Yep, it’s been quite some time since I did one of these BIAB terrain reviews. It’s not just an endless stream of 3D printed terrain pieces here, even if it’s felt a bit that way recently. I purchased these models quite awhile back – the photos date from November 2023, and so the set was probably purchased a couple of months before that. Either way, I found these models in a Sistema tub, covered in bubble wrap the other day, and seeing them prompted me to go back and review them using these photos. The reason I’m doing so is because back when I was looking at purchasing these items myself there was little to nothing out there on many (most!) of them besides the box pics and official glamour shots. So it’s like a public service.

Inside the box, the pieces were individually wrapped in bubble wrap.

And this is what you get. Pretty simple, but effective enough – and ready to open up and plop down onto the table and start playing – hence “Battlefield in a Box”

Scale-wise, this is how they look next to some Flames of War Models – And that’s it for the photos! Despite these being pretty scale-agnostic if you think about it, I didn’t take any extra photos of them alongside other models – something I’ll rectify shortly in some manner.

And now for the review-y bit. As always, I purchased this set from a retailer with my own moneys and have no incentive to say anything good, bad or ugly about them.

If I’m being honest, the value of these is entirely in the fact that they’re ready to drop onto the table. In looking over them closely in the last couple of days as I type this post, I don’t love the fact that the stones are the exact same colour and tone as the sand – my photos make the rocks look more distinct from their bases than they actually are in-hand. The box promo shot reflects the colours much more accurately in this case.

More of an issue is that they’re very clearly just chunks of various sized rock (probably slate) that have been banged up, glued down to some bases, had some texture putty applied onto the bases, and then cast for mass production & painting. I mean, I don’t know what else I was expecting when I purchased these, but they do look nice in on the box art, and somehow not quite as small.

So the two questions we’re left with are “are they worth it?” and the rather leading “do I regret the purchase?” I’ll answer the latter first:

I don’t regret purchasing these. They are very much what it says on the tin – and with a bit of work they can be made to look a lot better (foreshadowing!) Also, life is so full of much more important things to reflect on than having regrets over some slightly overpriced terrain.

Are they worth it? That’s entirely rependant on your use case.

If you have the time and inclination – and access to stones, some sort of base material (MDF, foam core, dense foam, corrugated cardboard), glue and some sort of filler, whether that be DAS, spackle from the hardware store or acrylic paste – and some paint, then you can make these or similar pretty quickly and easily. On reflection that’s exactly what I did in my early 20’s using some balsa wood I had around as a base, and rocks from the tram tracks near my old high school and the dark geen flock I used on my models at the time. I think I still have those somewhere, actually!

So the answer here really is no – they’re not worth the money.

However – If you have no time for the process of making something like these and just want to throw something on the table that looks solid and matches the rest of your terrain, then no shade for that – it’s entirely reasonable to also choose to spend your limited hobby time on assembling and painting cool models over glueing rocks together.

After all, you can buy a sandwich and a coffee when you’re out and about and it’ll cost you a lot more more than it would to make it yourself at home, but you’re paying for the convenience and someone else’s time to make it for you.