15mm Terrain Unboxing Review: Battlefield in a Box – European Village Walls (Gale Force Nine BB168) + Lightly Weathered

15mm Terrain Review: Battlefield in a Box - European Village Walls, Gale Force Nine BB168, Flames of War, Team Yankee

It’s been quite awhile since I did any of these, and I do have a few to catch up on – so today we’re looking at the Battlefield in a Box European Village Walls – a set I had been keeping an eye out for severla months before I finally found them for sale. BIAB’s supply is pretty spotty in general here in Australia, with things coming into and going out of stock in waves. As you can see, my walls came in highly attractive retail packaging, very reiminscent of GW’s “direct” white box packaging.

15mm Terrain Review: Battlefield in a Box - European Village Walls, Gale Force Nine BB168, Flames of War, Team Yankee

Inside, we’re back to the bubble wrap that I’ve seen so often with these sets.

15mm Terrain Review: Battlefield in a Box - European Village Walls, Gale Force Nine BB168, Flames of War, Team Yankee

After the initial bubble wrap, we find the individual components bundled by type in further rolls of bubble wrap. It may not be attractive, and may not be super-reusable for storage, but it certainly works to keep the terrain pieces safe up to the point of consumer unboxing.

15mm Terrain Review: Battlefield in a Box - European Village Walls, Gale Force Nine BB168, Flames of War, Team Yankee

And this is what you get in a set. Once again, it doesn’t look like a lot of money compared to what you can do with a 3D printer in 2024, but it does come painted and finished (and with clear resin in the fountain) and ready to simply drop onto the tabletop – so a lot of the value is right there – and that’s the value proposition that you as a consumer would need to decide on (depending on their price where you are).

15mm Terrain Review: Battlefield in a Box - European Village Walls, Gale Force Nine BB168, Flames of War, Team Yankee

Here’s the set of walls alongside a couple of Flames of War 15mm models for scale. You’re not getting any use out of these on a 40k table unless it’s just adding a bit more detail for the visual aesthetics.

15mm Terrain Review: Battlefield in a Box - European Village Walls, Gale Force Nine BB168, Flames of War, Team Yankee, Fat Frank's Roads, Cigar Box Battle Mats

I picked up two sets of these to give myself more tabletop flexibility. Purely by coincidence I found the container where they resided recently and added a little dusty/dirty weathering along the ground line of the pieces – a very low effort bit of work that nonetheless makes these walls look a little better. As I already had a mat out on the table, I staged a couple of photos, showing the two sets of walls in a slightly more realistic gaming environment than on the white table.

15mm Terrain Review: Battlefield in a Box - European Village Walls, Gale Force Nine BB168, Flames of War, Team Yankee, Fat Frank's Roads, Cigar Box Battle Mats

Destroyed Houses also from Battlefield in a Box, New Europe Just Fields Mat by Cigar Box Battle Mats, Flexible Dirt Roads by Fat Frank via eBay. I really need to write reviews of both of those when I get time. As per usual, all products in this review (including the mat and roads) were purchased by myself through normal retail channels.

15mm Terrain Review: Battlefield in a Box - European Village Walls, Gale Force Nine BB168, Flames of War, Team Yankee

Just for fun, here’s a 15mm mini’s-eye view of the walls, minis and terrain! And with that, I’ve completed another 20 pieces of not-very-significant terrain during Dave Stone’s annual Season of Scenery challenge.

Marvel Zombies: Mariko Yashida and Cosmo the Spacedog

Marvel Zombies: Mariko Yashida and Cosmo the Spacedog

The next… fair few posts will be a bit out of paint sequence as I try to sort out as best I can all of the stuff that’s been painted over my most recent period of blog-inactivity. As such, we might also have daily posts in certain stretches. So today we’ll start with a pair of models painted months ago and months apart. Both from the Marvel Zombies games by CMON, we have Mariko Yashida, who is a character who was at one point Logan/Wolverine’s fiancée but died, got resurrected and a bunch of other ridiculous stuff because superhero comic writers seem obsessed with just bringing dead characters back to life in alternative forms. (waves at Jean Grey, Gwenpool, Spider-Gwen ad infinitum)

Marvel Zombies: Mariko Yashida and Cosmo the Spacedog

I hate to see Mariko go, but I love to watch her leave!

With this in mind, it’s just easier to paint the models, be like “oh yeah, that’s Mariko at some indeterminite point in time” and not worry about the rest. I really do like the sense of motion that the sculptor has captured here as well. Our second character today is Cosmo the Spacedog. Seen in the Guardians’ corner of the MCU, Cosmo was created by Dan Abnett – yes, the very same Dan Abnett of Gaunt’s Ghosts. Cosmo is a a psychic dog of Soviet origin, based on the historical Soviet Space Dogs. Cosmo is apparently also a member of something called the “Pet Avengers”. John of Justneedsvarnish spotted Cosmo’s cameo in March’s Round-Up, but I was waiting for an appropriate figure to post alongside him.

Marvel Zombies: Mariko Yashida and Cosmo the Spacedog

Both of these figures are counted as “bystanders” in Marvel Zombies – so not all that much more than tokens – but I guess you can say the same about any board game model if we’re being realistic. At some stage I’ll attempt to make character cards for them so we can use them in Zombicide proper, as with most of my other bystanders.