Krautcover Basecover "Soil of Sparta" Review

Pricepoint

Krautcover's Basecover range comes in at £6 for a 140ml tub; this is at the medium point when it comes to their prices, owing to the more complex mix of materials but without the bespoke bits included in the Signature mixes. That's still on the pricier end, especially compared to companies that offer more material for less, but not exorbitant if the material itself is good. 

What do you get?

 

This is the first mix we've covered that includes clumps in with our other particulates, along with a tiny dash of a very short, light green, static grass. The main event however is a mixture of coarse and fine granules of a quartz beach sand, slightly coarser at the top of the tub as you first open it or if the mix has had a chance to settle in the tub, but upon mixing (see pic above) it's largely medium to fine.

So What Do I Think?

In the tub, the mix looks rather dark, likely owing to the different quartzes absorbing more light than finer silica sand, but as you can see on these Albanians when the mix is applied over a light sandy yellow colour it brightens up a lot, giving the shards of lighter stones a chance to stand out more. What little grass there is accents the surrounding rocks without being too obtrusive, but the occasional crumbs of clump seem a little... ill-defined? At this scale, it's not clear what kind of plant it's meant to be, as standard "bush" tufts are much taller. It might just have been my particular* pot, but I ended up with a couple of large shreds of clump and the rest was tiny crumbs that just look like specks among the rocks.

Thankfully the rocks on the whole work with its theme - the region around the Mediterranean sea from Iberia to Lebanon -  and once we get to the Sieving section we'll see how it can work as different regions by varying the mix.

*Particular, geddit? Cuz it's... it's particulates... ...my mum thinks I'm funny...

QA

While the pebbles are on the whole very natural, owing to it being beach sand, some of the grains of sand that are indistinct dashes of white or amber when tiny look slightly incongruous at miniature scale.

At the foot of this soldier for example, a boulder of pure white quartz is just sitting in the grass, trying to catch the eye of a passing stonemason.

Here's a selection of the largest stones in the mix, just to show you the range of rocks that might turn up on your base, with the translucent quartzes joined by slate, cream and amber coloured stones that look very distinct when they aren't as tiny as the rest of the grains in the mix. If you're basing an entire regiment using this mix, this might well go unnoticed, but it's something to consider if your model is on their own, such as a display piece or centrepiece of your army. 

Does it Sieve?

Sieving this mix gives this product a lot of extra versatility. For more mountainous regions such as Greece a higher ratio of the larger stones and most of the clumps suggests rockier ground for skirmishing over, whereas the finer mix allows the grass to stand out more, and would be useful for Iberian regions such as the Peninsular wars. However, it does leave the mix looking quite similar to Geek Gaming Scenics' Mediterranean Soil, which we've looked at previously and which comes with almost twice as much material for only £1 more, so if that's what you're after this mix might not be for you.

Does it Scale?

These Hoplites are 10mm scale. Sifting out the largest particulates allows the chips and grains of the smallest stones to stand out as rocks at this scale, and while these bases didn't leave me room for the clumps, they would look more natural than they do at 28mm as they can pass for full sized bushes.

This model of Pat Harper from the classic SNL skits and tie-in film It's Pat! is 54mm scale. As you can see the largest clumps work the way a tuft would at this scale, and the biggest pebbles still only look like small rocks (so no mysterious amber boulders) while the rest looks like very natural sand. You could even stand to go harder on the coarse mix of stones, as stonier ground that's still as walkable as a pebble beach at 54mm.

Final Score - 4/5 - Greener Pastures

This is a very good mixture. The use of natural sand largely pays off, the range of granules of sand makes for a convincing look at multiple scales, and it fits its advertised theme very well. It's only a few teething problems with the larger stones and the clumps that hold it back from a full 5/5, and even these materials aren't necessarily a problem if handled well.

If the stones bother you, pick them out with tweezers either in the tub or before the glue dries on your base. The clumps are a close match to Woodland Scenics' Light Green or Medium Green clump packs, so if you want to lean into them harder you can put bigger crumbs on your bases for larger bushes, and if you want smaller ones simply tease apart the crumbs in the pack with your fingers or just pick them out and be left with the specks.