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.

15mm Terrain Unboxing Review: Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Train Yard Switching Tower (BB186)

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Train Yard Switching Tower (BB186), 15mm, 1/100, 1:100, Team Yankee, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

Today there’s another terrain review. I know that a lof of the readers here prefer painted minis (naturally!) I still have a lot of terrain to review here, especially given that 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.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Train Yard Switching Tower (BB186), 15mm, 1/100, 1:100, Team Yankee, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

Inside the retail box, we once again have a fitted polystyrene tray for the three main of this set.Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Train Yard Switching Tower (BB186), 15mm, 1/100, 1:100, Team Yankee, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

…and when removed and opened up, we also have the two buffer stops hidden neatly away inside the building sections.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Train Yard Switching Tower (BB186), 15mm, 1/100, 1:100, Team Yankee, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

Once “assembled” we have the switching tower – which I know Kuribo will love based on his own posting history – and the two stops.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Train Yard Switching Tower (BB186), 15mm, 1/100, 1:100, Team Yankee, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

Reverse shot for completeness. I don’t have any 1:100 scale rail at this point, so I’ll just use the buffer stops as general storage of coal/rocks/etc – probably butted up against a building.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Train Yard Switching Tower (BB186), 15mm, 1/100, 1:100, Team Yankee, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

Inside, we can fit a standard medium-sized infantry stand in each of the floors. No surprise there!

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Train Yard Switching Tower (BB186), 15mm, 1/100, 1:100, Team Yankee, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

And finally the scale shot with some armour. As mentioned, I don’t own any railway stuff to scale, but I figure this building can also work well as a pretty generic one aside a factory, or a square of whatever type with an industrial-ish looking building next to it.

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. I quite like this one – it has a nice inherent variety to it with the two floors being different colours and a different outer construction but still feels cohesive. Likewise, I also like the appearance of the roofing, which has a feel of both sheetmetal and asbestos(!) to it, again complimenting the industrial feel and the variety in the one piece. Like all of these sets, it could/would benefit from some easy weathering and some (more tedious) painting of the interior’s featureless black walls. It’s another one I can see getting done in the short-to-medium term, but even without it, this set was relatively inexpensive and while possibly not your first purchase, it’s still one I can recommend if you’re looking to add to an existing collection of 15mm/1:100 buildings.