Battlescale - an unashamedly enthusiastic overview

I've made no bones about the fact that if there's one part of the wargaming hobby that I do not enjoy it is scenery and terrain. 

I freely admit that I lack the skills to scratch build my own pieces - and indeed I have no inclination or desire to learn these skills - so what is a wargamer like me to do?

Of course, for 28mm there are plenty of MDF options that provide a cost effective solution for the sceneryphobe... but what about scenery to go with smaller metal peeps? 

My favoured size for non-skirmish gaming is 10mm thanks to the large and varied ranges at places like Pendraken coupled with the ease of storage for forces.  But unless we want to wage war on Planet Bowling Ball we still have that scenery problem don't we?

Well, no... thanks to Battlescale there is a superlative option for 10mm (and 6mm, and 3mm etc.) buildings and scenics.  I first found them when I was looking for some suitable buildings for my Tyrone's Rebellion project (see my previous post for more pics)

I'm sure you'll agree that even with my ham-fisted painting the detail and texture in these pieces makes them really look the part!

I was hooked.  I have since added Timber-Framed and Clapboard buildings for various projects - as well as some Adobe buildings for my Operation Compass games and various pieces for general WW2 games set across North and East Europe.

Battlescale are the first, and so far only, company where I have seen some scenery and then looked to find a project to suit! Let that sink in...as a sceneryphobe I'm not sure I can give higher praise than that! (It's an imagi-nations project making use of the Battlescale Mediterranean buildings by the way).

The buildings, hedges, walls and more that I have from Battlescale - regardless of what era or theatre they are for - are all wonderfully detailed and made with care (honestly, no resin product from anyone in any scale comes anywhere near - and I've had a fair few in my years of wargaming!). 

If you have a need for some scenery at smaller sizes please do consider Battlescale -  I strongly feel that as wargamers and hobbyists we need to offer our support and custom to those smaller companies putting out top-quality products for our wonderful shared hobby, and I can think of no higher quality than Battlescale.

NB I'm not on the payroll of Battlescale - I'm just a very very happy customer that felt like waxing lyrical and putting some positivity out there!

State of the ADHS Nation - December 2021

It has been a while hasn’t it?  Between new puppy, brain gremlins, work and more there just hasn’t been much spare mental capacity for hobby.  There’s been no painting for weeks – and barely any assembly/prep.  Just one of those things, but I’m trying to formulate ways to start making progress once more.

If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed I had a birthday at the end of October – and it was something of a milestone so I got spoilt!  First up my better half decided to go for a huge stack of Malifaux boxes – which I supplemented through some canny purchases (including some pre-owned bits) using some gifted birthday money.  This is what has joined the collection (some has also been ordered from various store clearouts of old M2 stock on Black Friday so I’m waiting for those):-

Arcanists

Colette Core Box

Waiting in the Wings

Toni Core Box

Troubleshooters

Union Steamfitters (awaited)

Slate Ridge

Bayou

The Brewmaster Core Box (awaited)

Zoraida Core Box

A Light in the Dark

Amphibious Assault

Gautreaux Bokors

See Ya Later

Silurids

Big Brain Brin (awaited)

Listen Up!

When Pigs Fly

Explorer’s Society (and Ten Thunders)

Lucas Core Box (awaited)

Neverborn

Dreamer Core Box

Teddy

Things That Go Bump

Pandora Core Box

Juvenile Delinquents

Outcasts

Hamelin Core Box

Brotherhood of the Rat

Tainted Filth

Leveticus Core Box

Desolation

Marlena Webster

Necropunks

Resurrectionists

Molly Core Box

The Lost

Reva Core Box

Draugr

Mourners

The Returned

Seamus Core Box

Bête Noire

Undertow

From Trials… I got this awesome 10mm scale ruined castle.  It’s going to be perfect for all sorts of settings in 10mm, but will be a great focal point for my Rampanthammer in particular:

It comes in two layers that easily and cleanly fit together – I’m very impressed!

My workplace had also done a collection for my birthday, and as some colleagues know my better half they tapped her up for ideas – and she suggested Pendraken gift vouchers… so now I’ve got the things to replace my ACW tribute project in 10mm (I need the space after all), I’ve finally taken the plunge on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth vs Ottoman Empire project I’ve had in my mind for ages and I even had enough left over for some Aztecs to do 10mm Tribal plus some 15mm market tables for Burning Sands (and Of Gods and Mortals etc etc).  Not bad at all!

I’ve ordered the rulebook for Gamma Wolves (thanks to Trials… helpfully suggesting mecha as a small side project when I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket over the autumn) – and I’ve got a selection of Reaper CAV mecha minis that I intend to use.  These seem great value – much cheaper than Battletech options so a good way to dip the toe into the mecha wargaming world.

The new hotness in wargaming right now seems to be The Silver Bayonet – well I didn’t want to miss the hype train (as it’s a fun setting hot-or-otherwise!) so I’ve got that rulebook coming too.  I also had enough cash spare to get some test minis from the 18mm AB range (via Eureka UK) – enough for a ragtag bunch of monster hunters and a few opponents to boot. Other enemies etc will be a future purchase for sure once I can get a feel for how AB scales up against MM, RPE, AA etc.

There’ll be more on both Gamma Wolves and The Silver Bayonet once I’ve got them and can digest and sort more concrete plans!

So whilst the ‘doing’ might still be proving tricky, the plotting, planning and acquisition side is certainly continuing! 😊

Pendraken Eastern Front Buildings

As part of my 10mm WW2 projects I picked up a selection of Pendraken's Eastern Front buildings.  I figured that these should work OK for a few of the projects to represent a modest village.

First the L-Shaped house:

I really like the woodpile you can see in the corner - it's a really nice little detail.

Next the house with lean-to:

And a couple of normal houses with different designs:

As you can see the bases include small shrubs (and another woodpile) which I really like.

Finally I got the burned out building set - this includes two flootplates (with ruined walls) and two chimney stacks:

I think these will work for all sorts of settings - anywhere buildings may have been burnt down or blasted I suppose!

The casts were all clean and have lots of nice little details - highly recommended range!

Stacks and Blasts

When I was placing an order with Pendraken for the 10mm Bolt Action stuff I opted to pick up some of the pieces of scatter terrain that I'd been eying for a while.

First the pack of Haystacks - these I thought would be useful for a range of settings and games in this scale:

I think this will suffice for detailing a field... guess I'll need to source one of those at some point!

I also went for a couple of packs of craters with Bolt Action firmly in mind.  I intend to paint most of them in my general basing scheme - with some in my desert basing scheme for use with the Operation Compass stuff.  I got a pack of each size craters Pendraken offer:

These are obviously very useful for marking out some difficult ground on the tabletop in a nicely thematic way.  

All the pieces were cleanly cast with next to no clean up required (except the usual resin wash of course!).  There's enough texture so that simple painting techniques should work well I think - which is always a bonus, especially for scenic items!

Forged in Battle - Greek Village and Ancient Temple

Having got the miniatures for 15mm Mortal Gods I knew I needed some game-specific scenery pieces.  I looked around and there weren't all that many suppliers of suitable buildings in the scale - with the exception of Forged in Battle.  I ended up taking the plunge and placed an order - starting with the Greek Village set which includes 6 buildings.

First a pair of not-quite-square footprint buildings - I've taken the photo of both so you can see how the different sides of the buildings look:

Also in the set are two of the same design building, but slightly different sizes:

Finally the pack includes a smaller building and an L-shaped building:

I also ordered the Ancient Temple:

This building comes as two big resin pieces (the roof is one piece and the rest is the other), 8 metal pillars and 2 metal urns.

To give you an idea of how they'll look in games I took a pic with one of my Athenians:

I might have to put the buildings on bases to raise them up a little...

ToeFunk Studios - the smallest tufts I've found!

My continued move towards smaller scales for, especially historic, wargaming led me to seek out tufts that didn't look like giant shrubs next to 10mm miniatures - well I chanced across a new to me (and pretty new overall from what I can see) company on eBay called ToeFunk Studios who make a range of teeny 2mm tufts! They looked very promising indeed so I took a punt and bought a couple of packs to try out - first the parched grass:

and the muted grass:

Each box contains a couple of sheets of tufts - 400 tufts in total!

But that's not all - they very kindly included some mini-sheets of a couple of other colours in their range by way of samples.  First the lush ones (sorry photo bit blurry but they are tiddly things after all!):

And also some scorched tufts:

I decided to try a couple of the lush ones on a project that will be shared here at some point (once the finishing touches are applied) - here's the ToeFunk Studios tufts on a 10mm Japanese WW2 miniature from Pendraken:

I'm really impressed with the tufts - I think they look absolutely perfect on the smaller scale miniatures, and would look very natural on larger scales too as some very fine detailing.  One tip - with larger tufts I find I generally just use my fingers to remove/place, but as these are so small I had best success using my hobby knife to transfer them from the sheet to the base - simple and no fuss!

I liked the packs I got so much I ordered some more from ToeFunk Studio's range - don't think there's a better way to prove how pleased I am with the tufts! 👍

These will be appearing on a lot of my projects going forward - I'm very happy to have found someone making tufts that are perfect for smaller scale gaming!

UPDATE

I've now received the other tufts and they are also excellent, here's the Lush ones:

These will help provide some vibrant 'jungle' to the bases of my Burma project!

I also got the Woodland tufts:

These are a little darker than the Lush ones and I think will be very versatile - I know they'll be making an appearance on some WW2 stuff I've got coming in!

Finally, and again for some WW2 stuff on order, I got the Harsh Frost tufts:

These would also be very useful for Frostgrave stuff of course - and anywhere else you want a frosted look!

Spiky Sunday

In order to really play up those stereotypes and tropes I knew I'd need a range of cacti for our Wild/Weird West set games.  Today I'll show you how those 3D printed ones I shared a while ago look all painted!  I've given them the same basing style as the fences I've shared previously (and that I'll use on miniatures for this setting) to ground them in the same world.  I've got a few of each of the sculpts which means I can patch multiple together to create hazardous patches of terrain as well as just use them singularly as decorative thematic elements.

Let's start with the iconic Saguaro Cactus:

Kind of a must for Wild West games, right?

Next a variety of Columnar-style Cacti, and a Prickly Pear type:

I opted for pink flowers on any of the sculpts that had them to give a little pop of colour.

Finally, a Barrell Cactus and a couple of sizes of succulents:

Overall I'm pretty happy with my little collection of model cacti! I think they'll add a nice amount of detail to what could otherwise be pretty dusty looking table set ups!

Water water

I've got a couple more completed scatter pieces from Frontline Wargaming.  First up the Water Tower - this was the worst kit I've ever assembled.  At least it is painted, and with some Water Effect, so I don't have to think about it much more:

I also have a trio of Water Troughs - similar kind of paint job to the Tower, and used some Vallejo Water Effect too:

These should all work well for the various Wild/Weird West games in the collection.

Garden ornament repaint

I've got a few whimsical garden ornaments from Poundland that I thought would work well as scatter for Burrows and Badgers - I think they are designed to look like little archways and the like for faerie-folk.  I picked one at random to have a go at repainting to see if I could improve it a little - first up, this is how it looked straight from Poundland:

Whilst it's useable as is, I wanted a different look so I decided to try my hand at some terracotta tiles, painting the ground to look like stone and repainting the wooden uprights (well, wonky uprights):

I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out - it's given me a workable recipe for terracotta tiles (Vallejo Terracotta, drybrush highlight Terracotta w/Vallejo Buff - this is my personal reminder! 😅)

I plan to repaint the other pieces as little palate cleansers in between more involved painting projects now that I know they turn out OK!

Wild West Waste Disposal

Some finished resin scatter terrain for various games set in Wild/Weird West style worlds.  First up, a pair of Frontline Outhouses:

I opted for different shades of wood - and made the metal rooves a bit rusty.  I added a couple of tufts to the base parts to help tie them into my 'Western' basing scheme.

From Terrain Freaks I've painted these resin coffins:

These were victims of a very gloss drying wash - I've salvaged them with a coat of Matt Varnish and they are at that stage where they'll do.  When arranged by the side of the Undertakers building I'm sure I'll be happier with them!

Makeshift Barricades Painted

I've painted the resin scenery pieces from Warlord's Anglo-Zulu range - first the makeshift barricade of boxes/sacks (or supplies to put alongside a general store):

This should help provide gunslingers with some much needed cover when the lead starts flying!

I've also got the wagon barricade done - it's a big old piece of resin!

It was actually more straight forward to paint than I first feared thought. I don't expect to use this piece all that often, mostly special scenarios I think, but it was too cool not to have in the collection!

The wash ended up a bit glossy on these two - not even the matt varnish trick got rid of it completely, which is a bit of a shame but I think they'll do for the tabletop.

Red Vectors Fences - painted

I got the Red Vectors Fences set for use in Dracula's America/Dead Man's Hand/Malifaux and now they are all painted up I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out:

I've added some Tajima1 tufts to the bases - a couple of different size/style golden ones and the desert shrub style too.  I'll use that same basing style on the miniatures for the three games where these'll see use.

Battlescale - Timber Framed, Clapboard, and Walls

No - it's not a wargamer rendition of the Three Little Pigs, it's the contents of my order from the absolutely brilliant Battlescale! 

So, I placed an order to get some scenery that would work for my projects I have coming - ECW and Fenian Raids.  As with my previous order for my Tudor project, these are all superbly cast, with pretty much no clean up (except the usual wash!) or fixing needed - if only all purveyors of resin miniatures/buildings were as good as Battlescale eh?

The Timber Framed range of 10mm buildings seemed a good choice for ECW, so I ordered a variety...

First, the rather impressive Merchants House - this is a tall three-storey building that'll provide a good centrepiece to the collection:

A particularly characterful piece is the Gatehouse:

Rather brilliant isn't it?

I got one each of the two two-storey houses from the range - as you can see one has a smaller annex, the other features the overhanging second floor that is quite often seen on real life buildings of this type:

I also got the single-storey building - which has a nice L-shape to it, providing even more variety:

Finally from the Timber Framed range I ordered a pair of Cottages:

(that shows the front and back - they are the same building)

I also bought the Village Shrine - I'll probably use this also for the Tudor project (well until Battlescale make a Celtic High Cross that is.... I'm secretly hoping if I mention it enough here and on Twitter it'll magically make it a reality one day 😆)

I then turned my attention to the Fenian Raids project... I figured Clapboard was the way to go for this one.  First up, the Clapboard House:

It's a good size too - something to help give a focal point in a game as an objective perhaps.

I also ordered the Clapboard House and Carriage Shed for some variety:

I particularly like the small entry to the basement you can see on this side!

Finally I bought a pair of Tiled Timber Cottages which seemed to fit well enough with the Clapboard look.  I'm not sure why I buy two each of the smaller buildings (see above and the pair of Crofts for the Tudors...)...

(again that's back and front - they are two of the same building)

Finally on this order I opted for the rural wall set... this represents absolutely incredible value for money.  It's a twenty piece set, with corner pieces, straight lengths, a couple with gates and a couple of breached sections.  I cannot express how good the value is... seriously, go order this (and/or the equivalent hedge set) straight away before Battlescale realise it's mispriced or something!

Anyway, here's a couple of pics showing the different pieces in the set:

I feel I have to add here that I am in no way affiliated with Battlescale - I'm just a very happy (and impressed) customer!  The ranges they have will certainly help me continue my forays into 10mm (and 6mm) gaming! Very, very highly recommend their products (and service) to all.