Edit: I’ve updated the file attached to this post to be the actual painting scheme used instead of a house rule set for WAT.
As a large part of this hobby involves miniatures, we’re going to add a category of posts called, “Ready for Battle.” These posts are going to display some of the miniatures that are ready for the table top, (showing the way to the hundreds of miniatures that are languishing unpainted in ever-growing battalions).
At the bottom of each of the “Ready for Battle” posts, we’ll try to put down the paints and paint scheme used.
First up are some WW2 Brits painted by Lucius. The infantry have section markings on the back of their base to make it easier to figure out who belongs where.
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 as opened. Terrains4Games products are typically well packaged and this one is no exception.
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.
The packaged buildings
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.
The barn on its sprues
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.
A nice looking building with one small issue…
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.
The back wall not fitting down properly into the base. The tabs on the side are too tall, and need to be trimmed from the bottom. I used a hobby knife and my file and was able to fix this issue easily.
Back wall trimmed down to fit properly
The barn with back wall showing no signs of the work done
The barn
Barn II (to the left) and Barn I (to the right). You can see the different building types but common Prussian styling clearly.
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.
The granary as it comes.
Without any wood framing
An imposing edifice (if you’re 17mm tall)
The granary is a simple but effective kit and well worth the money.
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.
The inn looks great. It’s suitable for far more than Prussian countrysides
The inn fits 15mm figures nicely (the figure is a Bavarian from Essex).
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).
The Prussian buildings with 15mm Essex Bavarians for scale. The village options really bring to life a central European town.
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.
This week has been very busy, but despite the mail strike, I managed to get some exciting things:
An interesting package arrived from Poland…
Terrains4Games has kindly sent me some as yet unreleased buildings from an upcoming product line to review. I want to do these 15mm buildings justice, so I’ve been slowly building them. I hope to have them all assembled and painted for a thorough review by the end of the weekend. Here’s a sneak peak of a partly assembled one. The wood framing is not attached and just leaning – rest assured that the quality of the fit is much better than you see below:
Almost done this granary. I should have it painted shortly.
Also recently arrived:
A game I’ve long been interested in!
Piquet and Theater of War have been at the back of my mind for some time when I think of systems that intrigue me. I’ll be reading them carefully over the next few weeks. I’m not sure when I’ll get a game with them in, but having heard about them for some time I decided to bite the bullet and jump in. So far so good!
Enjoy your weekend and I’ll hopefully have those 15mm buildings up here on Sunday evening!
Disclaimer: the art in this post is copyright Cubicle 7. I do not own the pictures. I am putting up here to showcase the style they use in their games for this review.
One of my friends stepped up to GM for our RPG group and has been running the Iron Kingdoms RPG for a few months, with some Warmachine thrown in for larger battles (though Warmachine is more of a mass combat game rather than a wargame – more on that in a future post).
He’s been a bit busy, so I decided to dip my hand back into GMing again, and for the first time in many, many years, use a pre-generated setting. The setting I chose was Middle Earth, having been drawn in by Cubicle 7’s excellent game, The One Ring (TOR).
Cubicle 7’s “The One Ring“ RPG is a great game for the setting of Middle Earth but relies on a more abstract combat system
TOR uses one d12+d6s based on skill level for resolution, with a novel fatigue and injury system. It is properly heroic without being overpowered and really captures the feel of Middle Earth. For instance, you can remove your helm (and increase the risk of being wounded) to reduce your fatigue and be able to better strike your enemies as you grow more tired in battle. Combat is abstract, designed to be used without miniatures and is based on stances. The stances are about risk/reward, which is a nice change from the standard “you hit the orc, the orc hits you.” I have yet to play it, but it really strikes me as a great game for Middle Earth.
Despite my keen interest in TOR, I know that my group really likes gridded combat with as many tactical options as possible. I therefore took a look into Cubicle 7’s other Middle Earth offering: Adventures in Middle Earth (AiME) and am very glad that I did. AiME is a modification of the core 5e rules and is excellent. It is by far the best d20 based rule set I have seen. It is low magic but retains a strong sense of fantasy. It even improves on the already innovative journey and audience rules that are in TOR. Items get more powerful as characters do, and wealth is less important than in many other games, with social interactions and trust built over time being more important than silver or gold.
Compared to 5e, the cultures, classes, and even magical items have a much better feel and have very different roles across play. Where balance in 5e is all about everyone having an equal part to play in battle, AiME allows characters to shine throughout the game. That said, the combat rules are detailed and fun, and have all kinds of tactical options allowing for ruins, swamps, and forests to be used to best advantage. There is a corruption mechanic (shadow) that reflects the influence of Sauron and the despair a character can experience. In fact, almost all of the core 5e rules have been modified to be as close to Tolkien as possible for D&D. Characters choose a culture, a class, and background. Each has a real mechanical impact on the game. The cultures reflect the peoples around the Mirkwood, and each has its own virtues (which are like feats but far more interesting), cultural heirlooms and skill sets. The backgrounds feed into roleplaying with an inspiration mechanic that is modelled on the concept of hope in Tolkien’s written work. The resulting heroes are balanced and have mechanical reasons to invest in non-combat skills and be part of the greater fabric of Middle Earth. The game really tries to reduce the murder-hobo concept that dominates D&D and as we shall see, it does a good job.
The art work is a nice change from the Pathfinder style (as I call it), where armour is skimpy and swords are massive. I know that it’s supposed to be fantasy, but unless gravity is different, weapons and armour don’t look like that! Rant complete.
So, having a ruleset and the Wilderland Adventures I suggested running AiME about once a month when our Iron Kingdom GM was unavailable. Using an established setting and campaign would make it less onerous to run, and it was a familiar world to all. Additionally, AiME is designed to have breaks in adventuring, with a set Fellowship phase, where people live in the world for a bit. It is recommended that only 2 or so adventures happen a game year. This means that a once a month game will actually help accentuate that impression of time passing. It is also great as you can have a campaign span 30 years!
The Wilderland Adventures are set around the Mirkwood and lead nicely into other published campaign products so you can keep building characters and their enemies as the years roll on.
Now onto a quick report on how the first adventure played out.
*** Spoiler Alert ***
If you are going to be a player in the Wilderland Adventures (for TOR or AiME) stop reading here.
********************
The party consisted of a Dwarf warrior, a Dwarf rogue, a Wood Elf scholar, and a Dunedain warden (similar to a bard but more combat oriented and not at all responsible for opening cell doors).
I rather clumsily started the adventure with the party wandering the edge of the Long Lake near the ruins of the original Lake Town discussing what to do when the passes over the mountains open. Out of nowhere a shout rings out. The pretty Dunedain warden was too busy thinking of how impressive he was to notice. He failed 7 perception rolls over the course of the night, always by a large margin, most of them with a critical failure. I ended up changing his heirloom to a mirror as he clearly was admiring himself and not his surroundings!
The others were more aware and all ran to help the boy who was screaming that his father was being attacked by his own guards. Covering the ground quickly, they saw the merchant in the trees with his back to a tree holding a branch in his hand while 3 thugs threatened him.
The thugs are up to no good
The treasure hunter ducked into the bushes as the warden shot to lightly wound. He messed up and did real injury. The thugs then tried to bribe the party to look the other way as they took care of the merchant, but the boy cried out and was restrained by the elf. The warrior charged, figuring that being asked to turn the other way while a murder happened was not on. He swung hard but missed, as did the treasure hunter (despite advantage) who got a thump on his head for his trouble. The warrior’s armour took a blow and the warrior then hit the leader. Not expecting this much violence, the thugs gave up and were detained by the party. After properly introducing themselves to the merchant Baldor and his son Belgo, they all agreed to return to the new Lake Town, restock (and heal up) and turn the the three reprobates over to the bailiff before escorting Baldor through the Mirkwood. The three thugs were known to have supported the old Master of Lake Town, and now that he disappeared, they’ve taken to odd jobs so the bailiff was unsurprised to see them.
I’ll note here that the party had really think to adapt from a traditional D&D murder-hobo style for that first encounter. Seeing the thugs threatening a man they had to consciously hold back from immediately killing but the cost from shadow (corruption) mechanic and the benefits character builds reinforced good behaviour.
After returning to the path, the party, now escorting the thankful Baldor, his son, and his ponies across Mirkwood, met up with some Woodland Elves who had earlier arranged to meet Baldor and buy some goods. Rafting into the Woodland Realm they got to try audience rules and wisely had the elf and Dunedain speak up as Dwarves were no help, especially the socially impaired treasure-hunter.
After a nice meal and a good rest they got on the main trail and went into the fastness of the Mirkwood, being careful to remain on the path. I explained the journey rules and the roles the party had to play and the possible outcomes. The journey rules have each member of the party assume a role. The guide has to roll for how the journey starts, and then random journey events will test the skillsets of the all of the members (scout, hunter, lookout). All of these rolls influence outlook, giving shadow points or exhaustion or bonuses depending on how the journey went. This really reinforces the idea that journeying to a ruin is not a simple undertaking but must be planned carefully. That same journey though, becomes an adventure in and of itself, which I really like.
The departure roll in this case didn’t go with the party getting depressed wandering in the dark, dank wood, gaining a shadow point each. That evening, the first event had the party surprised by King Thranduil and his guards. The King was actually most impressed by the grumpy treasure hunter, who had a short discourse with the royal party about the King’s hunt for the White Hart. The King then advised the party to prepare to sacrifice a pony if one of the greater spiders attacked and rode off into the darkness.
Rather overwhelmed by the encounter, Baldor and Belgo went to get a drink from a nearby stream. Belgo started to scream and Baldor ran off into darkness The party stood to immediately. Belgor was beside himself, saying that his dad drank the water and didn’t recognize him and was shouting about the dragon fire and his wife (who died during the burning of Lake Town 5 years ago). Leaving the 2 dwarves to console the child and guard the camp, the Elf and Dunedain tracked Baldor up the stream to an old ruin.
Note, the published adventure has Baldor go mad in front of the party but leaves the party unable to restrain him. In order to maintain agency, I had the madness happen “off screen”. I made other minor adjustments to the adventure to set the ground work for future aspects of the campaign and to clean up some poorly disguised railroading.
There, suspended in a web was Baldor, but also a giant eagle. The elf climbed up the webbing and freed Baldor, but the webbing began to quiver. The group rushed to free the eagle and convinced it to take the confused merchant back to the party. The two heroes booked it back towards the camp.
Back at the camp, the eagle flew off immediately and soon after a large spider approached. The fire was built up and as the spider came out, it was warded off by some flaming brands. As the party reunited more spiders appeared, with 3 pressing the attack. These spiders were tough, and potentially deadly, but the party did well and killed all 3 while taking only a few wounds. The group then set alight some of the webbing in the woods and ran down the path, hoping to put as much distance between themselves and the spiders as possible.
As they ran rain began to fall and it became miserable out in the dark. Though Baldor began to regain some of his memory his son was still upset, but had taken a shine to the gruff treasure hunter. The cold rain and wind were going making the going hard and the Dwarves wanted to get the humans into someplace dry quickly. Luckily the party spotted a bit of smoke rising from what seemed to be a hollow tree. Being very mindful of social niceties, the group didn’t wait in the tree for its owner after searching inside, but rather outside to ask permission. In short order a stinky hermit showed up and, after being given some food, calmed down invited the party to stay in shelter as the storm passed. The party did extraordinarily well due to their social acumen and that really reinforced playing a respectful adventurer.
The adventure has tips for playing characters and nice little drawings to give you a sense of who you are playing. Also included are motivations, which makes it easy to jump into character for a GM
Feeling refreshed the party began to head out, the day was nice and getting warmer, and there was even a bit of sunlight filtering through the trees. Up ahead a large clearing looked like a good place to rest, and in the middle was an old stone well. The warrior was very interested in it as the others flopped down to enjoy the Spring sun. But the Mirkwood is full of deceit and tentacles came out of the well and attacked the warrior as he investigated, trying to pull him in. The party responded quickly and did a great amount of damage to the thing in the well in just 2 short rounds and it withdrew, leaving some mangled tentacles behind.
The clearing began to look menacing so the party moved on quickly. In a few more days the party was almost at the Forest Gate. Just before they got out the final journey event had them run into some goblins. The party surprised the goblins and quickly took them out. 2 ran for it and the treasure hunter chased them, stepping off the path. The Dunedain followed and soon both were lost under the eaves of the Mirkwood. They had wounded 1 of the goblins with a called shot (and killed the other) so captured it. They bargained with the goblin to have it lead them back to the path in exchange for freedom. The goblin agreed and soon the party was reunited.
The goblins look suitably devious and their abilities are varied. Mirkwood goblins fight differently than those in the Misty Mountains. The varied nature of the monsters means that saying “orc” or “goblin” will have the party trying to figure out how to best approach the threat.
The treasure hunter bent over as the goblin turned to the Dunedain to receive its freedom. The burglar cut the goblin’s ankles from behind, crippling it. The goblin shouted that they had promised to let it go as it fell on the ground. The treasure hunter (who detests goblins even more than most Dwarves) said the goblin was free to go and should be thankful. As the noise grew the warrior stepped in and put the goblin out of its misery before spiders came to eat them all. The treasure hunter earned more shadow points for that, and the rest of the party was actually uncomfortable with his actions, which speaks to the ruleset. In 3 hours the group had bought into the Middle Earth mindset, which is great and speaks to the well designed system.
The Forest Gate and the end of journey was next, with the party ending the journey on a high note, gaining advantage on social interaction checks. They then headed down to the Most Easterly Inn, from where they will start their next adventure. It was a good session, despite some rough descriptions on my part, and I think everyone enjoyed the setting that they knew. The adventure itself was easy to run with minimal prep. While there were some problems, the Wilderland Adventures are overall very well done and I shall continue to use them.
AiME is a great version of 5e, and I am definitely planning on using it as the basis for the ruleset for my homebrew world in a year or so. If you play 5e, or Pathfinder or any OSR clone, I highly recommend you check out AiME as it has great ideas for even high fantasy realms. The books are high quality but are expensive. If you buy from Cubicle 7 you get the pdfs and the hard copy. If you are concerned about cost, the pdfs are more reasonable, and both the Adventurer’s and the Loremaster’s Guide are worth it.
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