15 March 2013

What's in the box? Scotia Grendel Domes & Corridors

A quick review and some pictures of the range of domes and corridors sold by Scotia Grendel Productions. They're marketed as 28mm but we'll see that's definitely not the case!

A wide variety of dome are available, most of them bunkers with various weapons, I choose to stick with the unarmed one for want of a terrain to fight in and not of a fortification and fighting unit in its own right...

They have been sitting on my desk for quite a while and I've no clue anymore about what the shipping delay was like, but I remember no undue problems or concern with that order.

Prices are about £8 for a dome and £6 for 3 straight corridors or 2 Y-junctions.

The first impression when opening the box was olfactory: that resin just stinks... It's not that bad anymore after a few month of airing, and paint should seal the miasma in!




One of the destroyed bunkers was broken in three pieces in the box. I don't bothered to complain to Scotia Grendel because the break was clean and easily fixed, it's a destroyed bunker anyway and I didn't consider getting a new one worth my and the manufacturer's time and energy. However, I'll still vouch for their service: a previous order (a couple of equaly underscaled VTOLs) was swallowed by the postal service and when, after a month of not seeing anything, I contacted them to make sure it was sent and to get their tracking information, they simply offered to send my order back at their own expense!

So what's in the (reused tea candles) box?
Grid on the left part of the mat is in cm, mat is 60cm x 45cm (2' x
1'6" for those of you who still use body parts for measuring shit)

  • Centered on the mat is a sensor/control tower
  • Front left are 3 hospital/habitation dome
  • Front right are 2 landing pad domes 
  • In the back are command dome and a power plant one
  • All of those are linked with corridors and Y-junctions
  • In the back corners are two destroyed bunkers
  • Each landing pad domes comes with a VTOL (in the bag just right of the tower)
  • And the whole thing is supplied with plenty of (metal) aerials and bits (in the bag in front of the tower)
Left mini is a 15mm GZG NI rifleman and right one is a 28mm Rackam UNA Star Trooper
As you can see, I wouldn't call 28mm by any stretch of the word... Also the picture gives you a better look at the casting and texture. All but the details of the dome are of coarse sanded texture which I find a bit funny in combination with the panels and rivet/bolts pattern (I mean, either it's concrete or something and rough, either it's riveted sheets of metals or plastic and smooth). 

I'll review the VTOL later: my kid just finished cleaning the living room of his toys and I've no excuses to delay the muffins making I promised him any longer!

8 comments:

  1. I'd heard these went well with 15mm... nice to see them all lined up. They look pretty damn nifty.
    The cement walls at some of our university buildings gave holes in them just like that... I think they're slabs that are pored off-site and then bolted to a frame... or something along those lines.
    Either way, cool terrain!

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  2. OK... I guess that's one explanation. And who knows what engineers (or alien engineers) will come up with in the future?

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  3. I can concur that quite a bit of the Grendel range is better suited to the older 25mm figures such as those produced by GZG, Denizen and the old Star Wars figures that Grenadier used to produce.
    The dropships really look good next to 15mm or 25mm troops but are completely lost next to the bigger figures. Somehow the tracked APC looks OK next to 28mm figures.

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  4. These are really cool, hadn't seen them before. They look perfect for 15mm... thanks for the review!

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  5. Those are some good looking buildings, I've had my eye out for something similar to these. Thanks for the review!

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  6. The straight corridors look like they would make some nice "hard tents" for a prospector or xeno-archaeologist camp.

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  7. Hadn't though about it... But you're right, good idea! Certainly if you put a couple in a row like I did (not on purpose) in the front corner of my first picture.

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  8. Back in 1the 1990's, when these came out, Ian Weekly of "Battlements" was a strong influence on building scale. His approach was to make buildings in a slightly smaller scale that the target figures, to keep the buildings from over-shadowing the game action.

    This might be the reason these buildings were considered slightly small, even in their heyday.

    That said, I've been hoarding a vast quantity of these specifically to use for 15mm, so hurrah for our scale!

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