As I’ve constantly been alluding to in my recent reviews of the many prepainted Gale Force 9/Battlefield in a Box/Flames of War terrain pieces, it wouldn’t take much to really upgrade them from the stock out-of-the-box and really elevate them. As I’m sure you guessed by now – and I’m sure a lot of you saw this coming –  that’s what I’ve been doing with many of the pieces (and will likely do to most all of them in some manner eventually).

I started on doing this with the Ruined Desert Houses set last month almost immediately after getting a second set, and it wasn’t until the last minute when I decided to leave one of the buildings untouched so I could do a direct “before” model next to the “after” ones. So this heavily damaged house ended up with both of them weathered. I guess given the state of the walls I could have gone with a lot more interior blackening and scorching, but I reckon they still look decent enough. Or should I go back and add more? What say you?

These next few images show the other buildings from the Ruined Desert Houses sets – you get two in each set, so I’ll have to go back and dirty up the one I left clean (on the left, as it happens!) soon, now that it’s use as a comparison piece is done! I’ve tried to give them an overall consistent look in terms of the colours, while varying the burn/scorch/etc marks a little. Again, to avoid them looking too much like cookie-cutter structures.

Originally these models had their interiors painted black, even though there’s actually a little bit of sculpted detail there (again, see left). It didn’t take much effort to make them look a lot better inside by adding some colour, and then adding some wear patterns and picking out those details.

The more interesting model of the ones I reworked was the Ruined Large Desert House. Again – I’ve purchased a second one and am using the newer one as the comparison pic (and will have to go back and weather/ruin that one now!)

As can be seen, a bit of paint on the ruined exterior adds a bit more of a story to the piece than it had beforehand. Particularly on this angle!

The landings also look a lot better once given a bit of weathering.

I’ve given you three angles already, so why not the fourth?

Here’s where it gets good, though. At least, where I’m happiest with them. Shout out to Kuribo on this pic (and the next) as I’d already done these when you made the comment about just using the outsides of these buildings – just had to bite my tongue and wait till I had these photographed and ready to post. 😀

This one shows the difference between the two with troops added. it obviously doesn’t matter in terms of gameplay, but it improves the aesthetics, which is why I paint and play with toy soldiers. So… y’know…

Anyway, I hope y’all enjoyed this little post. As I’ve said a bunch of times now, the BFIAB range is pretty nice for prepaints, but as I was opening them I felt that a little polishing could really make them shine. And it turns out, I was right! No surprise there, obviously! 😉