Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave Primal Lair

In Nightvault Games Workshop introduced for the first time terrain accessories with the Arcane Hazards for the Underworlds series, and in Beastgrave we see that idea continued with the Primal Lair.

The Primal Lair is a set of six terrain pieces, to cover hexes on your Underworlds gameboard or to use on a regular tabletop wargame battlefield. It is kept in the design of stalagmites in hex-shape, along with bones and multiple things we've seen in the caverns.

The kit costs 25 EUR RRP and contains 2 sprues with a total of 20 individual parts casted in grey hard plastic.

The sprues were designed in the UK and manufactured in China. It has a slightly less crisp cast than the regular UK made sprues, but is far above average for terrain. The instructions are clear and as the individual hexes only consists out of a few pieces each, quickly assembled.

The first terrain piece we assemble takes up two hexes and covers a large animal skull along with parts of the skeleton. You can see a section of the ribcage, along with the spine and shoulder blade. I like the aspect that the hex shapes of the base are only suggested and not too present. That way these pieces are easily blended within non-Underworld scenarios.

Fit was absolutely no problem and quickly assembled. The mould lines goes along the edge of the base and is barely noticeable.

The second hex is a shard of realmstone. The shards are very massive and I can see this be used as a mission objective as well. The box art shows the realmstone in yellow, but a glowing green would fit the shadespire theme quite well, or a glossy black/red as the soulstone has in Diablo 3.

Another set of bones is this large skull resting on rocks, covering a single hex fields. Absolutely easy to assemble and very present skull. Looks a bit like a Balrog, so this could be of interest for Lord of the Rings tables, like a dwarfen mine, as well.

Two Poisenous hexs are the gaseous clouds and the pit of acid, each taken up one hex. The clouds are incredibly massive. Those are not hollowed two part casts, but a solid plastic cast each.

And the sixth hex is a maw with a set of tentacles. It emerges from a hole in the ground. Assembly the tentacles is a bit difficult, as you have an angles pressure point and slightly filing the socket will help that.

The total of the six pieces together. They take up a solid part of the board and are well done.

To give you a better idea of the size, here are they next to a few different sized Underworld miniatures, and in the second picture with miniatures from Osprey's / Northstar's Frostgrave range in 28mm.

And as they are intended primarely to be used with Underworlds, of course how they look, matching the similar designs on the Beastgrave board.

Conclusion
The Arcane Hazard looked to much like the throne room of a necromancer and had a very distinctive design, that wasn't versatile enough for me. But this seasons terrain set, the Primal Lair, has a broader use and that upgrades the value by a lot.

They of course fit the intended purpose of a more plastic, 3d upgrade for Underworlds, but would be a great addition to the mission objectives like the ones for the Shattered Dominion. And by that they can be used for far more purposes than just a visual upgrade for a board game. With the hexes, they fit other board games that use that kind of design, but due to the "soft trim" of the individual pieces, they can be used as scatter terrain or be blended with other terrain pieces. They would fit different cavern or caves, from Frostgrave, over to Schicksalspfade (the design should match the dwarven bases) or D&D miniatures games. Maybe even some things like a Dungeon Bowl table.

The pieces are well made, the details are present and you could integrate them in your broader terrain collection or use them as base decoration for larger miniatures. Having a mounted hero tower over the skeleton of a dragon or large shards may make them stand out even more.

Warhammer Underworlds is a brand by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.