Pimpcron: Terrains4games Pre-Painted Village Set
Pimpcron got his hands on some pre-painted buildings!
Hi everyone! Your old pal Pimpcron is here with a terrain set review! It is probably no secret that I absolutely despise painting terrain. I make that very well known, despite my infatuation with terrain. With four kids, wife, real job, podcast, blogging, Shorehammer, and Brutality skirmish wargame, you can imagine that there isn’t enough time in the day for me to sit down and paint terrain. I think terrain is equally important to the miniatures in our favorite hobby, and well-painted terrain is a huge factor in making your battlefield come alive.
So I got my hands on some of Terrains4games buildings that are included in their current Kickstarter Tabletop Village Collection. There are options to buy them painted or unpainted and unassembled, but you know what I chose. Let’s dig in.
These buildings are based on real buildings according to Terrains4games, and they all have a unified feel to their paint job. I asked why the one building (granary) has multiple doors leading nowhere and discovered that it is a multi-level building used for storage. Typically a pulley or winch would be used to drop cargo down into a truck or cart. The building just to the right of the center of the photo is one of their pre-printed buildings that require no paint at all. You can see in this picture that it even has shingles printed on it. The inside floor of the building has wood flooring printed on it, but the inside walls are not painted.
I really like the paint scheme of these buildings.
I feel like it really contrasts with the rural colors of green, tan, and brown. If you’d like to make a quiet farm town, this set seems perfect. Pictured in these photos are also some of my terrains4games trees, and my crops I bought a while ago from them. All of these buildings can have their roof removed, so if you feel so inclined, you could paint the inside and use it for D&D or whatever you want.
As you can see, these fit human-sized 28mm figures perfectly. Sometimes I run into buildings that have doors a bit small for humans, but these seem pretty spot on. I also think staining some of the wood instead of painting it is a nice touch.
As with all terrain types, there are pros and cons. The pros of MDF terrain are that it is typically less expensive than other materials, they are easy to assemble, and are sturdy while being light. The lower price of MDF terrain allows you to get more for your money but I don’t prefer to paint it myself. A typical drawback to MDF terrain is that it sometimes takes more effort to make the piece look finished because by default the MDF doesn’t have the same texture like many other materials. But this can be mitigated by dry brushing, stenciling, airbrushing, and spraying texture on before painting.
Luckily, I skipped over my least favorite part by just choosing the pre-painted version of the buildings. Another good thing about these sets is that the design of the dark overlay makes painting these easy without effort like normal MDF can require. Just spray the lattice whatever color you want before gluing it on.
This building is by far my favorite.
I love how it overhangs and has a porch; I feel like this one really stands out. You might want to set up some chairs and a little pile of firewood or something to make a scene.
Like usual cameras problems, I had a hard time getting the real color of the roofs to show in the photos. They often come off as brighter or paler than they really are. The bottom right hand corner of the roof is what the real-life color of the shingles is. It is what I would call a medium burgundy. Not super dark, but not pink either.
This is some of the detail printed on the pre-printed buildings. Very nice work and I didn’t have to lift a brush at all. I am on the fence on whether I prefer the pre-printed or pre-painted. Pre-printed has more detail included, and the color palette is a bit darker. The pre-painted buildings are a bit brighter. I feel like it is up to your preference, really.
Go check out their Kickstarter going on right now! I will be buying more of these buildings for sure.
These sets come in three different scales for different games, but of course, I wanted 28mm for obvious reasons. Though I have bought countless terrain sets, buildings, water features, trees, and even gardens from terrains4games, they did provide me with this particular set for the purposes of reviewing. I love their stuff anyway and find their prices to be reasonable, so it really has no bearing on the outcome of my opinion of these. I’m glad to spread the word for a friendly company that makes great products.
We’re on Podbean, Stitcher, iTunes, Spotify, and others!
Pimpcron’s Warhammer Convention
Or contact me at [email protected] for the latest rules if you don’t do the Facebooks.
