Battlefront/GF9 Summer Woods Review

I was able to get my hands on one box each of the new Battlefront / Gale Force 9 Summer Woods Small and Large.  By now you all know I'm a big fan of their Battlefield in a box line, and these are no exception!  Let's take a look.

First up, these are packaged very securely using the standard styrofoam (unlike the new Rural farm houses), and thus these all arrived pristine.  Both the trees and bases are very sturdy, you'd be hard pressed to mess either one up throughout normal gaming.

The trees appear to be a thin wire coated in flock.  They're built very well, and barely shed at all.  I think they chose good alternating colors that look good on the table top (though the trees do look a bit unrealistic).  I also really like the scale of the trees- these are monsters in 15mm and medium for 28s.  Versatile trees for reusability!

My first tiny little gripe is that the small trees look a little funny for the trunk they're on! My second tiny little gripe is that I wish it either came with a 3rd "area" base or that they were just a tiny bit bigger.

They are ready to go right out of the box, but you'd do yourself a disservice not to apply the (included) flocking to make it blend with your table.  As you can see from the photographs they blend rather well with other GF9 terrain (like the swamp), and don't look too bad next to my home made tree bases.  (click here for the tutorial on how I made them!)

Are there better trees out there?  Yes, but for the value and ability to use them right out of the box I am quite happy with these.  Definitely not the best on the market, but probably about the best value.  Having to do no work on terrain is huge for me, but you terrain modelers out there will likely have a completely different opinion on that.

In all, I definitely like them enough to snatch up at least one more box of each.  Expect to see them in many upcoming AARs!

updated 4/29/2012
5/6 bog checks.