Category Archives: Wargame Scenery

Little Boxes …from Mantic’s Mars Attacks/Terrain Crate

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All 4 sides of Mantic’s Mars Attacks box stacks.

These boxes are not on the hillside, nor are they made of ticky-tacky, but they are (almost) all the same.

Ok, this is a scenery post, and a simple one at that, as it deals with a few pieces of minor scatter terrain. A long time ago, I backed Mantic’s Mars Attacks Kickstarter, and amongst all of the stuff that I received (and still haven’t used.. shhh!) was a few sets of the scenery accessories.

Mars Attacks Accessory Pic from Iron Saint’s Children of the Kraken Blog – go visit!

Naturally, I forgot to take a photo of the Accessory pieces before I started on any of this stuff, and Mantic’s photos don’t show them very well. It is in fact a very good gaming set. It turns out that I had four of them. Unless I find another 1 or 2 in boxes someday. I actually started painting the post boxes and rubbish bins back in summer, about 9 months ago, but managed to mess up the salt weathering. So the whole project went into limbo. A few days ago I spotted the box-barricades sitting on my painting desk and so decided to clean them up in a vaguely useful way – by painting them!

So here they are. Exciting, no? I kept them as generic as possible so they can work in as many settings as possible, from historicals through moderns, zombipocalypses and to sci-fi in about 28 to 38,000 years’ time. (When most things are still oddly recognisable when compared to nowadays.)

Crates. Probably from Grendel.

I also found a couple of resin crates that had been bought in the 90’s and sitting around part-painted for years, and spent the whole of 10 minutes that it took to finish them as well. I have the attention span of a flea, sometimes… I think they’re probably originally from some set by Grendel/Scotia Grendel, since that’s where most of my really old resin junk originates from.

Mantic Mars Attacks Boxes

Size and thematic comparisons.

Finally, some Zombipocalypse survivors, Space Marines and Dwarves help out with showing the scale and how they fit in decently well with all three disparate types of model. They’re a little on the small side, and while they’ll work well as meeples for barricades in games of Zombicide, they feel a little like those annoying foot-high “walls” that videogames use to keep our otherwise athletic heroes from straying outside of the designated play area… They might work better stacks on top of other items to create useful cover, but even as is they make for decent ground clutter.

Small Scenics: Uruk-Hai Siege Ladders and an Old Unknown Grave

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One of my small-scale scenic updates today – some things that have been in my “quick and easy to-do” pile for an embarrassingly long time – years in fact.

Citadel Lord of the Rings Uruk-Hai Siege Ladder

One Siege Ladder

First up we have the Siege Ladders that came with Citadel’s Lord of the Rings Uruk-Hai Siege Troops set. I’ve never actually purchased one of these sets off the shelf, but I’ve picked up a fair few random bits of it from eBay and other secondhand sources  over the years in excess of a full box.

Several Siege Ladders

Citadel Lord of the Rings Uruk-Hai Siege Ladder

Simple as they are, they’ve long been in my “yeah, I should knock those out” pile, but as they’re pretty unimportant unless you happen to be playing a siege scenario, they’re pretty easy to forget about as well.

An unknown warrior’s grave, from an unknown manufacturer.

This grave has been in my collection for more than 20 years now, acquired with some random bunch of things from somewhere, probably from Dave M. Until last year it had the same rough brown basecoat over the “dirt” and black over the headstone and other bits. I’m not who the manufacturer is? Ral Partha or RAFM or Grenadier? Something like that, no doubt, and probably part of a set, long broken up.

A mystery grave from the 1980’s or 1990’s.

Last year I finally glued it down to a Renedra cavalry base and added some PVA around the edges, but it got put away when I cleared the decks for the December Paint Challenge. The other day, while looking for simple undead things to complete I spied it in one of my tubs of half-painted models from the clear-up, and grabbed it out, and then gave it the little bit of work it needed for completion. I chose to paint the bits with a subtle nod to the undead army I’ve been painting. Metal and rust and brass and verdigris and reddish browns.

2017 updates:

If you liked these ladders, check out this post.

If you liked the grave, check out this post.