Troublemaker Games – 6-8mm Terrain

We revisit the range of Troublemaker Games after covering their building and ruins range, it received an elaborated update with a couple new plastic sprues, stls and even printed items. As I'm heading into 6-8mm with my Epic 30k project (and the adjacent topics of Adeptus Titanicus and Aeronautica Imperialis) this was good reason, to give these new additions another look.

The Troublemaker range is sold via Vanguard Miniatures and shipped from the UK. Currently the don't offer IOSS for EU customers, but they offer a shipping cost cap of maximum 10 GBP.

We received a broad range of samples from their sprues, and we begin with some resin printed items. These are the Small Gas Tanks and Roof Top Vents. They are printed from grey resin and cost 6,67 GBP and 4,17 GBP (excl. VAT) for a set of four each. They are scaled in a size to fit the roof tops of the Civitas Imperialis terrain range.

Print quality is very solid. You have minor print steps, which are barely noticeably (I had stronger on Forge World products), yet on some parts a bit of shiny residue. This might be not cured resin evaporating, so I suggest if you come across these too, put them near a window for a day or two (or give them a brief treatment with UV light). I like these bits like roof toppers and similar, as they give you more variation on the built terrain.

Next up, probably the most interesting addition to their range - at least from my point of view - the Airfield Set. For 10,42 GBP you receive four of these sprues (we had two in this review), covering pieces for an airfield / landing platform along with some accessories.

The most basic built you can do, is use the four corners and build a small platform from this. Per sprue, you receive two corners and a straight / mid-section, which gives you the option to build a rectangular platform (well octagon), which is big enough to host a Thunderhawk.

I had a bit of troubles to work out how these are connected, as they didn't come with an assembly instruction - but you find them online on the web page as a free download. But you have small pillars for the sides, who connect the parts there and rectangular supports for the inner areas. The tongue and groove system is a bit tight, so you might enlarge it with a file, to fit the pieces together without deforming the plastic teeth. I had a bit of trouble with the fit, so I might use a substructure like using a frame from a sprue and glue the platform pieces on top. There are ramps on the sprue connect multiple platforms or grant access from ground level to the platform.

What is really nice, are the additional items in these sprues. For example, each sprue comes with an AA platform. These are quickly built and provide a fitting nearby building to a landing pad. You don't need to glue the turret down to the base, so you can keep these turnable. These are a bit smaller than the ground assets from Aeronautica Imperialis.

Per two sprues you receive a cargo container. I could see these as a sprue of their own, as you might want to use a lot of them. For 10,42 GBP, you get two medium sized platforms, four AA emplacements and two cargo containers. Not a bad deal.

The next sprue, probably very interesting mostly for the Epic players. The Siege Works - once again four sprues per kit, but at a price of 12,50 GBP.

Each sprue comes with a trench segment who can be placed next to each other or at an 90° angle, giving you the option for various entrenchments. Each sprue covers six of these sections, at 5 cm length each. You get a whopping 1,2m or roughly 4 ft of front line from a single set. Proper. And as you can see, the height fits the 8mm infantry as well in a proper way.

Beside a strips of ruined walls (we covered those in the initial review), these come with a siege gun per sprue, which is nice as you get quite a lot of those if you go for the Siege and Airfield set. In this case it is the mentioned above 1,2 m of trenchwork and four of those, again proper value.

The last set of sprues we cover, is the Outpost Set. It comes with octagon shaped buildings with optional domes and is set at 8 GBP per four sprues. As with the other kits, you'll find the assembly instruction linked in the Vanguard online store.

The domes are quite interesting, yet are a bit rough, as you can see the steps of the CNC tooling of the mould (which is something that I rarely these days). You get two domes per sprue, one as a simple cupola, the other one as a gun mount. The gun can be glued in different elevation states.

As for the outpost itself, it comes with a roof and four sides. The roof can be flipped to either be flat (and host one of the printed roof toppers) or have a mount for the domes. The sides are four different designs and have small teeth, that you could stack them for broader / higher buildings. There are tower sprues available to go on top as well, to recreate an alternative option for the Civitas Imperialis Spires. At 8 GBP you get four of these buildings, once again a very reasonable rate.

Conclusion

The range keeps true to itself, providing reasonably priced plastic sets for the epic scaled gaming systems. All of the prices, for usually a set of four sprues is absolutely fair. And I see the main audience here with those gamers, who don't have access to a 3d printer, because most of the printed items are quickly priced above what a full set here costs.

Yet, the range feels a bit too practical. The details could be sharper or the density of them could be higher. As with 2022 and a lot of digital files being around, as well as the access to 3d printers got a lot easier (print services as well as people owning them). Meaning the competition got more present and people have more choices. Still - take the Airfield set, it's incl. VAT around 12,50 GBP for a set of two. It's on my table, I can build it right away and customise it easily, as it is plastic. They do offer a STL file for a landing pad, themself at 2,50 GBP per STL. If you go for premium, let's say Grim Dark Terrain, you're looking at 39 EUR for their June 2021 package to have the STL files for their Aerolus landing pad (and actually the July pack for another 39 EUR, to have the sides) and then nothing is printed yet. But the pieces are so massive, that for example I would need several days on my Mono 4K for a medium sized landing pad.

So, yes, this might not be on eye level with something like the Forge World terrain or some of the terrain content creators in terms of design, but it certainly is very reasonably priced, at a fraction of what alternatives costs and comes in plastic. As an example, for club terrain, or if you're hosting a tournament or something, where the terrain is handled, stacked etc. or if you play a lot of different systems and 6-8mm is not your focus setting, this is a solid choice to get terrain on your table.

Troublemaker Games range of small-scale terrain and miniatures is available through Vanguard Miniatures.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.