Terrain, unlike hardcore bands, only has to look the part, it does not matter that when you look at it in great detail it’s clearly plasticine hollow. However, like all of the bands you covet you want them to retain some integrity and a not fall apart after a few outings.

With the the general theme of this blog being the music we love and my particular interest in terrain (or as I like to see it, world building), I thought My first piece should be a review a new and indeed very metal looking (although it’s clearly plastic) addition to my collection, the Games Workshop Arcane Ruins.

First off its pretty cheap, costing £18 from Games Workshop (although I got mine from indie store and London favourite, Dark Sphere at their discounted rate) and for the money spent, you can get a sizeable foot print on your board. Considering the style of the piece, it’s mostly going to be used for fantasy games, although I think you could bring it out for the occasional 40k bash without looking out of place. For your money, you get 2 complete archways, a fallen down archway, extra pieces to make one of the complete archways into the fallen down version, an obelisk and a base to stand them on/around. You also get a bunch of “detail” skulls, which I assume are supposed to look like Balrogs, but look like it’s ugly cousin, here is also some more skulls, but as it’s GW, I don’t need anymore than the hundred already on the model.

Assembly is a piece of piss, just hit it with some plastic glue and fit the 2 halves of each piece together and then on to the base. There is some issue with the joins, down the side they are quiet obvious close up, although when you are looking at them on a table, with some paint on the model they are not as noticeable.

The actual pieces are not that detailed, only the front and back have details, while the sides remain pretty sparse. The is not a problem on the arch ways but the obelisk looks a little odd from the sides. I mounted mine on a board and also added a fallen down statue to the centre, just to make it more “full”, although now I’m not sure if I would rather had it empty.

Painting the model was easy, I hit it with a dark blue/grey spray from army painter, washed it black and then dry brushed several lighter greys over the top (these were VMC ones, so the name was some number I can’t remember). Finally I dry brushed some green (again, no idea on the colour) around the cracks to give it a glowing aura. Finally I painted the board it was on and added some bicarbonate soda snow and army painter tufts to the model (to fit in with my ogre armies snow basing) and it was complete.

Obviously it’s intended to be mysterious Arcane ruins in a game of fantasy, as far as gameplay goes, it’s pretty good for blocking line of sight for smaller units and models (making it versatile for 40k). I’m not sure how popular using mysterious terrain is in other groups, but I quite like the random aspect provided by 1 or 2 pieces every so often. This really fits the bill as you can imagine some dark shit going down here. Generally I like it as a piece that can effect your game as much or as little as you want.

For the price I would recommend this piece even if it does lack some detail, it’s to be used on a game table and not for a diorama. The build is easy and painting is a a matter of spray, wash and dry brush until you are happy. With the release of Warriors and Daemons this year, this will fit in with a lot of the armies you will be seeing in the next few months. If you need centre piece for your fantasy table, stop using styrofoam and DVD cases and invest, this will be worth spending the better part of £20 on.