Spartan Scenics Warehouse Accessories

Painted pieces and packaging. I decided against painting them all gray and grimdark.

These are from a set of 28mm scale resin terrain pieces. I'm guessing from their appearance that Spartan Scenics had Infinity in mind when they put these on the market. However, they look generic enough to work as scatter terrain for most science fiction skirmish wargames and RPGs. Not all of the pieces that come in the box are pictured - I lost some due to gremlins between purchase and painting.

The pieces are solid resin and most do not require assembly. The detailing is good. There are handles, security keypads, and other greebles that suggest a functional (but scaled down) object. The casing is excellent. There are no mold lines marring the details of the pieces. There are a few bubbles on the underside of a couple of pieces, but no one will notice once the pieces are placed on the table.

After reviewing my long list of projects, I decided on a quick and basic approach using spray paints for the majority of the work. The first layer is a gray auto body primer. The base coat is a dark brown (Krylon Brown Camouflage Paint Made with Fusion – Ultra Flat). I divided up the pieces into four groups and picked out a color for each group (Krylon ColorMaster Paint+Primer in Aluminum, Iris, Rich Plum, and Pumpkin Orange). In each case, I sprayed at a high angle to leave a little of the brown base coat under the raised areas. This created a shading effect and an overall dirty, worn look for most of the pieces. The biohazard symbols were picked out with red (Reaper MSP 09279 Fresh Blood). The keypads and display panels got a dark green base (Reaper MSP 09011 Leaf Green), followed by a bright green layer (Reaper MSP 09294 Alien Goo), and highlighted in a bright yellow (Reaper MSP 09287 Neon Yellow) to simulate self-lighting. The pieces painted in non-metallic paint were then sealed (Testors Dullcote) to bring down the shine from the satin and gloss finishes of the spray paint.

Sarah Blitzer looking for a clear line of fire through all these cargo containers. She's a little concerned about all the biohazard warning signs.

Functionally, the pieces work well at blocking lines of sight and for models to use as cover. The pieces can be stacked on each other with varying levels of stability. The appearance of the pieces convey a science fiction feel that works well for just about any space opera game. I was most strongly reminded of firefights in the Mass Effect games, but diving behind cargo containers is a staple of Star Trek, Star Wars, and other science fiction settings to numerous to list here.

The back of the box has some interesting suggestions that I couldn't resist expanding on. Using the pressurized tanks as cover may not be the best idea, especially if they contain explosive gases. Using biohazard containers as cover is an even worse idea without protective clothing. Coming up with a chart to determine the effects of shooting these containers with a couple of die rolls should be easy enough in any game system. The pallets could be remotely controlled anti-gravity platforms designed to make forklifts unnecessary. Anti-grav pallets would move around during a fight and complicate planning - a model could find itself without cover as the pallet and its cargo floats away from it. Alternately, some quick hacking into the pallet's software could move them at one player's command. Getting rammed by an anti-grav pallet loaded with heavy cargo containers is bad news even for someone in power armor.

Overall, these pieces look like they will be a staple of my science fiction games for some time to come.