I've been on a bit of a terrain bender recently. It's a nice break from all of the fine detail painting with miniatures. I have terrain of all sorts, from plastics and MDF to paper. But I came across a company, Battle Systems, that creates terrain made from a dense cardboard material. I decided to give it a try, and you can read on below for my Battle Systems Fantasy Village review.
It's good. This stuff is really nice, and for the price that I paid it covers a lot of the table. This stuff covers a nice middle ground between paper and MDF. It seems to be a high density cardboard, with printed details and protected with a gloss shine. It goes together with plastic pins, which at first I thought would be annoying, but after a bit you stop noticing it.
Each of these kits comes on frames where you punch out the individual pieces, then put them together either with the aforementioned plastic pins or with cardboards pins. My first complaint with this product are the instructions: there are no physical instructions. Instead, Battle Systems offers video tutorials on their website, which I found annoying as I would frequently have to pause the video to see which pins were being used. I would have much preferred at least a PDF that would let my go at my own pace and not require me to dedicate a whole screen and speakers to.
Besides the instructions, assembly is relatively easy, but I do have issues with the cardboard pins. They have a tendency to bend and start delaminating, which can cause some ugly joins. There should be roof versions of the plastic pins, I think they would have been much better than the solution they went with. Glue isn't technically necessary, but I used it in some places to reinforce the joints. Some of the thinner items, like the fences, are quite weak and prone to bending, so any some glue helps stiffen them as well. The floors have no connectors to the buildings, and if you use the plastic pins it elevates the whole model off the floor. I didn't like that, so I ended up gluing the floors on all of the buildings. This makes the structures much, much sturdier, which will help with successive nights of gaming.
The last two negatives to note before we go into the good stuff. Because of the way it's manufactured, there is no printing on the thin edges of the cardboard, which means you'll have white lines everywhere. I actually don't think it's the worst thing in the world, and you can resolve it using paint or markers to match the general color tone of whatever piece you're working with. This is especially apparent with the furniture the kits come with. I honestly don't really like the furniture, as I have lots of plastic bits left over from Wizkids and Dungeons & Lasers that will do a much better job of it. But, if you don't have any of that stuff, this is a good substitute until you do.
My final gripe is the gloss shine. The printing on these models is so phenomenal, yet the gloss shine immediately reminds you that these are printed. From some angles you can get away with it, and again, the detail is so good it almost looks 3D. But then you get situations like the below:
It's not the biggest deal in the world, but it's there, and it will remind you that it's there. This especially caused me issues as a photographer, as I had to get some clever angles to reduce the glare. I may experiment with a matte spray in the future to reduce it, but at the moment I'm not inclined to go out of my way to do so.
If, after all of the downsides, you still look at this terrain and think, "Gosh Space Dino, I still think that stuff looks really cool...", well then here comes all of the stuff I like, and what I think completely counteracts all those negatives. One of the most important to me is scaling: I hate when my model size and terrain size just doesn't work. This is more of a visual thing to me rather than mathematical. I want the aesthetics to work. And I'm happy to report that it does. Yes, this is a little Skaven model, and yes, I should have taken photos with larger models. But here were are. The terrain works well with 25mm bases, which is the important thing here.
I also really love these stairs. The box came with 3 of them, and they have gaps that can hold 25-32 mm bases so that your models can climb up stairs. It's a neat feature, and one that allows for half movement up stairs. They also completely stand alone, so I can use them with all of my other terrain.
Each building also comes with full interiors, which is especially useful for RPG players, or Wargamers who might want to garrison buildings in their games. The walls are thin so don't take up a lot of the interior space, which means more room for your minis and set dressings. Below we have the largest building in this set, the tavern:
I really love the exterior of the building, but it actually comes in 2 layers with fully detailed interiors. Again, like I said, there's plenty of room for minis to move around inside. There's little notches on the floor that can accept tabs for the furniture that comes with the set. I installed a weapons rack and a bookshelf, which were some of the better bits in my opinion. I did use some glue to help keep them in place, but again, that's my preference and isn't necessary.
For me, the best part of the kit is just how good the printing is. Whoever the graphic artist is that created the textures did a damn fine job. They look great in pictures, and even better in person. For the amount of work you put into this (minimal), you get some wildly good looking terrain. Just look at these glamor shots:
Of course, the next important bit is how well do they play? These are large buildings that provide lots of line-of-sight blocking, and would restrict movement and maneuvering. This makes games more strategic, and also provides some story to your games. Are you here to rescue the villagers? Or perhaps you're a ravening horde here to burn everything to the ground. This terrain helps you do all of that.
Finally, price. I don't like to include exact prices in my discussions, as I like to keep my posts timeless and relevant for the day when inflation makes a bottle of paint cost $100. However, I can talk in relative terms. This whole kit cost me about the same price as one, really nice resin building. That I would have had to prep and paint myself. Obviously, the end results aren't going to be anywhere near the same; you do get what you pay for. But, for the gamer who is on a budget, I can recommend this whole-heartedly.
-The Space Dinosaur
Very useful review! Cheers!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
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