Bolt Action Building

We recently received some 28 mm pre coloured MDF buildings from Micro Art Studios

Due to the lack of local Flames of War opposition I’ve been building up some 28mm forces for rulesets such as Bolt Action, Pikemans Lament and even Badgers and Burrows so it was my lucky day and got asked to review them.

Firstly a big thanks to Micro Art Studios because it was a very generous review package.

It’s all Eastern Front buildings and included for review were

Ostfront Village Doma
Ostfront Village Maria’s House
Ostfront Village Barn
Ostfront Low Fences

I have had some experience of making up mdf buildings but this was my first time but this was the first time with pre coloured ones.

If you haven’t built mdf buildings before, basically you get a number of sheets of mdf into which the component parts have been pre-cut. This leaves them still attached to the mdf “sprue” but d relatively easily detached. The Micro Art Studios packs I reviewed were all easily seperated without modelling tools, even the smaller bits, but to be on the safe side, or if it’s your first time, you can use a small modelling scalpel to help you.

Unlike other mdf building kits I have constructed these ones come with very clear and simple instruction son the rear of the title page, don’t inadvertently throw it in the recycling !!!

Now here is the important safety tip

Always dry fit the parts together before gluing , that way you can double check the instructions and not have to messily start pulling things apart. This is particularly true with the houses which are more complex

For construction I used super glue, though Micro Art say that other glue’s can be used to, I quite like the quick bonding that super glue gives, as I’m often building inside a short timeframe due to other things going on in life.

I started with the fencing, and actually really glad i did as it’s super easy, and once you have dry fitted the first one it becomes clear that for the fences you don’t really even need glue. The back piece locks the fence section to the base very well. This really increased my confidence, and is the reason there is a safety tip as I moved straight onto building one of the houses and found that with more complexity comes the need for a little bit more time and concentration !!

The review pack contained a barn, and three singles story houses. They took about an hour each to build, which included popping out the pieces, doing a dry fit, construction and then a small amount of time to allow sections to set. The houses come with small plastic windows (be careful not lose these when unboxing), also obviously leave most of the roof’s unglued to facilitate figure placement. The double building pack has a small porch roof which will need to be glued. I just need to finish off the roof by shading the protruding joints so they don’t stand out as much (pretty much all mdf buildings i have made up have this issue). All the buildings are very sturdy, though given the high level of decoration and finesse some care in handling is probably for the best.

Overall I think these are great building, they will look great when using my Soviet or Finnish Bolt Action armies (other rule sets are available), and they certainly save on the time of having to paint the buildings when finished, though this of course comes at a price premium. I would certainly recommend them if they fall within your budget.

Whilst the Eastern Front buildings reviewed are not available in 15mm, Micro Art’s Normandy buildings are and you can read Marks review of those here.

Thanks again to the guys at Micro Art Studios for the review packs and for another great product.