Battlefield In a Box

Yesterday I went looking in the Spokane area game stores for a Warmachine Prime Mk. 2 book. The only one I could find was hardcover, which is annoying so I passed on it. I finally got to play a Mk 2 game last Sunday and really enjoyed it, thus the need to find the book. This foray about town reminded me of my primary frustration with playing Warmachine in the Spokane area, stores stock the game for shit. New releases are first come, first serve, and reorders are less than regular or disciplined. I feel like the minimum wage kid who is in charge of ordering uses up all his passion in the behemoth GW lines (Because they sell.) and by the time Privateer Press rolls around he/she is just picking crap at random seconds before their smoke break. But, that diatribe has nothing to do with what I actually want to talk about.

There was a silver lining to this failed attempt at acquisition. My mind was set on the notion that I was gonna drop fifty bones yesterday, and by damnit I meant to do it! But on what? My 40k armies had all they needed and then some, and the Warmachine stuff I needed was unsurprisingly out of stock (see above). As I pursued the game store looking for ways to while away my hard earned money-angry wife be damned- I came across the Battlefield in a Box product line from Gale Force 9.

My table at home is pretty cool for Warhammer Fantasy (which I don't play) and Warmachine/Hordes (which I hadn't played in forever) but it was pretty much hurting for 40k. All my hills and trees did little to provide any kind of cover in the new true line of sight rules and for the most part my opponents would graciously smile and make friendly comments about how the game might have gone if they had something novel like cover.

For someone like me, this stuff is great. I needed to get my table up and running at home anyway since we have a new daughter. I barely have time to finish minis, let alone terrain, and I paint so damn slow that the limited time I do have is never enough. Alas, my problems are solved!

Perfect For the Gamer With Money but Not Time/Drive!
I feel like this should have been their advertising slogan. The price point on the terrain itself is not brutal. The pic above is fifty bucks worth. Now I am sure that a lot of terrain savvy people will say that for fifty bucks they could be a whole table, To that I say, "Eff you!" That comes from a jealous place of course. I do not posses that level of terrain-fu and people who do, often sell their stuff at a pretty high price point in order to recoup some of the time they spent on labor. In all, I don't think you get as many pieces as a GW kit can provide, and it certainly isn't as detailed. But, the most effort you have to put forth to get it on the table is opening the box and surviving the god-awful squeaking sound the Styrofoam makes.

Detail and Paint are Pretty Good

From Mars Project Blog

From Mars Project Blog

So the terrain is pretty much just dry-brushed, but that is all I would have done to it any way. Admittedly, it looks a bit flat cause they just used a gray-white build up, it still adds enough depth for the sculpts. If one really felt inclined they could actually just hit the pieces with a warmer wash (brown, red, etc) in parts and it would do wonders. I am not so inclined and will leave it as is.

The detail is pretty cool too. Again, not as intricate as GW kits, but lacking skulls, which I deem as a huge bonus. The pieces still defiantly look like they are what they are supposed to be.

In all this stuff is really cool. If you can make your own terrain, you probably still should. But for those of us who can't/won't/shouldn't this is a great alternative that still makes a board look nice. I for one will spend the next couple months acquiring a couple pieces at a time until I have all the kits.

Thanks for reading,
T