Geeking Out – City Scenics, part 2 – “Heavy Lifting”

Now a wee while back the mighty TT Combat sent me a hearty pile of stuff to paw over. So this time on Geeking Out I’ll be taking a look at some of the bigger pieces. And when I say bigger, I mean bigger.

First up: the Construction Crane.

Coming in at £13.95 (and available to buy from TTCombat.com by CLICKING HERE), it’s an absolute steal for what is – a bit of a beast. Standing nearly 2 ft high fully built, this is a towering addition to a table (although there’s also the even larger dock crane, at £19.95, if you’re so minded).

It feels like a fairly intimidating prospect to build also, but it’s logical and well organised, both on the sprue and in terms of instructions.

After an hour of building, I was at this point:

So the entirety of the base section was built. The arm is completely separate and, to ensure that you get all those nooks and crannies covered, I would suggest priming it at this stage.

A little note on primer. As I’ve said before, MDF eats paint. However, I have discovered something rather neat: PlastiKoat. This is acrylic spray with plastic in it, forming an effective seal without the need for coating your mdf in pva (and even then potentially multiple layers of primer) – here’s one I made earlier:

Available in black and white (I picked mine up from Wickes for £9, other retailers are available), I’m going with white because I want a nice clean base to get filthy from. I wouldn’t use this to prime anything other than MDF, however – fine detail becomes too obscured – but it’s perfectly suited for an item like this.

When assembling the base of the arm, I left it unglued to slot it all comfortably together, and it certainly does so. It’s a beast, and most impressive.

Now I have done some fiddling – I’ve added “glass” to my cabin with blister packaging, and added a couple of off-cuts to make warning lights for the top.

And then there’s my niggle – the hook. It’s clearly there to be built, but there’s no instructions for it. It’s pretty obvious, but it’s irksome nonetheless.

So as you can see, this thing is vast. Frank Miller Batman from KM (~40mm) at the base for scale. It’s sturdy, mighty impressive, and a fine addition to any board.

As to how to store it, well, that’s another matter! Crucially, it really isn’t that difficult to build. So, all in all, certainly a recommendation for this.

Up next we have MSV Ironsides, an absolute brute of a cargo ship that clocks in at a mighty £25.95 (and again, available to buy from TTCombat.com by CLICKING HERE), a bargain when you consider it’s 3ft long, has a detailed interior cabin, comes with 6 Cargo containers, 2 crates and an exclusive hazardous waste container also.

Now I freely admit, I was a bit intimidated by the prospect of building the curved prow, but it’s clearly numbered on the pieces themselves which order they stack in:

Green Arrow obligingly providing scale there! The stern of the boat is astonishingly quick and easy to build. It’s no exaggeration to say that this was done in under an hour:

At that point, it’s simply a case of slotting the prow in:

Yes, it’s vast – practically a gaming table in its own right.

The highly detailed hazard container is very easy to build also, and I can see this generally being used in a variety of scenarios: There’s also further crates, which annoyingly again come without instructions. This is an irksome pattern, it has to be said. Very straightforward to construct, but only obvious from the final picture.

As a set, this really is outstanding. I love what TT combat do: it’s affordable and well designed terrain that’s (mostly) easy to build and looks cracking. More please!