Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Buildings – Repainted (BB199)

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

Another Terrain repaint post today! As I noted in my review of this set the other day, I really wanted to check them out when I got them – and since I got them right after adding weathering the exterior of the desert buildings, and in fact while I was still adding the colour to the interiors – I pretty much ordered a second set of these (get ’em while they’re available with this stuff right now!) and the first set jumped right into the paint queue.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

I knew immediately that I wanted to give these a complete repaint rather than a weathering – since these are European houses rather than desert village-type structures, they’d stand out a lot more if I had two identical sets, especially if placed in close proximity to one another – which they would often be – because bombed villages often work like that. My repainted ones are on the right hand side in these images throughout the post.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

This would also let me get away with a simpler touch-up and weathering on the original paint of the second set that would arrive later – the ones that I’m using haven’t got to that stage yet. I just took these pics and they’re stil in the paint queue behind some more Panzers.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

This building’s roof had a glaze, drybrush, and then a softer wash to bring the highlights down, but I kept the overall colour pretty similar to the original.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

Weathering the other building in grey stones will take a bit more work than the others, as I’ll add some variations to the stones to make it look more realistic before adding in the weathering.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

Going for a lighter “sandstone” look on this building meant that the shattered bricks inside the building stand out a lot more compared to the grey ones that blend in with the grey drybrushing of the rubble in the prepaint.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

For the rendered building I went with quite a different colour to the original, but tried to keep the muted tones to something that would still appear realistic.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

The red terracotta tiled roof stands out a bit more here, firstly because red, and secondly being on a green house, so complimentary colours and all that. Once the buildings are all laid out, it does blend in a lot more, though. Obviously, either roof can go on either building in practise, anyway.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

Looking at the photos, I feel like I should add some more streaking around the window frames and on the tiles. Easy enough, I guess!

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

It might also be worthwhile adding a bit more grey to the interior to simulate dust – and so the floors don’t look like the rubble has been swept into piles leaving nice clean floorboards. Should be a relatvely simple drybrush.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

And finally, the larger building of the set alongside the original. I think the two of them will be able to sit on the table pretty close to one another without looking dodgy simply due to being different colours.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

I did repaint the interior walls of this one as I did with the others, though there wasn’t much to do on the piles of rubble besides adding a wash to get a bit of subtle brown in there. Not that I was complaining about that!

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

I really quite enjoyed repainting these three. It took a couple of days of very casual work – just dipping in and out of them when I felt like it. And as much as I’ve been leaning into production line paiting on my WWII project(s), it was nice to finish a bit of something and not need to duplicate it another 3 or 11 times. 🙂

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box - Ruined Buildings (Gale Force Nine BB199) 1/100, 1:100 Wargaming Terrain, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

Finally, here’s all six of my ruined European buildings laid out together. While I haven’t done a thing to the second set, you can see how simply changing the alignment of the models lets the repainted ones blend in with the originals right next to them without looking like we have a table full of cloned buildings. So now I’ll be able to have a reasonable section of a town that’s suffered somne significant damage.

So as I’ve typed (and copypasted) a number of times now – “with a small amount of effort these could be made to look a lot better” – and with a bit more (when warranted) these sets can be improved quite a lot. I doubt I’ll be going this far on many of them, though – as I won’t have a lot of dupilcated European building sets. Even GF9’s range of very similar European Houses have their own repaints of their prepaints.

15mm Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Desert Houses, Ruined Large Desert House – Weathered & Repainted (BB230, BB231)

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Desert Houses (Gale Force Nine BB230)

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).

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Desert Houses (Gale Force Nine BB230)

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?

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Desert Houses (Gale Force Nine BB230)

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Desert Houses (Gale Force Nine BB230)

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.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Desert Houses (Gale Force Nine BB230)

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Desert Houses (Gale Force Nine BB230)

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Desert Houses (Gale Force Nine BB230)

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.

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Large Desert House (Gale Force Nine BB231)

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!)

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Large Desert House (Gale Force Nine BB231)

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!

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Large Desert House (Gale Force Nine BB231)

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

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Large Desert House (Gale Force Nine BB231)

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

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Large Desert House (Gale Force Nine BB231)

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. 😀

Flames of War Battlefield in a Box – Ruined Large Desert House (Gale Force Nine BB231)

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! 😉