Review: Basecrafts assorted rocks

A collection of the stones that I was sent for review.

Right, Dave at Basecrafts sent me a load of stuff to review a fair few months back now. Thing is there's been a lot going on, and my reviews of his products have been significantly delayed (sorry Dave). I have used a few of the products he sent in various projects I've been working on, and I've also farmed some of the stuff out to other people I know, who actually might get to use them in projects of their own. That's rather than me actually just using the stuff and wasting them on meaningless projects just for review, I wanted to see how the various bits and pieces worked 'for real' if you will. Any way, I considered reviewing these all separately... but then I realised they were the same thing, just different colours. So I've decided to lump them all together as one review. Each stone type will get individual scores though...

Product Description

Right, simply put we're talking about various stone types in a plastic container. I'm not going to go into further details beyond that I think for this review as I don't think much more is needed. So what are the various stone types I've got to review?

The first rocks I have to review are the Light Green Crystal Rock. The rock contained isn't uniform and the package contains approximately 35g. It actually contain 36.27g... yeah I'm that anal I tested the weight!!!

Next up was the Blue Crystal Rock, which unsurprisingly shares some similarities with the Light Green variety... except it's blue. Obviously. This pack also has approximately 35g of Blue Crystal Rock in it, but we got short changed, it actually contained 34.98g. I know, terrible right. Strangely though it looks like there might actually be more Crystal in the Blue Crystal pack than the Green Crystal pack. Perhaps Blue Crystal is slightly lighter?

We move out of Cystal territory now and get the wonderful world of Red Glitter Rock. This is a very dark stone, probably Black or at the very least dark charcoal grey, with patches of red glitter all over it. Yeah tasteful right? I guess somebody has to need it for some basing purpose. The package said it contains 3g of red glitter rock, which when I read it I thought must have been wrong. But it seems that Red Glitter Rock is made out of thin air as the pack actually contained 3.2g.

The first rocks I was sent that could be could good 'old fashioned' rocks are these, the Dark Brown Rocks. They are exactly what they say they are, Dark Brown Rocks. The packaging says they contain 50g worth of rock, but yet again I must have hit the jackpot as they actually contained 53.76g. Result!!!

The final packet of rocks I received for reviewing was the Talus (rocks) Buff (mixed). Yeah I'm not so sure it's the snappiest of names either, but hey it's what they're called. This package is made up of the same sandy beige brown coloured rock, but it's size and shape varied massively from small little chips of rock, right up to large pieces. It's the most varied package I have for review. The pack contains 25g of rock pretty much dead on, which is exactly what the pack said it would contain.

Light Green Crystal Rock

Character 8 out of 10
Usefulness 8 out of 10
Quality 8 out of 10
Service N/A out of 10
Price 9 out of 10

The Light Green Crystal Rock's were actually the first of the coloured, or as my better half calls them funky rocks, that I could see a clear use for. If you're either a Necron or Skaven player then I think these Crystals will appeal to you for pretty obvious reasons. In fact these Light Green Crystals were pinched by a friend of mine who owns both Necron and Skaven armies, it just seemed wrong of me to deprive him of them given he wanted them so badly. Plus I didn't really have a choice! I did have a bit of a play about with some before he took them off of my hands though, super glue holds them together well in a cluster and doesn't seem to cause much, if any misting or fogging. Another neat trick was to put clear resin or water effect over such clusters, which makes them look like big glowing chunks of warpstone. You could actually use this method to replace various bits of warpstone on your Skaven mini's if you so chose.

I also found that there was a pleasing degree of variance within the pack in terms of shape and size. The stones were all pleasingly unique and irregular looking. Something I often get a bit frustrated over with some similar products, is how uniform certain stone products can be. True I'm sure there are those of you out there who would like to have identikit or very similar stones throughout a product like this, but I'm not one of them. I think stones of any type should be there to create a nice unique basing feature. Yeah you might like similar sizes on your bases, but part of the point of using stones should really be about natural variance surely? Any way I was pleased with the range of sizes and shapes within the Light Green Crystal Rock pack that I got, and I'd happily recommend them if you're looking for something a bit different to put on your bases or miniatures.

Overall 8 out of 10

Blue Crystal Rock


Character 7 out of 10
Usefulness 7 out of 10
Quality 8 out of 10
Service N/A out of 10
Price 9 out of 10

Surely they're just the same as the Light Green Crystal Rock's, but blue, right? Well no. You see the green rocks actually allow a fair degree of light to pass through them and give off a sort of luminous glow, that I personally found rather pleasing. These Blue Crystal Rocks just aren't as translucent. Plus I personally can't quite see a use for them in any of the projects I've done. Whereas when I was looking at the Light Green variety I was thinking about replacing warpstone in Doomwheels and Warp Lightening Cannons nothing sprang to mind for the Blue Crystal Rocks. Now that could simply be a failure of my own imagination, but I just couldn't think of a cool use for them. Alien planet? Maybe, but I always think of flora and fauna for such things. Maybe High Elf bases on Ulthaun... but would the High Elves go to war on a rocky field? Hell no! Not a chance of it. They'd make sure even their meadows were well manicured bowling green lawns!!! Perhaps some of you guys can think of uses, but for me right now I'm stumped and probably wouldn't want to use them. All the things I said about shape size etc for the Light Green Crystal Rocks fully applies here too. There's a nice spread of shapes and sizes.

Overall 7 out of 10

Red Glitter Rock


Character 4 out of 10
Usefulness 4 out of 10
Quality 8 out of 10
Service N/A out of 10
Price 9 out of 10

Just no. I can't see any use personally for having black rocks with red glitter on any of my bases... pretty much ever actually. Of all the products I've received from Basecrafts this is the one I see the least practical use for personally. The glitter also comes off of them, which has an annoying tendency to get stuck to your face and lose you man points... unless you're a bassist from a glam rock band, in which case you get glam points! I also found they were actually quite uniform in size and shape, with only the odd stone actually being slightly larger in shape. Whereas I can see the uses for Crystal Rokcs as they're supposed to be different looking from your painted miniatures, the fact that these are a solid uniform colour, with glitter would just be really hard to 'tie in' with a painted miniature I think. Nothing wrong with the quality of them or indeed the price (£1.20, all products on the page are the same price) considering the amount you get, they're just not the sort of thing I'd use personally. In fact I can't find them on the Basecrafts website anymore so maybe they're no longer available.

Overall 5 out of 10

Dark Brown Rocks


Character 9 out of 10
Usefulness 9 out of 10
Quality 8 out of 10
Service N/A out of 10
Price 9 out of 10

These are really good sized rocks and I think of all the rocks that I got sent by Dave, I instantly gravitated towards these first. I used to use a lot of slate on my miniatures, which is obviously a very 'flat' product. It comes in neat slices and is actually quite difficult to make look like a lump of masonry or naturally occurring stone at scale. There are no such issues with these Dark Brown Rocks. The varied shapes and sizes will allow you to build up interesting rocky outcrops for scenic bases, or terrain projects. Or to put big lumps of realistic looking rock on your armies bases. Honestly when I first saw these rocks I instantly though of my Trollbloods for Hordes. They'd make those bases look suitably rugged and mountainous, which is what I want. No need to carefully select layers of slate and build them up to look like rocks... as I'd actually have rocks! I really like these. Like the Red Glitter Rock though I can no longer find these on the Basecrafts website, I hope they haven't discontinued them as that would be a shame.

Overall 8.5 out of 10

Talus Buff Mixed


Character 9 out of 10
Usefulness 9 out of 10
Quality 8 out of 10
Service N/A out of 10
Price 9 out of 10

My favourite packet of rocks that I was sent to review. Like the Dark Brown Rocks before them, these Talus Buff Mixed rocks actually have a natural looking variance to them that is pleasing to the eye, and pleasing for miniature scale modelling. The variability in shape and size within the pack also gives the scenic base builder a lot of options to play with. I am actually using some of these in a one off resin base project I'm currently working on for my Heavy Gear Blitz forces... but I digress. These rocks are actually really light, which makes them idea for putting onto miniatures bases. They're also slightly porous which means that with some watered down PVA glue you can stick chunks of them together to form interesting shapes quite easily. Their nature also means they're more brittle than the other rocks I've reviewed here, so if you wanted to you could use a small chisel and crush or chip some of the rocks to try and shape them more to your tastes, which is what I've done. If you are into making scenic bases, or just want to make sure your army stands out from the crowd then these might be a good place to start.

Overall 9 out of 10

Conlusion

Well actually I think Basecrafts are doing some pretty darn interesting products actually. They also now stock the Secret Weapon washes too, so if you live in the UK or Europe there is now a distributor you won't get hit for import tax on Secret Weapon products. Any who, back to these rocks. They all cost £1.20 per pack, which seems more than reasonable to me. You seem to get what you pay for and I can see uses for some of these products and I guess if there's something in the crystal or rocks section of their website that takes your fancy I'd recommend it. They're not all to my own personal taste but hey it takes all sorts and at least Basecraft are offering people options. Peace out!

EDIT: Ranolan asked in the comments section down below if I could add some comparison shots of the various rock types next to a miniature... so I've placed them next to the most common soldier in the far flung grimdark future. Don't shoot me!

Hope that helps Ranolan.