Upscale Your Table Without Breaking Your Budget with TTCombat’s Fantastic Terrain
Looking for a centerpiece for your modern or pulp based wargame? Check out TTCombat’s giant ship clocking in at roughly two-and-a-half feet long!
TTCombat specializes in affordable MDF Terrain at great prices. They also have a few miniatures games of their own (like Carnevale and Rumbleslam), but today’s post is going to focus on their Cargo Ship with the expansion. Without the expansion, this ship is a little over a-foot-and-a-half in length. You can also buy the contents of these two sets together in their MSV Ironsides kit.
I bought these two MDF Terrain Kits through Cardboard Dungeon Games which offer amazing prices on TTCombat products in North America. Their prices are in Canadian Dollars, so American Dollars will go even further there. The Cargo Ship Kit there is just $21.95, which is roughly $16.50 USD with today’s exchange rate. If you buy direct from TTCombat, MSV Ironsides (which is the full-sized extended ship) runs for roughly $35 USD after conversion. For that price, this kit is worth it!!!
Building the Ship
That said, I view TTCombat as a value brand. Some of the other MDF companies out there make better kits, but they can’t compete with TTCombat in terms of price. That said, do you see the file in the picture below? I actually had to file many of these pieces so they would fit together properly. I don’t need to worry about filing with many other MDF companies’ kits, but their prices are also much higher than TTCombat’s.
To hold MDF pieces together as the wood glue dries, I use elastic bands. Works great.
The instructions on how to build the kits are freely available on the product pages of the TTCombat website. I actually went there and looked at those directions before purchasing the ship to build. I wanted to make sure it would be a project that interested me.
I just like to build things, and this kit gave me that satisfaction.
The doors can come off if you want. I took it off by accident. Didn’t mean to do that, but some wood glue had it hanging back in place in no time.
Here things are going well, and I was investigating the directions to the Cargo Ship Extension before I actually opened the package.
It all went together very well. I was a little concerned about the center and nose staying together. That said, after owning the built ship for a few years, it never fell apart. I was gentle with it, but it didn’t snap apart as I moved it around the table or placed it on the gaming shelves nearby.
Scale Comparison
For scale comparison purposes, here the ship is with some 28mm Bolt Action Miniatures on it by Warlord Games. This ship is huge and intended to fit in with 28mm to 35mm miniatures!
The Finished Project
To finish off the project, I quickly spray painted it with some spray paint.
Here we have the extended-length ship on its own.
Add in a gaming mat, and it looks much better even though I just spray-painted it grey.
The top level of the ship is accessible if you build the ship by the directions. The lower level is not. If you are crafty, you could likely make the bottom accessible too, but I couldn’t be bothered with it.
Related Posts and Videos
If you want to know more about this kit or MDF terrain, I have a few posts and videos to recommend to you. A little while back, I created a YouTube video about painting MDF terrain. This ship makes an appearance in that video.
The cargo containers that you see in the images above, I reviewed separately from the ship as I bought them in sets of three instead of buying the MSV Ironsides kit. These cargo crates come in sets of three and, with today’s exchange rate, cost under $3.50 a container. That’s excellent. Another example of great value from TTCombat.
There is a related written review of these containers over on my personal site. I also have a work in progress article talking about spray painting these kits and more. The quick of it is that I sprayed it with grey primer and left it at that. I had intentions of painting it up more, but heard another project calling my name. As I stated earlier, it is the build that I like the most. The work in progress shots do show you my work space and a couple of cool kits by another company, so come check those out too!
Wrapping it up…
When it comes to budget, TTCombat is the best company that I know for MDF Kits. You can get big kits that look good on the tabletop from them at very affordable prices. If you want to upgrade your table, take a look at this kit. Personally, I had a lot of fun building this kit, and that was enough for me. After holding on to it for a few years, I decided to let a new owner enjoy it on the tabletop. That said, I really enjoyed it while I owned it, and I am super impressed at the price versus what you get. So much terrain for such a small cost!
Thanks for reading. If you liked this post, be sure to check out my site too! I also have a longer version of this article there with more pictures of the ship and more scale comparison images too.
Until next time, Happy Gaming, Everyone!!!
Read more about great Indie and Historical games on my site!
Must Contain Minis is my reviews, showcases, and battle reports website, where I look at a wide variety of miniatures games and related products. I like to focus mainly on indie and historical games. If you haven’t visited for a while, come on over and check the site out! You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Thanks again for reading!!!
