink was dabbed off with a textured tissue as it
was applied to give a stippled effect rather than an overall brown
sheen. The bin bags and the rest of the rubbish bits were drybrushed
with Foundry Charcoal Black 34B and 34C
and then a Chestnut Ink wash and some Flesh, Ochre and Canvas colours
were applied to the rubbish to bring up the textures. The dustbin was
painted GW Mithril Silver and then given an wash with GW Armour Wash ink to make it a bit grubby. The bases were finished off with Dried Earth Basetex, scatter and static grass (there's a step-by-step guide to this in my FIW section). Once the Basetex was dry, everything was matt varnished and finally the bin bags were painted with gloss varnish to give them a polythene shine.
There's
not much to choose between the two company's products, both are very
good. There are a few air bubbles in the Black Cat pieces as opposed to
none in the Ainsty ones but none of them were serious. None of the
pieces required any cleaning up prior to painting. I like the
variety offered by the Black Cat pack, I will be buying several to
amass a number of dustbins for my city. I'm sure I'll be able to order
them separately too, Ben is very good at things like that. Each of the
different items is a decent size and could be based individually
without becoming fiddly if you prefer such things. The price is very
good too. The Ainsty set is just beautifully sculpted as is normal
for their range. The integral resin bases allows the two components to
be left unbased if you'd prefer and gives a more natural look to the
scenery. Personally I always base things to protect the underside so
this isn't a concern. My recommendation is that you buy both sets.
Ainsty Pack: 5932 Overflowing Dumpster and Rubbish (2 models in pack) £4.25
Black Cat Bases: Three bins and a stack of bin bags (5 models in pack) £2.00