Review: Battle Systems: Village Ruins

 I've finished putting together the Battle Systems: Village Ruins.

 

 I did not follow the suggested guide on building them, but made my own ruins. You get 5 pieces of thick cardboard that allows to make them as you see fit - 3 are the same and 2 the other type.

I used the clips to attach the floors...which I don't really need to, but it makes them easier to pick up and move around.  I bought one extra box of brown clips and have a lot of clips left over.

 

They are painted cardboard so can be moved and stored very easily. I tried gluing one but the cardboard came apart - maybe I should have used different glue. All of this is put together with grey and brown clips.   

 

It's all about 1/5 of the price of resin and I don't need to paint anything, a HUGE plus for someone like me who is not a good painter or has the time to do it.  I love the look of resin terrain but painting it would take time and skill I do not have these days. 

 

 What DID annoy me is that nearly all of the walls and floors do NOT have matching clip points. I don't know why they designed them that way, why wouldn't you put the clip holes in the same place on all the walls and floor??? I tried cutting a slot myself and didn't like it much. This is the biggest negative to the set.

I only used glue on one ruin to glue a roof and floor on, but the roof came off so I just clipped it in. The clips, when they are lined up correctly, work fine to hold them together. The only issue is that the parts that can be used as floors clipping holes don't match the walls very well, so only have 1 place to connect usually. The ones I used for ground floors, I put an extra clip on the end to balance them better.

 

 

The 2 smaller ladders I attached with a clip, the bigger ones are just free standing. The doors and trap doors can be left closed, but I popped them open a bit.

 

They are designed for 28-32mm, they are way to big for 15mm.

 

I did not colour in the edges. I did a test with a brown and black texter but though it didn't make much difference. 

Being cardboard it can be a bit hard to force straight, but they ARE ruins anyway.if you bump them they will move around, compared to much more heavier resin or much heavier plastic buildings.

I bought the extra brown clips but at most playing distance you can't see the difference. The above photo shows the grey ones stand out more, so I should swap that one at least. The grey merges into stone colored ones much better.

 

 

You get 3 barricades with the set, and a lot of scatter stones and wood I have put away for the time being. I think I'll glue the scatter to some terrain in future - I can use them to glue to some tree and bush plates I need to build.

I didn't follow any guide on HOW to put the ruins together- the box art shows some 3 story high ones, but I wanted a scattering of different sizes and heights, and just 1 level rather than 2 or 3, as I could cover more area that way. If I got a 2nd set I would make some 2-3 story ones. 

Most adventures won't want to climb 2 stories anyway, and Rangers of Shadow Deep doesn't need them either.

You get 3 large pieces of flat wood to place as ramps/barricades/roofs/floors.  

I popped out ALL the holes, doors and windows. They come out very easily and I'm pretty sure would fall out during normal use. I might glue some of the windows back on at an angle for a slightly more 3D look, but otherwise I would want to glue something over the top to hold them in - you get a lot of "wood" from scatter that could be used to hold them in place, and would work fine to hold off zombies.

 

I ended up with 1 roof spare. In the first mission for Rangers of Shadow Deep, the roof CAN fall on someone, so it will be useful for that.

Here you can see the 2 ladder types you get. Note the floors are hovering slightly off the ground because they are clipped in - I don't think you'll notice in normal game play.

 

 

 

 

 

Only one part came apart when pulling them out, and I just rubbed some brown texter on the roof to cover the whiteness.

 

The best parts of this is it stores very well! I could always pull them apart and flatten them, though I doubt I'll ever do that. I can throw them in a box and don't need to worry about them coming apart of breaking (beyond one glued floor coming apart). 

 

All up, I like the  Battle Systems: Village Ruins. The one annoyance of not having holes in the same places is outweighed by the cost and time if I build something myself, and they will work well with the normal (non-ruins) village, river, road and bridge I have. 

I plan on using them for Oathmark and Rangers of Shadow Deep, but any 25-32mm figure game would work fine. Figures can stand on the higher floors without issue. They are designed for a Fantasy world but can work for anything that requires old ruins I would think. 

Coming up eventually: I put together the Battle Systems : Fantasy Village.