Flames of War North Africa: Games of War Desert Buildings Review

One of the many things I like about Flames of War is the availability of relatively cheap pre-painted terrain. I'm a fan of the Battlefield in a Box range and have a fair bit of their terrain already but with plans to build up a North African town I felt the need to branch out a little in order to avoid it looking too like a series of identical new-builds...

Google took me to Games of War who make a range of prepainted resin 15mm buildings that look to complement the Battlefield in a Box range pretty well. They were the only 15mm buildings I could find that were prepainted, reasonably priced and which have removable roof sections. There's a pretty positive video review of their European buildings on the Model Dad's blog so my hopes were fairly high. As postage is free I've tested the water with just a couple of buildings from a range of five buildings, going for the Small and the Large Desert buildings, priced at £5 and £8 respectively. 

Large Desert Building

Small Desert Building

My thoughts...

Delivery: postage was free, the were well packaged and came very quickly (just a couple of days) 10/10

Quality: the buildings are made of resin that's well cast (I haven't spotted any bubbles or cracks) and which seems very similar to the Battlefield in a Box in terms of quality in that it isn't brittle and feels very sturdy. The design is pleasing with the only disappointment being the height of the walls around the roof which is quite low on the smaller building and which doesn't look quite as useful as cover as I'd like (not a big deal though). The painting is better than the B-in-a-B range with slightly better details. Factoring in the low price which is comparable to the B-in-a-B range (a little lower) I'd give them a score of 10/10 again.

FOW Compatibility: They're perfectly sized to allow the relevant Flames of War bases to sit inside or on top of the buildings so as gaming pieces they're spot on. The only 'failing' is that they're quite different to the B-in-a-B range in terms of colour, being a much warmer shade. They're also a little more rounded in design. I'm not sure if I'll repaint them slightly to make this difference less glaring, or simply buy more of them and have a more varied palette of colours across the town (incidentally, the new Mosque from Battlefront is another colour again). Because I like things to match, the buildings fall down a little here (which might be unfair, the colours are actually nicer than the ones I had already), I'd give them 8/10 here.

Games of War Small Desert Building with its BF equivalent.

Final verdict: despite the mismatch in terms of colour I know I'm going to pick up the entire range. When they're all here I'll make a decision whether to repaint them slightly (a drybrush of Vallejo Ivory might be enough to help them blend it). The score: 9/10.