With it being the Easter Weekend, I have a little bit more time to both paint models and write up some posts in advance, so today I present to you another quick prepainted terrain review – the “Island Huts” set from Gale Force Nine/Battlefield in a Box, which I have seen suggested for use in the Pacific Theatre for WWII as well and actually repackaged with a different product code for Battlefront’s ‘Nam miniatures game.
Just like that. If we’re being real, based on the product codes, it looks like they were actually originally released for the ‘Nam game and then repackaged for Flames of War Pacific. If theres one thing I’ve learned, it’s that Battlefront certainly doesn’t shy away from repackaging the same items multiple times with different SKUs and (perhaps) different decals. A huge number of my British 8th Army tanks were purchased as Soviet Lend-Lease kits, simply because the “Soviet” tanks were a fraction of the price of the British or US-boxed versions. Purchase some spare decals, and you’re golden!
This set comes with pretty good protective packaging. Inside the cardboard box, you get another cardboard box.
Once you open it up, you see the cardboard box inner flaps actually serve to keep the two buildings from bashing into one another, and the roof sections inverted and protected by some bubble wrap. It’s also nice to see Battlefront moving away from the use of polystyrene packaging and into the mroe recyclable cardboard – and most importantly – doing so in a manner that doesn’t compromise keeping the product inside safe in transit from factory to the consumer.
The painting on these is completely fit for purpose, and it’s not too bad at all with a wash and drybrush clearly used on both the walls and their details as well as on the roof sections. It’s simple but effective. As always, the biggest benefit of these is “Open box, put on table. Done!” In that, I really see zero problems.
Inside, we can see the interiors have painted floors, though the inside walls and doors, etc are just left in plain black – you know I’ll have something to say about that in a future post! You can fit two regular infantry stands inside as well.
And finally, a shot to show them scaled next to some infantry as well as a Panzer IV tank.
As always, I purchased this set (two of them, actually) from a retailer with my own moneys and have no incentive to say anything good, bad or ugly about them. My opinion of them is that they’re actually pretty good. I don’t intend to use them in the Pacific or ‘Nam, but instead these will be used in my Flames of War games (and eventually, Team Yankee/World War III moderns) as European Thatched Roof buildings, because amazingly, simple thatched roof buildings are something found pretty much worldwide.
While the doors and windows on these models appear to be made of something resembling bamboo if you look up and reeeeal close, there’s also no reason that these couldn’t simply be simple thatched shutters and door coverings in a European building. I think they’ll work well as either rustic rural homes or as aditional buildings on a farm-type property.
Given the intent of this review, which is to provide some images and simple thoughts on a set that I was unable to find any information on online aside from box pics, I’m not going to “score” the set. and while it wasn’t exactly cheap, even compared to GW’s plastic offerings, I’m happy enough with this one, even despire the black interior. As always with these things – with a small amount of effort these buildings could be made to look a fair bit better. 😉
I purchased two sets myself from an online retailer as they were discounted by 20% and I thought they could be used in a much more generic way in a European setting. After repainting them, I’m actually tempted to pick up a couple more sets…
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Nice review mate, and like your ideas for what you are going to use them for.
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Cheers Dave! We’ve got a boardgame set up on the table, but once we finish, I’ll be taking some pics as a visual demo of them in other settings. 🙂
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Nice buildings and a good idea to use them as generic thatched ones! 🙂 For a moment there you got my hopes up that you’d be doing Pacific or Vietnam stuff!
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Haha! I almost started collecting Flames of War’s ‘Nam stuff, but it’s really quite hard to get hold of, and the vehicles I’m keen on from that game can be used in the “Modern” (80’s) Team Yankee/WWIII game, so probably not for the time being! 🙂
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Good stuff mate 👍
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Thanks Alex!
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They do look rtather generic- and better for it.
They seem quite big too- do you reckon they’d go with 20mm figures too?
Cheers,
Pete.
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Yeah, if you didn’t mind the buildings overall being a little smaller to scale, I think the doors and windows actually fit 20mm a little more accurately.
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Very clear review and good level ready product. Considering our interests, as we read we also told ourselves that we could use them as generic huts for a (European) fantasy setting.
We would not like to appear too picky, but there is something that gives these huts a more oriental than European aspect, even if we are not sure what: apart from bamboo doors and windows, perhaps is the thatched roof too little protruding from the perimeter walls?
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Thank you! After some googling I think the roof overhang is pretty similar between European and Asian thatch roof buildings. I think the small protrusions on these are more a matter of manufuturing design for mass production/tabletop use than being true to any true to life type.
Asian rural buildings which I assume these are supposed to represent seem to much more often be made with bamboo walls, rather than the adobe/mud/plaster walls on these, but I do agree they look a little “off”.
I guess it’d really come down to how they look on a table with scenery around them!
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Your review is well-written as usual, mate. I wouldn’t have thought they’d repackage stuff for WWII and Vietnam as those settings are fairly different (well, maybe the Japanese front in WWII and Vietnam have some overlap, but not overly so) and its awesome that you can use this for either one. That will be even more justification to paint all those tanks you’ve got. I can hardly wait! 😉
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Cheers mate! I think with a lot of terrain – particularly mass-produced commercial terrain from a (relatively) small company like Battlefront it’s a matter of “close enough” and so you see the same pieces reused across different biomes. The European and Desert hils, escarpments, etc are all the same models, just with (in some cases) a literal palette swap. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that after the trio of Shermans I just finished, I now have more than a dozen Valentines to get done, and then I’m mostly done with the British 8th Army’s tanks as well!
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Great review. I have been tempted with this very set for 15mm ECW!
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Thanks mate! I’m no ECW expert, but for fairly timeless generic rural European buildings I think they’ll work well.
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Very neat little building mate! I like seeing folk putting up various building so thanks!
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