October 14, 2015

Halloween Tombstones for your Spooky Dioramas!

It’s Halloween again, and what better time to work on a new Halloween Diorama!

Hey guys, Caleb with White Metal Games here. White Metal Games is a miniature painting commission service based out of Raleigh, North Carolina.We specialize in producing custom models for any range, including wargames, board games, roleplaying games, historical figures, and display dioramas. Speaking of Dioramas, here’s one we did a few months ago for a client.

But what Halloween diorama or spooky graveyard terrain piece would be complete without some tombstones? (Seen here is our WIP diorama before adding the fallen leaves and crreepy undead occupants. It’s worth noting this is a 40mm scale diorama).

But who makes the best around? You be the judge.

Let’s go through the contenders, and weigh the pro’s and cons:

Rendera Limited, a plastic injection mould company, make tombstones on the sprue. They are UK based, so if you want them in time for Halloweem order now!

Rendera also makes bases for next to nothing, so if you need a few spare (albeit not beveled) bases, these are your guys. Check out their ‘ruins sprues’ too.

Dark Arts Studios sell 15 Gravestones for about 7 bucks, and as an added bonus you can get their scenery packs, like Torture devices like the wrack and iron maiden, coffins, pumpkins, and a cauldron! They’re also running a 20% off sale right now for Halloween! Perfect!!!!

Armorcast, perhaps best well known as being the manufacturers of the love it or hate it Resin 40k Miniatures for a few years (such goodies as the original Exocrine, Haruspex, Cauldron of Blood, and the like), have been a staple in the wargaming community for decades now and if you haven’t explored their site, you don’t know what you’re missing. Their cinematic effects are extremely popular and they have and EXTENSIVE terrain portfolio to say the least.

Among them are these headstones for about $10 bucks.

Hasslefree Miniatures has a really unusual brass etched gravestone pack, which is great for reliefs or backgrounds on dioramas ,but it’s out of stock at the moment. A good runner up is their headstone pack, pictured here.

Itar’s Workshop, which was a highly successful kickstarter from a year or so ago, made some pretty decent tombstones that were an add on to their campaign. The company has recently been bought out by Game Decor, so hopefully these will be back on the market for sale soon.

Langley Models makes some gravestones in O Scale (which is 1/43 scale, or slightly larger than a traditional 28mm miniature, which is 1/56 scale)

Dept 56, a little pricey at 6 for $10 bucks, and the scale is wrong, BUT these are readily available in every Walmart and Target you’ll come across this month.

Antenocitis Workshop has some gravestones too, I think, but since they are only presented as concept images, I don’t really know what to say about these, other than they are 15mm scale. 15mm scale!

If you read this entire article and thought to yourself, “But I’m a wargamer, what can I possibly use these for?” Here are some sample images from a Terminus pattern Soul Drinkers Landraider we built about a year or so back as a concept model. White Metal Games has always been know for it’s kit bashing bravado, and at the time I was really into the idea of a Soul Drinkers or Night Lords army whose vehicles were sort of like mobile shrines to the dead. Sort of like coffins that you both ride in and ride out on. While this may not be your cup of tea, let it not be said that creepy tombstones and mausoleums don’t have a place on the gaming table.