Yztá Pyramid

This terrain piece is by Ziterdes, and like most of their products is a pre-painted (and pre-flocked) hard-foam. Unlike Tablescape, the finish for Ziterdes stuff is never as high as I would like. That said, and knowing their products tend to be very basically painted, not as well finished as in the promotional photographs, and often have noticeable air bubbles, I still wanted this piece.

Fantascene had done something similar, although I am not sure what material they used. However that piece went out of production a while ago and I wanted something suggesting Mesoamerican pyramid design for Pulp City and Freebooters Fate games, so the Yztá Pyramid fit the bill.

The footprint is approximately 14 inches by 15 inches and it is between 4 and 5 inches high, so it takes up a decent amount of gaming space. The figures used for scale reference are on 30 mm bases and are from ranges nominally 28-35 mm in scale.

In the UK I think prices are in the £33-£38 range roughly speaking. In terms of recommending this, I do like the design, but I have to caution that the pre-paint won't live up to the images Ziterdes use, and there will likely be an number of air bubbles. If those are things you can overlook and this is the kind of terrain item you are looking for, then I think it is a nice addition, just bear those things in mind if you are thinking of buying.

Ziterdes Terrain

Watchtower Ruin 'Nalog'; 12009

I have had these pieces for a while now, so thought it was high time to post a few considerations.

I like pre-painted terrain as it frees up time for painting minis (which I am slow enough at, without adding more terrain painting to the mix). I have been amassing a number of bits and pieces and most fall into the category of hard-foam or some kind of resin material. Minis are Pulp City, Anima Tactics and a not-Red Skull for scale reference.

These Ziterdes items are the hard-foam type and feature typical pros and cons.

The pros:
Lightweight
Durable enough for gaming
Easy to modify with sawing (apparently!)

The cons:
Air bubbles - pretty much every hard foam piece I have has this problem
The finish - arguably inferior to what Gale Force Nine does (click for some examples of GF9 terrain I have posted about)

Not sure about this one; OOP piece I think

Price wise I find Ziterdes and Gale Force Nine competitive with each other, even though they don't produce identical pieces by any stretch. The Nalog Ruin is around £30-35 GBP. The second piece is currently OOP I think.

I like the solidity of the material Gale Force Nine uses, which means when it comes to a choice, I will likely go with that over hard-foam alternatives. But despite that, there is some nice stuff out there that can be useful for the time-strapped gamer.