Note: Terrains4Games provided these products free of charge to SPQVI for the purpose of this review. We are in no way affiliated with Terrains4Games and have received no fiscal compensation for this review. I intend to post balanced reviews of the products that I receive or purchase, and I will always let you know if I’ve received the products free of charge, as in this case.

Terrains4Games, a terrain company based in Poland, is putting out a new products to add to their line of MDF Prussian buildings. These buildings are available in 15, 20, and 28mm scale. The buildings are laser cut, and sent on sprues. In order to assemble these buildings, you will need a craft/hobby knife and white glue. I used a small file to help clean the parts and elastics to hold pieces in place when gluing but otherwise used no special tooling.

I have not added to the buildings in any way, either adding filler to gaps or putting roofing tiles on. I want you to see the product as is. I have assembled them with white glue and given them a basic painting using some artist’s acrylic paint and some Vallejo chocolate brown for the wood paneling.  What you see in the pictures below is what you get out of the package and painted with a minimum of skill.

The Box

I received 4 buildings, 3 of which I will review here (with an explanation as to why I am not doing a review of the 4th building below). All of the buildings I received are in 15mm scale and come on 3mm MDF for the building walls, floors, and roofs. The wood paneling and framing comes on 2mm MDF.

The box that the products arrived in was well packaged, and despite rotating strike action by Canada Post, travelled 8500km in just two weeks showing the prompt dispatching from the company. The sprues were wrapped in clear plastic and were protected by bubble wrap.

Barn II

The first building I built was the barn. It retails for $9 USD and is worth the money.

I have the original barn from the Prussian Village, and it has been well used. I’m happy to note that this design is very different from the other barn so this expanded range really allows you to increase variability on the game table.

Instead of a long rectangular building, this building is squarish with a long
sloping roof and wood paneling and framing which gives added depth. Having lived for several years in southern Germany, this building made sense to me and would be right at home across many periods of warfare in Europe or a pseudo-European fantasy land.

There is a small but easily fixed issue with this building. The back wall sits a little too high to fit into the lugs on the base and would not allow the roof to sit down properly. I simply trimmed the sides using a hobby knife and the pieces fit well.

Granary II

This is a relatively tall building, but is very simple in construction. It retails for the very reasonable price of $10 USD.

I used elastics to keep everything tight as the glue dried, both in the initial construction and once I add the wood framing. The wood framing has a nice design and it’s easy to see how it fits over the windows. The framing pattern isn’t just a box pattern which adds to the feel of this piece.

It is a solid, all round addition to your games table and adds to the height of the town, making it seem more real.

Inn

This is a great building. It is not listed on the site yet, but I can guarantee that it will be worth the money. This building is easy to put together and looks great. There is an overhang with posts connecting to flagstones, there are several wood frames to put on, and despite the potential for error it all fits together perfectly. I enjoyed building this and I really think that this piece could fit in a wide variety of European and pseudo-European settings.

There is one small point for improvement. There are 2 sprues labelled as number 8/8.  That, however, is the only mistake on this great kit, and yes, that’s how deep I had to dig to find something to improve upon.

While assembling, I made the walls first and allowed them to dry before adding on the overhang and front upper wall. The pieces fit together nicely and it was easy to keep the overhang true and not sagging down or trending upwards. The wood framing slides in nicely over the lower floor and I needed to do no extra trimming to make things work.

The 8 sprues of the inn with the pedantic reviewer noticing the labelling error.

This is the best piece of the bunch and I highly recommend it. The stone work on the lower level with the detailed wood framing above and the tile roof topping it off looks great. The overhang really adds depth to the piece and the details are wonderful. This piece will be the centre point for the village, I’ve no doubt.

Church

I will not be posting a full review of the Prussian church here as I’m having some difficulty assembling the last bits of it. This is a pre-production model I’ve received and I do not have instructions. The other buildings were extremely intuitive but this one is a bit harder coming on 16 sprues. I made a small error (easily fixed) once already in the construction, and I’m having a hard time figuring out if I’m missing a piece on the church entrance or if there is a minor design error. The rest of the building is built and ready to go. I am waiting for Terrains4Games to get back to me on the entrance piece before I give my thoughts on the building as a whole as I don’t want to criticize when the source of the issue isn’t clear.

I want to assure you all that the problem I’ve found is small. I shall give an update to this review once I’ve finished putting it together in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions.

Overall

These new offerings from Terrains4Games are excellent. The buildings are well made and exceptionally well priced. While there is the small issue with “Barn II” it was minor and took me under 5 minutes to solve. To put this into perspective, Sarissa Precision, a much larger company with more expensive offerings, gave me much more trouble for their much more expensive chateau (see the Sarissa Precision Review). 

Like all MDF buildings, these take several coats of paint, and the joining lugs take paint poorly. The great thing about these kits is that the wood framing nicely conceals the lugs which really adds to the realism without any additional work. The framing adds a lot of detail and depth to the buildings and looks quite fetching. The lugs are, however, clearly visible on the roofs, but there is nothing that would prevent a wargamer from putting their own roofing tiles over the roof to enhance the look of the buildings. .

These new buildings really expand the Prussian Village line. The designs compliment each other nicely and yet are different enough to keep the eye interested. They fit with 15mm scale miniatures well, as intended. For those that use smaller scale buildings than troops to reflect ground scale, these buildings would work well for 20mm but their great detail accentuates their scale and makes them seem toy-sized for 28mm.

Terrains4Games has an increasing catalogue of great wargaming products (I have reviewed some earlier here). The realistic and detailed design of these new buildings, coupled with the price point they are offered at, makes them a welcome addition to the wargaming market and I highly recommend them.