Gayle for 9 has been busy releasing new 28mm gaming terrain lately. One of their new sets, is the War Torn Village. It is a set of four pre-painted barricade pieces. The set retails for $25. The set has two six inch and two four inch pieces. Each is a unique sculp. The set is packaged in the normal GF9 exterior boxing with Styrofoam inserts holding each section in place to ensure secure packaging.
The sculps represent various bricks, barrels, boxes, fences and other random built up items. The sections come painted in grey, brown, tan and silver. Everything looks like it is painted over a black base and each section is heavily drybrushed in a lighter shade. This gives each section a little bit of shading depth.
I find the set a little pricy, compared to some other GF9 offerings to be honest. However, as easy as most terrain is to paint, I must admit I am never in the mood to deal with so many colors in a piece of scatter terrain. With that laziness in mind, I took the plunge! Considering that and some other pre-painted pricing, it is probably reasonable.
I do wish GF9 would move away from their Styrofoam internal packing and switch to cardboard. Firstly, as I find the Styrofoam too messy and secondly, it is not very environmentally friendly. As the boxes are not space efficient either (I end up putting the terrain into a smaller container), it means I end up throwing it away… So this is another downside.
Now, saying all that, I find a lot of pre-painted terrain needs a little “something”. This usually means some sort of shading or highlighting. In the case of GF9, it is usually a shade. This is because the drybrushing is usually heavy and I like a little more subtly. Of course, one cannot expect that at this price point. It’s an easy fix. I just hit the pieces with a black wash over the grey and a dark brown wash over the brown (followed by some dull coat). This tones down the highlights a little and gives a much more subtle shading to the sections. So, a little extra time, but I was very happy with the results. Maybe I need another set after all….
- Manteuffel