Friday, January 27, 2012

FOW Italian Vineyards - Review and Upgrade

While I was at Adler Hobby last Thursday I was able to buy one of the new Flames of War Battlefield in a Box Italian Vineyards sets. Honestly I'm planning to use these more for ancients games using the Field of Glory rules than I do with WWII Flames of War. These are the perfect size for vineyard terrain pieces in FOG. The retail cost is $25.00 which may sound like a lot for two pieces of terrain, but the bases are made of a very durable semi-hard rubber and the eight removable vine rows are made of durable hard resin. The best part is they all come painted with good detail right down to ripe grapes under the vine canopy. They come ready to drop on the table right out of the box as shown in the two photographs below. Considering all that I think they were a good purchase.


Not being able to leave well enough alone I took an additional 20 minutes or so to spruce these up a bit more. I thought the brighter of the two greens on the vines looked a bit too 'fluorescent' for my tastes and the striping of the colors a bit too distinct. A quick dry brush with some white PVA glue followed by some blended turf seems to bring the look together a bit more for my tastes and I think adds some realism. The Brown bases seemed a bit too well manicured so again some sporadic patches of PVA glue followed by my favorite static grass blend - Scenic Express spring meadow blend were added. The end results of my 20 minutes of work are shown below - ready to be seen on the tabletop in my next Field of Glory ancients games!



3 comments:

Mike said...

These look great, especially after your improvements. They'd look good for Marengo as well

Hein said...

Nice to see another Battlefield in a Box Italian Vineyards. And to glue some blended turf on the vines seems as a great idea. I still in doubt if i will give the Light green vines a layer of wash to give them a darker look. Maybe I steal your idea.

AJ (Allan) Wright said...

A wash (or a re-paint) of the light areas might still be a good idea. Some variation is good, but the light green isn't very realistic.