Sunday, December 2, 2018

Pwork: Medieval Buildings - MDF Scenery Kit Reviewed!


This time we will take a closer look at the Pwork Wargames Medieval Buildings - MDF Scenery Kit. If you're looking for some really useful scenery for your tabletop miniature wargames, this might be the model terrain kit you have been looking for!

Pwork Wargames is an Italian wargame company, founded in 2016, that produces and sells products dedicated to RPGs, wargames and boardgames. Pwork Wargames is an italian company: we like to think that the business card of our "Italianness" is the care for the design and style of our products, all conceived by "the creative soul" of Pwork, Paolo Bertoncini, art director and game designer. Alessandro Picollo manages the logistic, shipments, requests and needs of our customers and much more... The whole organization of production and order management depends on him. Last but not least, two girls joined the team: Paola Prinetti, who manages the relationships and collaborations with the gaming clubs and companies interested in a collaboration with Pwork Wargames and Chiara Colonna, editor and "narrator", whose precious coordination work keeps the projects on the right track and the team united. The team is also joined by other professionals, who work with the staff to make Pwork always better.

Medieval Buildings - MDF Scenery Kit

The Pwork Wargames Medieval Buildings - MDF Scenery Kit is supplied as a flat pack kit of six sturdy 3mm thick laser cut MDF sheets containing all the parts you need to assemble a full historical or fantasy style village along with a useful and fully illustrated instruction leaflet. This kit is currently the only Medieval Building type set available but Pwork Wargames is also selling similar themed kits of science fiction, fantasy and other scenery pieces such as Gothic Scenery and Combat Zone Terrain.


Construction your own Medieval Village

The assembly of this Pwork Wargames Medieval Buildings - MDF Scenery Kit is very easy as you will simpy need to punch out the already pre-cut pieces from the wooden frames and glue them together using either woodglue or model superglue. The following steps will cover the basic assembly of the parts as supplied in the model kit, if you're interested in seeing our advanced steps to upgrade this kit make sure to check our information further below.

To remove the pre-cut parts from the wooden frames you will first of all need to cut the connectors with a sharp hobby knife. These connectors are the pieces that connect the pre-cut parts with the actual wooden frames and hold the pre-cut pieces in place on the frames. Make sure to check the useful illustrated construction leaflet and simply follow the steps when cutting-out and assembling the parts. I would recommend picking one specific terrain piece and start one piece at a time so for example a single buildings, fence or other supplied scenery piece to avoid loosing parts and make the overall construction more simple.

When you have removed all necessary parts you can now clean the parts and remove unwanted residue of connectors that are still visible on the pre-cut parts. You can simply remove these unwanted parts with a hobby vile, hobby knife or some fine grade sanding paper. When you have cleaned all the parts you can now assemble the scenery piece with either woodglue or model superglue. To assemble the terrain pieces in this review, I have used model superglue as the construction is much faster, although you must make sure that the pieces are immediately in place when you glue them. Should you prefer more working time and the possibility to shift the pieces around, I would recommend using woodglue also known as white glue if I'm not mistaken. Please note that when you assemble the houses, you don't glue on the removable roofs if you want to use the building interior for your miniatures wargames and roleplaying adventures!

When you have assembled all the pieces, you will now have a wonderful and really useful medieval village that can be used for historical and fantasy wargames but can also easily fill a miniature roleplaying table with great use and character. This Medieval Village kit contains two large buildings, small stable, village well and six fences which is really amazing considering the very attractive price! Below you can see the village as assembled straight from the commercial kit without further additions and decorations. All other pictures in this review will show our own 'upgraded' version.



Advanced Construction of the Medieval Village

As mentionned during the basic assembly steps above you can easily upgrade your village pieces by doing some more easy steps such as sanding the pieces to create a smoother and more weathered look, assembling your fences in a more characterful manner and add some bits of spare MDF to the terrain to further decorate and enhance the overall look of the village.

Sanding and Weathering - One of the first steps I have done before the assembly is to take away the sharp and clean edges so common for lasercut wooden scenery by carving the edges using a sharp hobby knife and further sanding the edges for a smooth and weathered look. Think this particular step really adds further realism and character to the commercial available pieces at a minimal effort.

Characterful Fences - The fences supplied in the kit are all in pristine condition which isn't bad but I decided to add some variation by chopping up some of the pieces to create truly battered fences. This step is again very easy as you simply weather the pieces as mentionned above and then add some damage using you sharp hobby knife and once more weather the pieces.

Decoration and Enhancing - The supplied buildings are great as they are but can use some more decoration. To add some more character to the buildings I used the spare MDF that was supplied in the kit so adding these bits won't cost you any extra material or money. Using the surplus wooden frames from the kit, I added rooftop beams on the buildings, added some more wooden planks to the stable roof and structure while also adding some planks to the buildings window creating a boarded up look. Once again this easy step adds more character to the village and will certainly enhance the look of the village during your tabletop miniature wargames and adventures. Below you can see the pictures of the village which as been upgraded using the above mentionned steps.







The Conclusion

After assembling this Medieval Buildings kit by Pwork Wargames I would certainly recommend this particular scenery set as the quality and quantity included is really good especially considering the low cost of this terrain set. The Medieval Buildings kit includes everything you need to build a believable small hamlet or settlement with some buildings, fences and even a water well. As this is currently the only Medieval themed set in the Pwork Wargames catalogue I would certainly don't mind seeing more buildings such as churches, bigger buildings and a windmill appear so you can expand your village using the same style of the buildings. This kit can be bought at Pwork Wargames for only €29,50 with possible discounts during special promo events.

Disclaimer - We received this scenery set from Pwork Wargames for reviewing purposes. Please note that this doesn't influence our review as we always strive to supply you with our own independent and honest opinion about the wargame products reviewed.

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