Skeleton, Shovel & Dirt Pile: Using Difficult Ground Accessories
By Welcome to Monster Fight Club! | Published: 2026-11-01
Category: Tips & Care
Turn the Skeleton, Shovel & Dirt Pile set into a convincing story beat on your Difficult Ground tiles. A step-by-step process for placement, basing, and color matching.
Quick answer
Use the Skeleton, Shovel & Dirt Pile as a self-contained story beat: pick one spot on a Difficult Ground tile where the ground already looks broken, glue all three pieces as a single cluster, then match the dirt pile to your ground color so the skeleton reads as part of the terrain rather than a figure dropped on top.
Why these three pieces work best as one cluster
A buried skeleton, a shovel, and a dirt pile tell a clear story only when they sit close together. Spread them across a table and each piece becomes generic scatter; grouped, they suggest someone was digging here and stopped. That narrative is what makes a small accessory worth a permanent place on a tile instead of living in a bits box.
The set is pre-painted resin, so the main decision is not how to paint it but where to put it and whether to adjust the color. Treat the paint as a starting point, not a finished result.
Match the dirt pile to your ground, not to the skeleton
The dirt pile is the piece that has to blend. If your Difficult Ground tiles are gray rubble, a warm brown pile will look pasted on; if your tiles are brown earth, a gray pile will read as a rock. The skeleton and shovel can contrast slightly because they are objects, but the dirt pile should sit within a shade or two of the surrounding ground.
The set is offered in a Rock Color option, which gives you a neutral starting point. Check it against your tiles under the lighting you actually play in before committing glue.
When to leave the pre-paint alone
If your table is painted to a simple, readable standard and you play at arm's length, the supplied paint will hold up fine. Repainting small resin accessories is fiddly, and a heavy-handed wash can pool in the wrong places on a piece this size. Leave it alone if the color already sits close to your ground and you only need it to read as debris.
Repaint or touch up when the piece will sit in the foreground of close-up photos, when the supplied color clashes with your board, or when you want the skeleton to read clearly as bone rather than as another gray rock.
Step-by-step placement and finishing
- Choose the tile and the exact spot: Pick one Difficult Ground tile where the surface already looks cracked, sunken, or rubble-strewn, and mark a spot roughly the width of your open hand. Place the cluster off-center so it does not block the main walking line of the board. Common mistake: centering the scene on a tile that players need to move miniatures across. Check the spot with a miniature standing nearby before you glue anything.
- Dry-fit all three pieces together: Set the dirt pile down first, lay the shovel across it at an angle as if dropped, and tuck the skeleton so it emerges from the pile rather than lying flat beside it. Rotate the group until the skeleton's orientation points toward the shovel. Common mistake: laying the skeleton parallel to the tile edge, which makes it look placed rather than buried. Photograph the dry fit on your phone so you can rebuild the arrangement after gluing.
- Test the color against your ground: Hold the dirt pile against the tile under your normal gaming light. If the pile disappears into the ground, keep it; if it stands out as a separate object, plan a thin touch-up coat on the pile only. Common mistake: repainting the skeleton and shovel to match the ground, which erases the contrast that makes them readable. Adjust the pile first; leave the skeleton and shovel as supplied unless they vanish against the tile.
- Glue as one unit, pile first: Attach the dirt pile, let it set, then bond the shovel and skeleton to the pile and tile with a small amount of glue at the contact points. Support the skeleton while it cures if it overhangs. Common mistake: gluing the skeleton flat to the tile first, which leaves the dirt pile sitting on top of it instead of around it. Keep the cluster removable from the tile only if you store tiles stacked; otherwise glue it down permanently.
- Seal and store: Brush a thin matte varnish over the painted surfaces once the glue is fully cured, then store the finished tile with the cluster facing up or with padding between stacked tiles. Common mistake: stacking tiles directly on the protruding shovel handle, which is the most likely part to snap. Note which tile carries the cluster so you can pack it first.
Product facts
- Skeleton, Shovel, & Dirt Pile - Difficult Ground Kickstarter Accessories: Kickstarter Exclusive set with limited availability, sold without retail packaging. Buy the number of clusters you need in one order, since restocking is not guaranteed and loose pieces are harder to store than a boxed set.
Skeleton, Shovel, & Dirt Pile - Difficult Ground Kickstarter Accessories - Skeleton, Shovel, & Dirt Pile - Difficult Ground Kickstarter Accessories: Includes a buried skeleton, a dirt pile, and a shovel, pre-painted in resin with a Rock Color option. You get a complete three-piece scene out of one purchase, so plan a single tile location rather than splitting the parts across several boards.
