Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready (Small Scale) "Mediterranean Soil" Review

Pricepoint

Directly from Geek Gaming Scenics' website a tub of Mediterranean Soil costs £7, but for that you get a hefty 250ml tub of material, over 100g more than some of their competitors. GGS have thankfully moved away from their old format of plastic bags, meaning you can store your partially used packs without having to pray that the clip or rubber band holding the pack shut doesn't betray you & leak sand or grass everywhere!

What do you get?

The mix here is mostly sand, with a range of larger - albeit still tiny - grains of other sands mixed in. There are also flakes of pale sandstone-like stone and semi-transparent glass or quartz, and some specks of a much darker, almost black stone in very small quantities. This is all mixed with a green static grass, quite probably the 2mm variant of their "spring" mixture, in just enough of a ratio to suggest the kind of lightly grassy sand found in the mediterranean or your local sand dunes.

So What Do I Think?

There's a lot to like here. There's a very slight yellowish tinge to the sand when you're looking at it in the tub, but when spread on the base it's a natural pale colour, and the grass is a nice light shade without it being as obnoxiously bright as some "summer" or "jungle" static grasses can be. I'd recommend a clear glue, in order to prevent any issues with the sand going transparent with white glue, as we encountered in our Booty Beach review. The grain of the sand is nice and small while still giving the impression of tiny stones and not super-fine beach sand, and while I'm not wild about the darkest shades of stone being mixed in - mostly due to it being so much darker and there not being a median point between them and the rest of the sand - they do provide visual interest in what could have been a very plain mixture otherwise.

There isn't really a way to control the ratio of sand to grass when applying, but as the mix is predominantly sand and the grass plays well with other shades (both from GGS and other manufacturers), you can mix up a small batch of this mix and as much extra grass as you need.

QA

No issues to report in the mixture. I've had the lid of another tub of GGS mix splinter slightly when breaking the seal upon first opening, but that could be equally ascribable to my overeagerness (or fat fingers) and didn't compromise the tub - I just turned the lid around once I'd gotten the tub open and had no further issues. Just be more careful than I was!

Does it Sieve?

Sieving this mix creates both a much finer sandy mix that still contains stones and some grass, suitable for things like sand dunes or dirt roads, and a much denser rock and grass mixture such as you might get in mountainsides or wilderness. Both would work fine on their own, or mixed back together in different ratios for natural transitions in your terrain projects. 

Does it Scale?

Ideally a mixture designed for smaller scale models will have just enough visual interest that it will suggest at a casual glance the impression of details like rocks without crowding out the models or drawing the eye away from them.

The models pictured here are 10mm, and as you can see none of the rocks come up past the minis' ankles and the grass is just tall enough to suggest the kind of grasslands troops would actually march through instead of going around. I did have to pick out a few of the "flake" stone chips after the glue dried, as they had a tendency to stand upright or lean against minis, but only one or twice for each of these bases. A few larger pebbles or a crumb of clump foliage to suggest larger objects could be added by hand without causing any issues, but leaving them out doesn't leave the mix looking too plain, either.

These models on the other hand are 28mm. As you can see, while a little plain on their own without additional tufts or basing bits, the mix scales up quite well, with the stones becoming pebbles underfoot and the grass remaining "there, but unobtrusive". 

Final Score - 4/5 - Greener Pastures

An excellent mixture, both on its own and for mixing in with other materials, and at a great pricepoint. While not the most exciting of mixes, its natural look and lack of any obtrusive elements makes it a good candidate for either punching up with additional tufts or basing bits, or leaving plain if you've got 3 phalanxes of troops left to do and just want them to match & look good. If you're buying this for a diorama project, I would suggest buying both this and their larger scale Mediterranean Soil for some variety and larger materials, for a mixture of open and rough ground.