Terrain Crate Arrives

Terrain Crate finally arrived at the back end of last week.  I have heard quite a few complaints about this kickstarter, both because it has been delayed, and because of the alleged poor quality of the pieces.

Rather than show every piece I got I will show the contents of one of the bags that I have got painted, I'll comment on how good (or not) I think the end product is, and the pictures should allow you to decide for yourself if its for you or not.
I got a couple of the Dungeon crates, one of the Town crate and the Dark Lord's Tower.  Well, the tower and one dungeon crate was for my lad, but those are the crates I have seen.  I can't comment on the Battlefield set.
The pictures show the Tables and Chairs set from the Town Crate.  There are two identical bags of these, so double the number of pieces you see here.

Unpainted, the plastic is already coloured brown, so the pieces could be used as is.

As you can see, the torches are a bit wonky.  The plastic seems about the same as that used in the Dungeon Saga furniture pieces.  I had expected this, and was happy with the result.  Those torches got the hot water treatment, as did the tables, as there were some slightly bent legs, though nothing too serious.

And painted up.  

As you can see, the torches have straightened considerably, there is a slight bend in the banded table, though it sits flat, so I'm fine with that.

I washed all the pieces first, then did the hot water trick on the bits that needed a bit of straightening.  The wooden pieces got a coat of VMC Burnt Umber, then a heavy dry brush of VGC Heavy Golden Brown and a light drybrush of VGC Khaki.  Metal bits, principally the torches, got a base coat of VMC Oily Steel thinned with VGC Black Wash.  Once dry, The wooden pieces got a wash of VGC Sepia Wash, and the metal pieces got Black.  Then it was just a case of finishing touches; VGC Off White for the foam on the pint, Silver for the utensils on the plate, and a gradation of red through orange to yellow in the centre of the torches.  The coals were then drybrushed black.

I missed out the flames for the torches, I might include them on the second set, but I do think they might easily get knocked off and lost.

I think they have painted up well.  It's not an award winning job by any means, but they are only props for the main action, and they shouldn't detract from the heroes and monster minis.

My verdict?  I like them.  They are not the quality of some of the resin pieces you can buy, but they are a lot cheaper as well.  They paint up really easily, I will be getting some more done soon (I needed these for the Thursday night D&D group, so they got priority).  There are some pieces that require some work straightening out thinner parts, (the astrolabe in the Wizard's Study is badly bent, I hope it comes out OK as that is a really nice piece).  Given the nature of the plastic, and the cost, that's not surprising, and seems easy to fix.  The pieces have a few mold lines, but not bad ones, except, annoyingly, across the plates in the Treasure set.  In fact I found several of the tables and chairs needed no clean-up at all.

I also like how they are keeping to a 'look'.  The shield on the weapon rack is a Basilean shield, and some of the barricades and rubble piles contain bits easily recognisable as tables or doors from Terrain Crate (or Dungeon Saga) sets.  I was particularly impressed by the coins in the treasure piles; they have an image on them rather than being plain discs.

If you like them, they are now available on the Mantic website here, though the retail packs are different to the kickstarter packs, the tables and chairs are currently only available in the Dungeon Depths mega set.

The photos seem to have worked out better.  It was a simple matter of using my phone rather than my camera.  How technology has come on.