Angel Barracks pulls through!

I want to talk a bit about Angel Barracks. It's a site, or company if you will, that sells 6mm terrain and stuff. Since the start Angel Barracks has branched out into 2 and 3mm scales as well! They have also released a couple of rulesets but I can't comment on them since I have never played them. Michael who runs Angel Barracks has an interesting blog where he shows off some minis and terrain and the occasional battle report if you want to check them out.


As well as stocking other companies terrain and figures Angel Barracks have started to release their own small (pun intended!) range of sci-fi scenery and figures. While I do enjoy a game of Epic40k now and then they aren't really my cup of tea. However, Angel Barracks recently added some sandbag emplacements and improvised barricades that wouldn't look out of place on a WW2 battlefield. 

The emplacements are approx. 40x25mm.

I just couldn't resist ordering one of each to try them out. As you might know my original plan is to play IABSM in 6mm, all this big size 20mm malarkey is only for the convention games. And because I like to build the models. So I do need some good emplacements in 6mm that both look good and are practical and these might just fit the bill.

The barricades are approx 50x15 mm in size.

The pieces come two in a pack for £1.50 and £2.00 respectively. The resin is white and crisp with good details, a bit hard to get on photo though because of the whiteness. The sandbags are a little bit oversized but  look good, had they been smaller they would have looked too tiny I think. The barricades are made of stuff like furniture, oil barrels, boxes and random debris and really look the part. They should paint up really nicely I think.

A GHQ british 6-pounder mounted on a 20x20mm base fits well.

Unfortunately the emplacements and barricades are a little bit too small for my requirements. I base my 6mm squads on two bases of  20x20mm or 40x10mm, and some of my older stuff are based on one 40x20mm base. Either way a squad takes up 40x20mm and it would be practical to fit a whole squad per emplacement. A gun team or a half squad on a 20x20mm base fits ok in the sandbag emplacements, but not those mounted on 40x10mm bases.

GHQ US airborne mounted on a 40x10mm base almost fits behind the barricades.

The barricades are wider, so I had some hope of them fitting a 40mm wide base, but they are sculpted with some of the junk in the way, so the base is just a few millimeters too wide. I could of course carve some of it off, and I might do that, but it's a little shame ruin the nice sculpt.

For those of you who wonder where the different sizes come from it's really simple.

• 40x20mm is a standard warmaster base, and when I played Blitzkrieg Commander I used those base sizes since the game was based on warmaster and I liked the look 8-10 figures on a 40x20mm base.
• 20x20mm is the old Epic base. I had a couple of those left so I used them to base weapon teams and AT guns for BKC, and continued to do that for IABSM. For flexibility I started to base halfsquads on the same size bases too.
• 40x10mm is the new Epic40k bases. I really like the look of four or five figures advancing on a line so that became my third option for mounting 6mm figures.

No matter which basing I use a squad always takes up the same area on the tabletop which avoids odd gamey situations where one force is more suited to fighting in close terrain or more vulnerable to area attacks because of the base sizes.

To sum it all up they are very nice scenery pieces, and very useful. The size issue detracts a bit, but as they are generic pieces I guess it's hard to know what everyone use for bases out there. Anyway, Michael has put a question up on TMP about just that, so in the future I hope there will be some wider stuff coming. If you have any requirements just post in the thread or try mailing Michael on mail@angelbarracks.co.uk and I'm sure he will listen.

I give them four stars out of five. You can find them all under 6mm scenery or by clicking here.
I have to say though, that you really get top service from Angel Barracks. Highly recommended.