--- title: "Terrain Crate advent calendar" subtitle: "By Mantic" author: "Seth Kenlon" publish_date: 2026-07-22 00:01 date: 2026-07-22 00:01 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: mantic-terrain-1600x800.webp show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: blog tag: [ dungeon, tools, rpg, dnd, wargame ] --- Last year around this time of the year, I got a Kickstarter notification that [Mantic Games](https://www.manticgames.com/) was running a campaign for advent calendars that contained pieces of little wargames. There were 5 unique games being offered, so I went in for all 5 because I thought they would make great gifts for my gaming group. The calendars arrived in time for Christmas and I surprised my players with the calendars, and even got to play a little bit of the sci fi game earlier this year. Because my partner and I don't celebrate Christmas, and instead celebrate mid-winter during the southern hemisphere's winter, we got to open our own advent calendar this month, so this is my review of the **Terrain Crate** advent calendar. I love the concept of an advent calendar. It brings back good memories of childhood Christmases, and it has the effect of drawing out the opening gifts across a whole month instead of that clunky tradition of getting a bunch of useless stuff within an hour of one day. The problem has been, until the Mantic **Terrain Crate** advent calendars, that no advent calendar appealed to me. Between not being very fond of lollies, and not wanting stuff I won't use, most advent calendars just aren't designed for my tastes. Mantic's calendars are different. I'm an avid tabletop gamer and I have a pretty high level of trust for Mantic's game and product design, so I would have definitely played any of the games available. I chose to keep the **Terrain Crate** for myself because I do need terrain for existing games more than I need another game, and it turned out to be pretty much perfect. ## What's in the box Across 24 days, my partner and I got an assortment of barrels, crates, treasure chests, bookshelves, tables and desks, makeshift barricades, one stone throne, one sarcophagus, and one well. The sculpts are great, no complaints. Miniature furniture to use in miniature games Most of it feels like scatter terrain, but I think, if you needed them to be, some items could be centerpieces or objective markers. If I hadn't already [built myself a well](https://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_terrain-for-balin) and bought myself a coffin, I'd definitely use the well and sarcophagus in [Battle for Balin's Tomb](https://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_review-balins-tomb). And I've already played a wargame scenario that required the players to go loot every barrel and crate on the battlefield (and the barricades were useful in that game, too.) ## Project-based holidays The unexpected pleasure of opening a little terrain model every day during our time off was that it gave me and my partner a fun painting project. Any time we felt like sitting around and being creative, we each grabbed a terrain model and painted it. We weren't rushing ourselves and had no deadline or expectation, and indeed we didn't manage to get every piece of terrain painted. But that was part of what made it fun. I wasn't wargaming much during the holiday, so I didn't feel like I needed to paint to play. We relaxed into it and painted for as long as we felt like painting, and then set it all aside to finish later. It was a great thing to do together, and it was especially nice because although she's a talented visual artist, my partner doesn't normally paint miniatures. Having an excuse to paint miniatures together made this the calendar a treat for both of us. The challenge of each terrain model varied. The tables are pretty easy, as you might imagine, but the bookshelves have lots of tiny books on them and one even has a globe, so that's taken a lot of time and care to complete. Barrels are pretty easy, but they take a small brush and a steady hand to get those metal bands painted cleanly. Crates are the really easy ones, although I did find myself worrying that I still didn't have enough brown paint (ultimately I came to the conclusion that not every crate had to be a distinct shade.) ## Hero quest more like terrain quest There wasn't a single item of terrain in the calendar that's not useful. The calendar definitely contains _fantasy_ terrain, so it's probably not going to make it into my [Space Station Zero](https://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_review-space-station-zero) or [](https://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_review-rogue-stars) games, although they fit in fine with **Warhammer 40,000**. The beautiful thing about the box is that it essentially equips you with a HeroQuest-like assortment of dungeon detritus. Whether you're wargaming or roleplaying, this is the stuff you want for that random dungeon you're about to delve into. You'll use bookshelves and tables for libraries, wizard's workshops, scholarly tombs, and living rooms, you'll use crates and barrels for vaults, warehouses, shops, hideouts, and ships. You'll populate so many different types of rooms with one or three of the items from this calendar before you start feeling like you need more terrain. The only thing the box is missing, by my estimation, is a statue. I was really hoping for some statue, either noble or demonic, because that seems like a great fantasy trope that could also be pretty versatile. Given that there were 5 book shelves (so, almost a quarter of the days), I think swapping one bookshelf out for a statue would have been a nice touch. Then again, they'd have had to have thought to do that, and they obviously didn't. That's fair, because I never thought of the idea of a miniature game advent calendar and they did. ## Get a calendar I don't know whether Mantic Games plans on doing advent calendars again this year, but if they do I can recommend them as a fun, novel, and very useful gift. It's fun to experience as you open each day's treat, it's fun to paint the models, and it's a nice bonus for your tabletop game to have the addition of miniature terrain.