The War Altar: Product review: PaperTerrain.com

Travel east in southern Russia across the heat saturated steppes and you will eventually reach the cool waters of the Laba and Kuban. In between these two rivers lies the somniferous village of Bristolscalia.

The product under review here is the South Russian Village pack (http://paperterrain.mybisi.com/product/south-russian-village-pack) in 15mm. It costs $40.00 (roughly 31 euro) with an additional $11.00 for shipping from the U.S. We ordered the village online and received it seven days later. In addition to the village we received a signed letter from PaperTerrain.com's CEO/CFO. That's a nice touch.

The village consists of seventeen buildings--barns, workhouses, houses, and a church. The buildings are printed on cardstock with each building clearly labeled. We unpacked the buildings and sorted out the inventory.

. A key feature of paperterrain.com buildings is the double-construction. Each of the main buildings comes as a ruined “core” and an outer healthy shell that slides over the core. This was a compelling reason for our decision to give this product a trial. This also effectively doubles the assembly time so plan accordingly. Our xacto knives were sharp and we got straight to work cutting out two houses, sheds, and some fences

The assembly of the house was straightforward. A ruler with a sharp edge is helpful with the folds, particularly the small tabs that are used to glue the components together. We used Scotch's "scapbook glue" and it worked nicely.

The detail is impressive, as we expected from a printed product. The chimney is a nice touch and you can imagine a family sitting around a poorly fueled fire waiting to be crushed under the treads of an IS-2. Having assembled two houses we decided to make a compound. The base is the cork underside of a place mat that has been painted brown. Our compound consists of two sheds (one wood shed is just visible to the right of a house), a pig pen, and some fences.

Next we simply applied some flock.

Let's conclude this brief review.

Price: Inexpensive. Flames of War requires a serious commitment to terrain and this product gets you most of the way there.

Gaming: Perfect. The footprint of each building is ideally suited to FoW sized bases. The ability to remove the outer shell of each building is a great feature.

Assembly: The editorial team struggled to reach a consensus on this. The general feeling of our team is: do not purchase paper terrain unless you are prepared for the assembly. Papercraft is not for everyone. It requires a certain temperament and hands that aren't riddled with caffeine. It will take you hours--DAYS EVEN--to assemble your village. We suggest that the lack of painting required makes the build time average out with other types of terrain. This review covers only a small sampling of houses because one of the editors had an "accident" with his knife while assembling the church.