Review: Mantic Starship Scenery

This was an exciting week for me, by my own rather mild standards, because a Kickstarter that I backed ages ago finally arrived. It was for a variety of fantasy and science fiction (SF) terrain from Mantic Games (so I should be glad it turned up this year, I suppose). I'm going to talk about the SF terrain here.

The set is called Starship Scenery and retails for £20 from Mantic*, although I'm sure you could get it cheaper elsewhere. It consists of a range of computers, tables, desks, cryogenic tanks and similar things, all of which would work well on anything from the Starship Enterprise to Aliens. They're not "gothic" and, in 40k terms, would be best suited to the Tau.

The models are cast in a sort of rubbery plastic, a bit like set PVA glue or that stuff they use for Reaper Bones models. It's more like the stuff Mantic use for their dungeon furniture than the hard plastic used for their dungeon doors or the Walking Dead scenery. It won't shatter if you drop the pieces on the floor, and it holds detail surprisingly well.

However, it warps (at warp speed, I would expect). That's not too much of a problem with fantasy terrain, as a medieval table is likely to be quite rough and ready. But science fiction terrain would presumably be made to precise specifications, and it can look pretty wonky as a result.

 Take the table in the picture above. When I first got it, the legs were all over the place and it looked as if it was tripping over while doing the Can-Can. Not good. I had to glue the legs to a base to keep them all in the right place. The gun rack on the right, however, is one solid lump and came out very well indeed (although I need to paint it a bit more).

What this means is that you're going to have to do a bit of rescue work but, once you have, you'll have a very decent product indeed. I gave the desks here a fairly quick and crude painting, and I think they've come out reasonably well.

So would I recommend this set? Yes, but be prepared to do some extra bending and sticking. I am impressed by the sculpting and durability of these models. I had to slice a few mold lines down. Otherwise, the main problem was the warping. Overall, 7.5 out of 10.



*The Starship Scenery set is available here: HERE