Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I was recently contacted by Angry Badger (see this thread in N&R to follow all their new releases) to review some of their products, and, seeing that they were rather nicely done and a bit more interesting than the usual MDF fare I agreed and picked out the Dwarf Halls and the sci-fi barricades from their line to review.

This review is for the Dwarf Halls, which can be found here. The sci-fi barricade review will follow soon!

1. Packaging/ Contents:

First things first, the unboxing! Everything was very well-packaged, with the box filled with foam peanuts and all of the components bubble-wrapped. And the tape holding together the bubblewrap was the cloudy sort that is easy to pull off, making unpackaging the contents much easier.



On to the contents themselves, there is a *lot* of stuff, two large 6" square halls, corridors to go with them, and enough walls to surround their perimeter or, if you prefer, you can use them as a base and create a modular gaming board using multiple sets.. as seen in the following picture from their website, each set of dwarf halls will give you enough to fill a 12" by 6" area, so potentially you could get 8 sets and have a complete 2'x2' modular gaming board if you wanted, with as much ability to customize the layout as you want.



The walls themselves are packed with options, with up to five separate layers of detail and optional removable doors.. the centre of the wall is done in a rough style of brickwork, which is then sandwiched in between two layers of ornamental stone which forms doorways and alcoves, and finally there are additional carved columns and altars with dwarf heads carved into them to create a wall that is a lot more interesting than a simple flat wall would be.

Finally, there is the grand entrance itself, which, once assembled has an integrated set of sliding doors that can be moved open or closed during a game.

2. Assembly

Initially, I had some confusion over how to put the huge pile of parts together, but this was very quickly made easier when I noticed that Angry Badger have video assembly guides up on youtube for their products, this video has a guide for the walls, and the (quite complex) grand entrance:




For those who would prefer a quick image-based guide, I'll show you how they go together as part of this review:

Firstly, The inner wall gets sandwiched between the two layers of ornamental walls, with the base for the walls also glued on at this point. Everything fits together perfectly, no need to push anything out of frame or remove excess wood like you do with some MDF kits either, everything is delivered with the "clean up" phase already done for you:



Secondly, there is the sub-assembly of the altar/ statue piece which comes in three parts, the dwarf head, the flat surface for it to be glued to and finally the small base to add detail around the bottom edge:



Finally, gluing the altar to the wall, and adding some decorative columns finishes off the wall. There is no need to glue the door into place, as this can slot in and out and be added or removed whenever you want. The kit also includes an optional wall piece in the shape of the doorway, so you can easily "wall off" doors as well if that is what you want... this makes the walls very versatile with three different types of "hot swappable" configuration.



The end result is very multi-layered, which is impressive for something like a wall which runs the risk of being quite flat and dull in an mdf kit. These ones have depth with 5 layers of detail and look great as a result.

The walls are self-standing as well thanks to their thickness and the basing parts, so they can be easily moved around on the fly when building a dungeon layout without needing clipping or gluing together and they are big and heavy enough to remain in place during a game without running the risk of being knocked about. So, in practical terms for forming a dungeon you have a very no-nonsense product which can safely be thrown into a box and put together when you arrive at your club or FLGS for a game.

3. Painting

With this kit, I decided I wanted some nice colour variation with the paintjob since all-grey can be a little dull. I opted for a multi-layer look to work with the 5 different layers of mdf.. Red brick for the core of the wall, then grey stone for the outside walls and some bronze/gold details to finish.

I started with a black undercoat of acrylic craft paint, heavily watered down to get into all the crevice, followed by a second thicker coat for better coverage once that had dried.

Next, the inner wall was painted in red/brown colour, and the walls were carefully painted in grey, not drybrushed, but overbrushed leaving the lines between the bricks black.. this is easily done you carefully use the edge of the brush to apply the paint.. drybrushing is another option, but the kit is quite nice and has lots of fine detail, so I felt that taking the time to paint it well would really make it shine.

Next, I highlighted each individual brick with a lighter grey.. no need to be too picky about this, just a single line along the top of each brick works well.

Next, the metal parts were painted bronze

All of the metal and the red brick was then given a chestnut ink wash for some shading, followed by bronze and then light gold highlights on the metal parts to make them pop.

The diamond pattern on the columns was painted pure gold without any washes, to be brighter and stand out.

And here is the finished result, all painted up with a Mantic Orc for scale (the 25mm base fits exactly in the doorway so you will have no problems moving minis inside and through them in a game):




4. Quality of components

As previously mentioned, this kit is nice and multi-layered, but there are also some nice extra touches that you don't often see on MDF kits such as the carved-out detail, as can be seen on the diamond patterns

Often, an MDF manufacturer will simply settle for engraving a few lines for a pattern rather than removing the material surrounding a pattern (which presumably takes more laser time to accomplished).. what angry badger have done on these is the opposite, which creates a proper carved-stone effect as opposed to looking like a bit of wood that has had a laser run lines into it. This really makes the kit stand out above other MDF stuff I have seen and is an excellent positive to the kit, IMO.



Everything is machined nicely as well, and was easy to assemble, although an instruction booklet or a note in the box pointing people to the online assembly videos could be very useful since it took me a little while to notice that that guide existed.

5. Usage for games

This kit could be useful for pretty much any dungeon delver or RPG game, since the modular layout lets you do anything with it, and the price is much lower than resin alternatives while offering a much larger and sturdier solution.

Personally, I am looking into using the kit for Dwarf King's Hold, although it is mainly the floor tiles that are of interest.. they are exactly 25mm, the same size as the tiles in DKH so there is definitely potential there, and the card tiles included in DKH are very low quality thin card which easily warps and gets moved around during gameplay, so I feel like a set of MDF floor tiles would be a great upgrade for the game.

Possibly a kit with just the floor tiles cut into shapes that match the tiles in dwarf king's hold, or, failing that, offering the floor tiles alone in a variety of sizes and pieces which can then be cut to shape by the customer would be great. Even just offering the 6" floor tiles separately would be great for anyone who wants to take then and cut them into shape for the dungeon game of their choice. The walls are good too, but the floor tiles in their own in a large variety of shapes could offer a more affordable option for those playing tile-based fantasy games such as DKH or warhammer quest.

6. Conclusion:

Quality: 8/10
Definitely one of the higher-end offerings on the market, with the carved-out detail and multi-layer build making it a very high quality kit.
Pricing: 7/10
Not as high as resin, but you do pay for the highly detailed walls, and it would be quite expensive to kit out a full 2'x2' gaming surface (although it would look gorgeous once done).. it is possible that a more affordable basic option with just one-layer walls and some detailing might be of interest to some people, as well as separate floor tiles for those who just want some nice quality 2d tiles to game on and aren't bothered about the walls.
Ease of assembly: 8/10
No need to press anything out of MDF frames like you often need to with MDF companies is good. Assembly is pretty quick although a little tricky to figure out if you don't know the videos are there (the videos are great!)
Design: 9/10
Highly modular kit, hot-swappable piece that let you switch between wall/ door/ doorway and the sliding doorway on the grand entrance are all great features. From a practical gaming perspective it is great, it can be reconfigured on the fly and will not fall over in the middle of a game, doesn't need gluing or clipping together.. all very good things.

Overall score: 8/10

IMO, this is a really nice kit and I hope you enjoyed the review.

Join me next time for a the review of the 28mm sci-fi barricades!

Good review there Scarletsquig

and the product looks great too

OK, that's a little bit cool.

Sweet, I may get some-I do need something to replace the old Dungeon/Warhammer Quest tiles.

Looks good, and a good review - thanks! I've got their not-Black Gate on my "to buy, sometime" list.

Nice - looks solid.

I have been using PDF/Cardstock terrain - this looks more akin to the World Works PDFs than to the Dwarven Forge terrain in the way that it goes together.

The Auld Grump

That looks really cool.

Thanks for writing the review Squig!

You know.. I've been humming and harring for ages about making a proper dungeon set-up. Using it with stuff like Heroquest, Song of Blades and Heroes, even D&D, and now I've got a load of the Fractured Dimensions stuff on the way now seems like a good time to start thinking about it seriously.

Based on your comments, which would be better out of this and the (somewhat more pricey) Dwarven Forge?

Someone should make a Heroquest board with walls which work like these dwarf walls where upon you can slide a 'wall' or 'door' into the arch from the top-side. Then the walls can be 'always installed' on a 3D board and you can just remove doors and such by pulling them out the top