Wargaming Tournaments Industrial Terrain Set Review

I love Necromunda, you love Necromunda, we all love Necromunda. Everybody loves to play Necromunda but it doesn’t really translate well with 40k scenery which is mostly ruins. Obviously the original game came with cardboard scenery with the legendary plastic bulkheads but those sets are few and far between these days and normally go for upwards of £40-£50. Many have used plasticard to create their scenery (with some spectacular results it must be said) but that’s just a little bit too much effort for my liking.

So when I was perusing one of the many hobby Facebook groups and came across a set of scenery looking like this:

Ill not lie, you get what you pay for, In this case everything you see here.... 

And at a discounted trial price no less, I ordered it straight away. Well a few days later it arrived so now I can let you all know what I think of it.

Immediately upon opening the box I was greeted by, well there’s no other way to say it, I was greeted by a very strong smell of burnt wood. Getting past that however I saw a box of walkways and struts and railings and floor sections. The detailing on the pieces is very nice all things considered and there is a decent amount of variation with cracks and other minor detailing breaking up the uniform look of the pieces. For the most part everything is very well cut and I only found one piece where I had to utilise a sharp knife to cut out the holes. Other than that everything just punches out with ease (and due to the detailed nature of the components there is a fair bit of punching to do) 

There is some minor pre assembly required, the walkway railings need attaching to the walkways but this is an absolute doddle. A little wood glue is all that is required and some card to mop up and excess glue. The Walkways went together in no time and look great. 

Thats a lot of Walkways

The struts need gluing to their bases, again an easy job, there are decent instructions included with the kit, and you should encounter no problems. Now, DON’T glue the railings to the floor sections of buildings. If you do then you won’t be able to place the walkways, I have had to order spares as I had to rip most of the railings back off again. Let my mistake not be yours. 

Everything does look absolutely fantastic and comes with bonus burnt wood smell!

Struts, struts everywhere, yet oddly not enough, not if you want to experiment with different building configurations.

The staircases are the last thing that need assembling and these are also simplicity themselves. You may notice that although the same pattern is present on the sides of the stair cases it is not cut out, even though the instructions indicate that they should be. I can only surmise that the design had to be changed as to have holes in those components would have made them very weak and likely to break, it’s a shame as they do look much cooler in the instructions but I feel overall that the designer made the right decision in compromising the design. 

Perfect for Necromunda.

So with all the subassembly complete its time to assemble the scenery, unfortunately this is where a few problems with the terrain set start to creep in. Firstly although overall as you can see from the picture you get a very decent amount of stuff (and there are still walkways I haven’t used) you are somewhat limited in layout options due to the number of struts provided. You can construct everything in the set but due to the different amounts of 1 2 and 3 level support struts you won’t be able to explore as many configurations as perhaps you would like. There simply are not enough support struts to go around with certain tower/building layouts. Its not short by a lot but you'll probably want a few extra. The amount of handrails also seems to be slightly lacking. 

Can't wait to get this lot painted really does look the part.

This then leads to another problem. Although with a little patience the kit goes together pretty well it is not exactly what I would consider sturdy. Admittedly the staircases go some way to shoring up the buildings stability (unlike the struts and railings you get more than enough of these) overall the assembly is a little rickety and dependant in how it stands up to gameplay I may end up gluing the buildings together which would completely negate the modular potential of the set. A real shame as there is so much else about this kit to like

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So in summary:

A great looking kit that makes a decent table worth and is well designed and constructed with lots of variation between the pieces and some nice cut outs rather than just illustrated detail. There are concerns about its stability and the amount of parts provided is insufficient to assemble the scenery in a great many different configurations. That said, Ed, the maker, is making spare and expansion parts available so this will unlock more configurations. Overall I would say if you are planning to glue the buildings together and just use it as industrial scenery then my recommendation is 100%. It looks great and you get a lot of product for your money. If you are intending to use it as modular terrain to be set up in a number of different ways then be aware that you may need to purchase a couple of extra bits to fully utilise it and its stability is a little suspect. One other thing I will mention is it comes with a great little instruction manual even including painting advice and it is clear that Ed really cares about people getting the most out of this product which he could have easily taken down the Kickstarter route like everybody else and their dog but has chosen to release at a (albeit temporary) discounted rate.

I havent used half the walkways here, you could easily do a sparse 4x4 table just with what you have here.

All in all I am very happy with my purchase and with the extra few bits I have bought I have enough scenery for all the games of Necromunda/Infinity I could ever wish to play. A great concept resulting in a great product with just one or two niggling flaws.

Should anyone wish to order one, here is the link:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wargames-Warhammer-40K-Necromunda-Scenery-Industrial-Terrain-Set-/390628636452?pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&hash=item5af347f724