Quick review: MDF Terrain from Commission Figurines

I talked about the great looking MDF buildings from Commission Figurines a couple of weeks ago. Well I couldn't resist any longer and bought some from their eBay store. My package arrived yesterday morning so I decided to do a quick unboxing.

I received the Konig Strasse & Berlin Strasse buildings, some roads, and a few other bits & pieces. This was my first look at them in the flesh. Was I disappointed? No, in fact they had even more detail on them than I expected.

So what do you get in a pack? You get four external walls, four bases with moulded in pavement and a ruined internal floor. The pictures of the Berlin Stasse pack are shown below. The buildings come well packed with the parts in a ziplock bag.

Depending on the building you will usually get different front and back walls. The amount of detail etched onto the walls is fantastic. A really good painter will have a field day painting up these models.

Rear wall of Berlin Strasse

Front wall of Berlin Strasse

Again depending on the building the walls show varying bits of battle damage. Here the damage can be seen on the side walls.

The walls fit into groves in the bases that come in the pack. For me the nicest touch is the moulded in pavements which give a more realistic look to the buildings. In case you're wondering what the slots in the bases are for, they're for internal walls. They're not available yet as the manufacturer wasn't completely happy with the prototypes so far. It's good to see a manufacturer who cares more about quality than just getting products out of the door to make a quick buck.

This brings up another aspect of the buildings, their modular nature. You can buy individual front, rear and end walls so you can make up buildings to your own design. Add to this the different internal layouts you'll be able to choose and you can have a great variety of models on your table.

The last piece in the pack is a ruined internal floor. Again the detail is great with the floorboards clearly visible.

The ruined floor

So what do they look like assembled and on the table? The answer is great, as you can see in the photos below. One thing you don't really grasp until you see them in the flesh is just how big the buildings are, even the photos don't really convey their size. They really have a presence on the table top. The roads are cut so they neatly fit the pavements on the buildings and come in various lengths and configurations. They have a cobbled effect etched into them which should paint up well.

The buildings can be dissembled after use and packed flat but I think I'll be gluing mine together as I have plenty of storage space.

A ruined street in Berlin

Down and dirty with the troops

In addition to the buildings they also do game markers for FoW. Below is a shot of the German marker set. It contains five each of Pinned, Gone to Ground, Dug In, Bailed Out, Ranged In, Bogged Down, and Hull Down for a total of 35 markers.

German game markers

The last thing in the pack was a business card, but what's so special about that? Well its laser etched onto a FoW large base. I think I'll use it as the base for another objective marker like this one.

That way if anyone asks me where I got the buildings from I can just flip over the objective marker and all the details will be there. But there's nothing to stop you using it as an artillery base or whatever you want. Again just another of the well thought out little touches from this manufacturer.

As you might have guessed I'm delighted with the buildings. But are there any downsides? Yes, one massive one. You'll be up all night trying to work out how you can find enough money to cover your table with roads and buildings for a massive assault on Berlin urban game. :-)

Once I've worked out colour schemes I'll do some posts on painting them up. I think I'll start on the roads first as they should be easy to do.