Review: Bad Squiddo Scenic Bases

 

I recently picked up some new Scenic Bases from Bad Squiddo Scenics, and thought it might be helpful to share my thoughts on them. They're available as either a set of three or you can buy the Skull Den, The Well or The Dock individually.

The casting quality is absolutely excellent - it's crisp and looks like it will take paint really well. They seem to be intended to be used as display bases for painted miniatures, but I'm planning on using them on top of a gaming base for larger models for D&D.

I personally prefer the Skull Den and Dock on that basis - they should be much easier to blend onto a gaming base. I'm also not a fan of the raised rough edge of the base on the Well. You can definitely see the hand sculpting, although that will have a charm and appeal of its own to those who like such things.

Here you can see the bases alongside a couple of miniatures. Aenur, on the right, is an older Games Workshop elf miniature from Mordheim, and should give a good idea of how models from that era would fit. The orc monk by Titan Wargames is representing the more modern, slightly larger sculpts you'll often see today. I think both will fit just fine without any obvious scale issues.

That covers the fancy 'display' base approach. I'm intending to use them for gaming. There's enough detail here that I'd be worried about fitting a large monster such as a griffin or manticore on - the two would just get in the way of each other. I'm thinking of looking for the right kind of Ogre or Troll for these - a model who's bulky and large in D&D terms, but not necessarily taking up all of the base they're standing on.

Looking at larger gaming bases you might want to put these on - at the bottom is a 40mm Games Workshop base, which is a little smaller than the scenic bases. I've placed the Dock base onto an Infinity 55mm base - and that's a little too big. There's clearly more than 5mm around the edges, leading me to think that these will fit very nicely onto 50mm round bases (which, inconveniently, I don't have any of right now).

To be clear, you don't need to add a gaming base to any of these - they're very sturdy single cast resin that will work as a base on their own just fine. I'm just wanting a plastic base underneath for a mix of aesthetic and gaming concerns.

I'm definitely a big fan of these bases. I'm not going to be using them entirely "as intended" but they'll work well for my gaming purposes as well as a decorative base for a human sized 28mm display piece. They won't break the bank and will really add to a model you want to give a little more emphasis to.