Last Dec. at Shore Wars in Mentor OH, I had the opportunity to meet some really great new people and catch up with some friends as well. One of the new people was Ron from Diabolical Terrain. He was there selling some really great looking 3D printed buildings at a reasonable price. Shortly after the event, I ordered a couple Viking/Dane buildings from him in 20mm to go with our Warlord minis. When they arrived, I was even more impressed with how good they looked. I knew that they would work great as convention table display items to help show off the minis. I also knew that I’d want to use them in any convention games we run. And I knew that inevitably, all that would lead to people (and you know who you are) wanting to buy them.
Well, the shorter version of the story is that we were able to come to an agreement where we could sell some 20mm sets to help support our mini lines. You are then encouraged to go to their site to get additional expansion items, and/or items in all other scales. They have a huge selection… go check them out here (after you finish reading this post, of course). Our ongoing goal for each of our lines is to have minis for opposing sides in the conflict, rules, scenarios, terrain, painting guides, and player support. We don’t want to leave anyone hanging with minis that they are unsure what to do with them. Boxed sets are a step along that path. We plan to have a custom scenario soon for each of these terrain sets. They will use the specific buildings in some way that is more than only being blocking line-of-sight objects. Feel free to pitch your ideas. The wilder, the better.
Below are some photos of my painted pieces for the Viking Set. I’m sure you can do better job… I’m colorblind so I just slap some colors on the pieces pretty quickly. These were printed in a brown? color material so no priming or base coating were needed. I did dry brushing only… some browns on the wood and yellows on the roof. Then a bit of RRB Minis secret gloss brown wash (I really need to get the washes listed on the webstore soon). Lastly, a clear matt spray. I would have used the flat brown wash but I don’t have any on hand at the moment. I think they came out very nice for around an hour of work. They basically painted themselves. The set contains a long house, house, and shed. A couple of notes: Our minis shown here for this entire post are not 20mm but rather are true25s (however, the Warlord Normans and Vikings are a bit smaller). Though that means they are really 1/72 scale tall, they do work perfectly well with 20mm terrain. The figure height difference is only 1-2mm (I’ll do a ranting blog post about scales, sizes, math, and human-proportions some other day). The buildings come with removable roofs and detailed interiors. This makes them perfect for hiding some extra surprise troops.
Next is the Norman Set. This contains a Lookout-Post, Stone Chapel, and Stone Shed. These were printed in a gray color material and again painted up very quickly. They took a bit longer because of painting the interior plastered walls was a little more the just a quick drybrushing. I’ll point out that in the first photo below, you’ll see that I fell victim to one of the classic blunders: I neglected to have the roof on the building while doing the final dry bushing so the tones do not match. Yikes… Wolf called me an amateur and hurt my feelings. The first couple photos show our Warlord figures which we already showed look great with the 20mm scale building above. I also included the 3rd photo with some really cool McEwan Miniatures (now Reviresco) fantasy figures to show this set can do double duty for historical and fantasy encounters, and that it looks great with the slightly taller True25s 1/72 scale figures. Then below that, you’ll notice the roofs and middle floor of the tiny keep are removeable to review playable interiors. Lastly, quality inspector Wolf does a strength test and determined that these buildings are in fact well-made and should last you a long time. (We do not recommend letting your own quality inspectors bite your models… ours is very insistent that this is the correct procedure and it must be done.)
The next set is the Western/Frontier Ranch. It contains a house, barn and well. These were printed in a brown colored material. It still painted up super quick but still a bit longer. The cut ends of the logs and all the sawn wood piece (door and windows) were painted a different shade than the bark on the logs. The barn doors are supplied loose. I chose to attach them in the closed position. You could also attach them open obviously, or get fancy and make some small hinges. I just used some E6000 so I can easily change them in the future. The figures shown are McEwan Miniatures (now Reviresco) cowboy True25s 1/72 scale figures. The roofs and the barn’s upper floor are removable to show detailed playable interiors. The inside of the house in particular is very nicely done. Whatever scenario we come up with for this set is going to have some action happen inside the house for sure. What do you think? I has to be something more than just looting the place or a simple shootout. And the last photo of course… Wolf does not trust me to work unsupervised.
The last set to show today, is the Sci-Fi Settlement Set. These were painted by Gwen. I didn’t track her time but it seems like they went pretty quick. I don’t recall the material color these were printed in… possibly gray. She did a base coat of navy blue, then drybrushing green, gray, sand, and gold. The set contains 2 Hab-Units, 1 Garage-Unit, a Long & Short Walkway Section, a Hydroponic Farm (Algae Bed), and a Liquid Gas Chiller. The walkways just hook on the roof edges anywhere allowing for many different arrangements. The flat roofs and walkways add lots of playable height for your games. Again, the photo near the bottom shows these have removable roofs with detailed playable interiors for lots of use for wargaming or RPGs. And, even though they do not totally nest, they stack up into a small bundle. Well, as the last photo shows, the boss has fallen asleep on the job, so I’m going to sneak out early today.
Just a quick wrap up. These sets are nicely detailed, sturdy, lightweight, and do not take up a ton of space (the boxes that contain them are 9″x7″x4″). As with all the items we choose to carry, we feel they are a good value and will provide a lot of use/reuse. The set will be provided unpainted for right around the $40 per set. The price is the same if you get them from us, or directly from Diabolical Terrain so if you don’t want to wait for us to get the boxed sets put together, or do not expect to see us soon, check out their online store. Below is the box label for the Sci-Fi Set. Let us know what you think.
RRB Minis & More 