Total Battle Miniatures 15mm Black Powder Terrain Review

Over the past few years I have been building up both my 15mm SYW Armies and adding to what was a mostly a Pennisular based Napoleonic force with more Central European troops. With this change of theatre came the requirement for suitable terrain for the tabletop.

I have been searching for quite some time now for something suitable, whilst being tempted by some of the MDF options available and having gone down that road for 28mm SCW, I still prefer a good resin cast if I can find one.

I came across http://www.totalbattleminiatures.com/ from a generic Internet search and was sufficiently impressed to fire off a test order to see what they were all about. So for 26 of your English Pounds I purchased this, the 15mm Black Powder "Hamlet" set.

What I really liked about the set was the above base which comes with the Hamlet, made of a flexible latex type material. I was weary of it at first and kept waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats about flaking paint however the owners of the company were great and sent me an explanatory email which was a great help.

It has slots for each of the three buildings which looks great but also gives an option to exchange building models as they become damaged (hint hint !), there is a small stone wall at one end of the Hamlet and marker stones at the entry / exit points.

The secret is in using flexible acrylic paints so rather than my standard Halfords Matt black spray I went with a Vallejo Burnt Umber base coat on the cream colour latex, I used a watery wash of the paint to make sure it filled the indentations. Letting it dry thoroughly I used a heavy dry brush of Flat Earth and then a highlight dry brush of Tan Yellow.

In my standard old school basing method I add patches of dry brushed basetex to the groundwork however with the flexible nature of the manufacturing substance that would definitely not work here. At this stage I have gone for a simple painted option for the greenery, I may look at some form of flocking in the future. To finish the base off I have used some brown ink to make the suggestion of cart tracks through the model.

The main meat of the pack are these three buildings, from top to bottom, a single house, a terrace of 3 properties and a barn. I found the models, which are resin, well cast with only very minimal miscasting on the brick work. I used my standard painting method on these with my usual black undercoat.

So in summary an excellent purchase, I think I may well have solved my supplier problem for 15mm buildings and I will be definitely adding to my collection of these over the months to come, highly recommended.