Tablescapes Display Board unboxing

The much anticipated Tablescapes kickstarter finally arrived home and boy, the wait was well worth it! I ordered a full set of Urban tiles, with a mix of clean and damaged streets, and a smaller display board with a temple ruins theme. Today I'm going to show the unboxing of the display board.

The concept

The Tablescapes system was funded more than a year and half ago, and it's been fighting his way through a myriad of technical and logistical problems. The idea is to make a modular game system designed around 12"x 12" tiles that can be combined in any way, so you could refresh your gaming table every night if you wanted to. I'm personally considering to assemble them fixed in a board but we'll see. A side product of this project are the display boards, which are essentially 4 12"x 12" tiles plus a frame.

Unboxing

The product comes neatly packaged in a 4C Gift Box with a handle, so not only you can keep it stored there, but you can also take it with you comfortably to the game venue.

The 4 tiles of this board, which can be combined in any position

Inside the box we found 2 bags, one with the tiles and the other with the frame parts. Each tile has been individually sealed within a plastic bag, then put all together inside another plastic bag! While I normally despise excessive packaging, I think this product warrants it as you will want to store the tiles in the plastic bags for transportation.

Frame parts in the left, four gorgeous tiles in the right

Each tile is neatly packaged

The frame has 8 parts, plus the neat detail of  a plaque for the army name.


The assembly is easy, using some compression clips on the edges of the tiles. Once it's assembled, the whole thing is pretty sturdy and can be moved around safely.

Notice the rings at the bottom make the tile very solid

What about the detail?

The level of detail is surprisingly good for a plastic, CAD model. There are different heights, the stones are full of small cracks and there is more than enough variety to make it look interesting. To be clear, it is not comparable to the level of detail you would get from a manually crafted terrain, and for instance Secret Weapon Miniatures' bases are much more detailed. Is this disappointing? I think not; a full table with that level of detail would have been much more costly to produce, and I very much prefer a balanced level of quality and cost. Don't get me wrong: the tiles look great, and will look much better once fully painted and weathered.

Details are clear and convincing

At this point I couldn't help myself to just put an army on top, so I unpacked part of my Ulthwé Eldar army whose bases have a temple theme. I think it looks great!

Looks like they like it there

So what next?

I'll start painting a single tile of this set first to test the colors. An airbrush and weathering powders are absolute must have to paint these. I'm also tempted to add a few details of my own - the ubiquotous skull here and there, a few large boulders, some helmets perhaps. I'll be posting results tuned. Stay tuned and for those still awaiting their tablescape -  don't despair, will get to you soon!

Take care!