A few weeks ago I had my Mantic Terrain Crate Kickstarter pledge arrive. I basically got the “one of everything” pledge, so it was interesting to go through all of the bits and pieces, and see what came out nicely, what was warped and fixable, what was warped to hell, and what I could just start working on and knock out quickly and painlessly. Of course, I ended up mixing the pieces together without regard for which set they came from, since my intent was completely to work out which ones I wanted to paint first.
Logs are pretty simple, but they work for what they are. Sure, you could do much nicer and more detailed logs with real wood, but these are nice enough and easy to paint. So they work for me.
Similarly, bales of hay and wooden crates are fine. These single crates are detailed on 5 sides rather than 6, so they’ll always have the “grate” side on the top. I’m fine with that, but it’s just worth noting. The hay bales on the other hand are detailed on all six sides.
The multi-crate stacks are pretty decent as well. They’re like a similar but larger version of the old resin ones that were sold by Grendel (and probably others) since the 1990’s. They’re pretty solid bits of scatter and can be used as background stuff in many genres of game or even as objective markers. I gave some of the individual boxes in the stack some (very) subtle differentiation with extra glazes of Flesh, Soft and Strong Tone, but wanted to keep them all pretty similar. Just enough variation so that the viewer doesn’t notice the variation while also adding enough small difference so that you don’t consciously notice that they all look exactly the same.
So while this might not be a super exciting post, and it’s certainly not a comprehensive review of the Terrain Crate stuff, but these pieces are the first that I’ve painted, and they’re all of solid quality – especially once painted. They’re not boutique resin-level quality, but for the price, they’re pretty nice. I’ll continue to offer my thoughts on the Terrain Crate stuff as I continue to work my way through them.
21 thoughts on “Mantic Terrain Crate – First bits of painted scatter.”
Yeah, brother, I don’t know how you do it. I haven’t updated Tales of the Lost Gamer for months, even though I have some WW2 battle report pics to post, plus a bunch of Kill Team stuff now. I guess it’s pure laziness on my part, but every time I think about setting up the lights and grabbing the camera, it’s like “Ugh, I have so much other crap that I could be doing now!” You constant updates are impressive, whether it’s simple terrain, or complex figures!
Thanks mate – when I’m not exhausted (mostly from work) the blog works well to keep my motivation to paint up. Trying to actively comment and read so many of other people’s blogs does take a lot of time, though. I’m going to have to find a solution to that!
I picked up the Dungeon Depths set last week. It looks like it will do very nicely for what I want. The Terrain Crate is a lot less fragile than resin, which means storage and transport are far easier.
Yep. Cheap and cheerful – and once the month is over (I keep stuff handy for the end of month shots) they can just be dumped into a tub and they should be right.
They look good to me. I particularly like the log piles and hay bales, since I can’t think of any other terrain lines off the top of my head that have something similar. On the other hand, I think basically every manufacturer who’s done scatter terrain has done some sort of variation on stacks of crates like that, since they’re a relatively easy sculpting job. These are good ones, but they don’t stand out as an unusual option like the other bits do.
I saw some hay bales from somewhere, but they were done in resin – so I’d much rather have these Mantic ones in cheap and cheerful PVC. If your eyes start to glaze over at seeing crates, you’ll love the next set of these things I’m working on – wooden barrels! 😀
Hate to mention this, but I think those are real crates you just photoshopped onto a different background! Much like you keep insisting that carnivorous plant that appears from time to time is really a model! I’m not fooled, no sir, not me, not one bit! 😉
As always, you’re way too kind, JNV. I’ll do some “vignette”-style photoshoots again sometime and we’ll see how they look in a more “natural” environment than that green background…
And everything not in the pic above remains to be painted. 😀
Some of it may or may not ever get done, particularly the more complex pieces that are also badly warped. Like anything else, it’s a triage/ease of painting/do I need it for a game? tradeoff situation, which is why easy to paint stuff like this always floats to the top of the queue by virtue of being super easy to do and easily fitting into a variety of games.
Great stuff. I acquired a handful of stuff from this set from a buddy who similarly pledged for the full kit. So I’ll be tackling my goodies very soon!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Yeah, brother, I don’t know how you do it. I haven’t updated Tales of the Lost Gamer for months, even though I have some WW2 battle report pics to post, plus a bunch of Kill Team stuff now. I guess it’s pure laziness on my part, but every time I think about setting up the lights and grabbing the camera, it’s like “Ugh, I have so much other crap that I could be doing now!” You constant updates are impressive, whether it’s simple terrain, or complex figures!
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Thanks mate – when I’m not exhausted (mostly from work) the blog works well to keep my motivation to paint up. Trying to actively comment and read so many of other people’s blogs does take a lot of time, though. I’m going to have to find a solution to that!
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From the photos they look very nice that’s for sure.
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Simple paint on them – but then that’s all that they need!
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Tidy job mate!
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Thanks Alex!
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Nice work.
I picked up the Dungeon Depths set last week. It looks like it will do very nicely for what I want. The Terrain Crate is a lot less fragile than resin, which means storage and transport are far easier.
That’s the biggest draw for me.
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Yep. Cheap and cheerful – and once the month is over (I keep stuff handy for the end of month shots) they can just be dumped into a tub and they should be right.
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Look pretty decent to me, though I imagine your excellent paintwork helps with that, I like the crate stacks especially.
Cheers Roger.
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Thanks Roger – my paintwork here is pretty simple. Just base coat, drybrush, wash and drybrush again for the most part.
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Very nice- useful stuff for the table top. You should get years of use out of them.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Yeah, I love bits of versatile scatter like this. They can be used in tons of games, genres and time periods.
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They look good to me. I particularly like the log piles and hay bales, since I can’t think of any other terrain lines off the top of my head that have something similar. On the other hand, I think basically every manufacturer who’s done scatter terrain has done some sort of variation on stacks of crates like that, since they’re a relatively easy sculpting job. These are good ones, but they don’t stand out as an unusual option like the other bits do.
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I saw some hay bales from somewhere, but they were done in resin – so I’d much rather have these Mantic ones in cheap and cheerful PVC. If your eyes start to glaze over at seeing crates, you’ll love the next set of these things I’m working on – wooden barrels! 😀
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Hate to mention this, but I think those are real crates you just photoshopped onto a different background! Much like you keep insisting that carnivorous plant that appears from time to time is really a model! I’m not fooled, no sir, not me, not one bit! 😉
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As always, you’re way too kind, JNV. I’ll do some “vignette”-style photoshoots again sometime and we’ll see how they look in a more “natural” environment than that green background…
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I like them! How big was the Kickstarter and what remains to be painted?
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That much:
And everything not in the pic above remains to be painted. 😀
Some of it may or may not ever get done, particularly the more complex pieces that are also badly warped. Like anything else, it’s a triage/ease of painting/do I need it for a game? tradeoff situation, which is why easy to paint stuff like this always floats to the top of the queue by virtue of being super easy to do and easily fitting into a variety of games.
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Fucking kickstarter. I don’t know why WordPress links the video rather than a clickable link.
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Great stuff. I acquired a handful of stuff from this set from a buddy who similarly pledged for the full kit. So I’ll be tackling my goodies very soon!
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Cheers mate – be sure and post them up!
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