looks at how these pre-painted buildings are packaged.
Epix Haven successfully launched a Kickstarter that promised:
Miniature Terrain Created by Gamers for Gamers.
– Prepainted resin miniature terrain, ready to use out of the box for RPGs and Miniature Games
Now their products have shipped from the factory, and they were kind enough to send us samples. Today, we're looking at the Walls set.
The Box
Our package arrived direct from China. The shipping box looked pretty worn, but the contents were padded and protected: a cardboard 'briefcase'…
…which opens to reveal foam padding…
…beneath which are six large resin pieces, pre-painted. There are two sets of three pieces each.
The Wall Base
This is the largest piece in the set, and forms the bottom of the fortification wall. Here you see the 'outside' view. (And on the back right, the only chipped resin we saw – chipped between painting and shipping, as there was no broken piece in the box.)
Here is the same piece from the side, showing there is a corridor within the wall (which might lead to some interesting skirmishes) and a portion of inner courtyard.
Same piece, this time from the 'inside' view:
These pieces have a felt-like lining on the bottom.
Middle Wall Piece
This piece is designed to sit on top of the base piece, and provides the wall's second story. Here is the 'outside' view:
The side view, showing the inside corridor (also note how the bottom of this piece will nestle into the base piece's corridor):
The 'inside' view:
Top Wall Piece
This final piece sits on top of the middle wall piece. Here is the 'outside' view:
Side view:
'Inside' view:
The Assembled Wall
Stack them together, and this is what they look like from outside the fortress:
Side view:
From inside the fortress:
But Wait!
Remember that the box contains two sets of pieces, so putting all six pieces together gives you:
That's 18 inches of wall, a little over seven inches tall, solid heavy pieces, pre-painted and ready to game with.
The corridors are slightly more than an inch wide.
Features & Flaws
This is a set that I think any fantasy gamer would love to game with! Whether it is 'historical' enough for your non-fantasy games is up to you.
I should be clear that these pieces have been designed to have some 'battle damage' or 'weathering' – those aren't mistakes or problems, those are features!
Here is another 'outside' view of the walls. These are apparently hand-painted, and there is variation in the way they are painted (for instance, which bricks are 'colored'). Also note that the wall sections differ slightly in height.
In this 'inside' view, you can see that the courtyard is uneven. Also, I was surprised that the 'tiles' were not one-inch-square, which is standard in fantasy maps; you get eight tiles in nine inches, so each tile is about one-and-a-ninth inches or 28mm across. (Perhaps that works better with figures which are often on one-inch bases, giving them a little wiggle room.)
The top pieces do not fit together well:
The top pieces are also slightly wider than the other pieces, which will cause fit problems when you have larger walls.
There are some resin 'bubbles' on some of the inside surfaces:
In a few places, there was some streaking in the paint. I'm not sure if this is an artist's technique or some smearing:
Similarly here, I'm not sure if these are highlights on the edges or painting accidents:
Those were the only flaws I could find, and to me they are quite minor.