Schleich Watering Hole

My brother is a very generous person and he bought me a very impressive 2018 Christmas present. He asked me what I'd like and I replied anything from my Amazon wish list. He then asked me to choose the one item I'd most want and I had no hesitation in nominating the Schleich Watering Hole set. I'd already bought two Schleich River sections and the Waterfall set, all of which were compatible with one another. Schleich are a German firm who specialise in highly detailed large scale animals, dinosaurs and fantasy creatures. I have some of their dinosaurs and I'm very impressed with them.
Here are all of my sets including my small Scorpion's Nest. Note how the river seamlessly fits in with the waterfall and watering hole sets. I should mention that these sets are not sold as 28mm scale scenery pieces but they fit in perfectly with figures of that scale. I've included my Copplestone Castings figure of Vampifan in many of the photos to give you a sense of scale. The main reason that I wanted these sets was to use them in my Wild West games plus others like, for example, the Cursed Earth from Judge Dredd.
For the rocky outcrop of the waterfall, I gave it a Citadel Agrax Earthshade wash then dry-brushed it with Foundry Arctic Grey Shade 33A and Foundry Base Sand Light 10C. The waterfall was heavily dry-brushed with Foundry Arctic Grey Light 33C (White). For the sandy base I gave it a Citadel Seraphim Sepia wash followed by a dry-brushing with Foundry Base Sand Light 10C. Note that there is a cave hidden behind the waterfall, which is useful for hiding in.
Vampifan has climbed to the top of the rocky outcrop. I'm glad I took the time to paint my scenery items as it makes them look much more realistic. The sculpting of this set is most impressive
The two river sections were the first items that I bought from this range because I always wanted a river section to use in my games. A major criticism I have of many commercial or scratch-built rivers is that the water does not look very realistic. In the old days I just used blue mounting board to represent my river sections. They worked but were hardly realistic. One look at the Schleich River section and I was immediately taken at just how realistic the water looked. What they have done is use a piece of coloured paper for the river bed and fixed a piece of clear perspex on top of it, which is textured with the ripples of the river.
A very small item I bought was the Scorpion's Nest. It comes with one plastic scorpion. My second scorpion came with the Watering Hole set. Using the scorpions with 28mm scale figures places them in the giant mutant category - ideal for a Cursed Earth or Weird West setting.
The Watering Hole set has a large footprint and is very cleverly designed with a cool surprise, which I'll reveal below. It came with about half a dozen animals you'd find if on a safari but they are all massive and totally unusable for 28mm scale gaming. That didn't bother me at all as I wanted this set for the scenery not the animals.
That said, the scorpion and the giant centipede shown above emerging from a cave, are very useful as mutated insects. Just look how the light is reflected on the water in a very realistic manner.
There is a small island in the centre of the watering hole. How do you reach the island if you can't swim? The tree splits in half to form two bridges. Perhaps it got struck by a bolt of lightning which rent it in half. What a cool surprise!
The large rocky outcrop shown above forms another cave which is big enough to stand a 28mm scale figure inside.
Yet again, just look at how realistic the water effects are. I am mightily impressed with these sets. I'm already thinking up scenarios based around the watering hole for a few of my games.
The river section costs £11.99, the waterfall costs £17.98 and the watering hole currently costs £58.00 but when my brother bought it, it only cost £39.99. I'm not sure why it has had such a massive price hike. The scorpion nest cost £3.99 but is currently unavailable on Amazon UK.