Review: Battlefield Accessories

 

Heyhey, yet another review of yet another Warlord (well..) kit - it's the Bolt Action Battlefield Accessories!

History

To get to it right away: This one from the Italeri-Warlord-collaboration series and thus 1/72nd scaled and features realistic proportions. 

Since the early 2010s, Warlord have been working with Italian scale model company Italeri. We all know that Warlord sell old Italeri kits like this and other scenery kits, but also some of their earlier Bolt Action plastic vehicles such as the Puma were made together with Italeri. Funny side note: I just spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out if they used an up-scaled 1/72nd Puma for that or a down-scaled 1/35th Puma, only to find out that a.) Italeri got a pretty new 1/48th Puma as well and b.) apparently neither of the above were used for Warlord's 28mm Puma. So maybe it was a collaboration to make a whole new kit? Interesting. And probably this should be in a review of that Puma kit rather than in this one. 

The fruit that sprang from the loins of that collaboration showed up in different peels (to stretch that thin metaphor): Italeri in turn released those 28mm vehicles under their banner and also some of Warlord's 28mm infantry figures, both at lower prices than Warlord did. Which isn't an uncommon thing in the scale model world. The original Battlefield Accessories set most probably was made by Italeri, but was sold by Italian company Esci (a re-seller/importer of scale model kits mainly) under the title "Diorama Accessories" (which is very fitting for the set actually, which I'll get to in a bit).

Only when Esci went under around 1993, many of their kits went to Italeri (and others to some most interesting places, apparently. I'd like to see a full history of Italeri and Esci.). Which is where I saw this kit first when I was a kid.

So only by making this connection to Esci I was finally able to pin down a probable release year of this kit: 1978. Yup, this kit is over half a century old, according to Scalemates.

It would feel wrong not to mention it: Of course Games Workshop also famously made their own Battlefield Accessories kit, under that very name.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I like to think that this set (which has been around for ages itself) pays homage to Italeri's granddaddy of 'em all with the name, the contents and whatnot.

Box Contents

In wargaming terms the box contains a selection of very useful scatter terrain:

On two sprues we find: A bunch of sandbags (~10 x 6mm), a whole lot of wooden signs and three telegraph poles (82mm tall), 5 Czech hedgehogs (35mm length on the metal beams), 4 wooden boxes, 8 petrol barrels, a whole bunch of sticks for making barbed wire obstacles.

The sprues I got are light grey (also very Italeri looking)
rather than brown. These photos here are from the Ialeri 
website.

Where the Warlord version differs from the much cheaper Italeri version is that Warlord add in a very good quality decal sheet for all those signs included as well as a length of their barbed wire. Fun fact on the side: The Esci version back in the day apparently also included a decal sheet.

Notable detail: No bases included. 

Assembly & Painting

Assmebly is very straightforward, except maybe for the Czech hedgehogs, but the back of the box gives some useful instructions on that.

As for the signs and telegraph poles, I mounted them on 25mm or 32mm round bases. To give them a bit more stability, I drilled holes into the bases and glued them in there. 

On the smaller sign (the one which says "sniper" I added one of the little sticks included in the pack to the signpost to strengthen it, because that one's a bit flimsy.

These sand bags. I played around with those back when I was a kid and into scale modelling already, and even then I wasn't quite happy with them. There are two shapes, one bent upwards on one end, downwards on the other, to make proper sand bag fortifications. Since they are rather small though and not all too many, it's very hard to make anything meaningful in 28mm from those included alone, so I made a dug-out position with sand bags on top.

 

For the barbed wire obstacles I opted to built cheval-de-frise style ones using  the short side of the sprues (cut down, with a bit of uneven structure hacked in) as base and the many sticks which come with the set for the shorter crossed parts. It would have been correct to apply the barbed wire lengthways and then a swirly bit along the full length, but the barbed wire supplied with the kit wasn't long enough for that plus adornung the Czech hedgehogs with barbed wire as well (historically they had little loops for fastening barbed wire to them).

Verdict

Warlord Games usually employ the good old 1/56th scale for 28mm vehicles ; 1/72nd scale as we know is usually used in conjunction with 20mm figures. So everything in this box is a bit wee and a bit thin, just like with all the Italeri scenery packs sold under the Bolt Action brand.

Of course this kit is a mix of everything, with a little bit of everything in there. That being said, all the stuff is useful, and one such box will let you enhance the look of a say 3' by 3' or 4' by 4' table a lot. The signs are always useful (and as mentioned above, the decals are good quality. I applied them pretty much over a dark brown base), same with telegraph poles. Oil drums and boxes can be made into a jump-off point, objective or just something to liven up bases or terrain, equally the sand bags I think are mainly of use to put on terrain like windows or prepared positions. On their own they're just too small and too few to make anything meaning full from them alone. If you want to add them to tanks, I suggest using milliput or green stuff instead, so the lay across the tank's surface properly.

So all in all, I think that this kit has surprisingly much to offer, despite its slightly off scale. Sure, I usually made road signs from bits of wood so far, Rubicon have a dedicated set for telegraph poles (and street lights), sand bags are still best made from putty, etc.

But this is the sort of kit you can grab, have lying around for ever and use it as a useful box for spare parts. The original designation as "diorama accessories" is very apt. You can use it to make bases or scenery prettier, you can get obstacles for your games out of it and a heck of a lot of other useful bits and pieces. 

Everything put together!

Warlord Games charge EUR 18,00/GBP 15.00/USD 24.00 for this kit. The Italeri kit (without decals and barbed wire) can be bought for between EUR 7,50 and EUR 10,00. Warlord Games sell their barbed wire (3m, as opposed to 2m you get with the Warlord Battlefield Accessories box) for EUR 5,75 / GBP 4.75 / USD 7.50. What Warlord and other hobby suppliers sell as barbed wire is also available in larger quantities (100+ metres for betwen EUR 10,00 and 15,00) under the name "sealing wire" (like the funky little wires on public fire extinguishers). It's wirely available, for instance here. So if you want to model a proper trench line/perimeter/any other horrible place in the world on a larger scale than about 12", I suggest looking into buying en masse.

The weapon of choice if you need
something for Steve McQueen to jump over.

Keep in mind that if you want to go fancier (and like to live dangerous), you can go for photo-etched brass barbed wire, which bascially is razorwire. Several companies sell it, but it's a bit more expensive.

If you just want to pick up a kit that may not look like much but will prove to be useful several times down the line, I think that this may be well worth considering. Either by itself, or in the Warlord version. Of course that's got the advantage of having everything in one box and being very readily available. I mean so are Italeri kits (at least within the EU, most probably world-wide as well). If you like the additional decals and bit of wire you can go with that. Just don't forget that you need bases for everything in there.

Overall I was surprised how much fun I had with that kit 50+ years old, still as useful as it ever was. Unglamorous, but there's lots of potential in there.

Right, I hope you enjoyed the review and found it interesting. If you have any questions, comments or indeed commission enquiries, feel free to let me know via the comments section, the Battle Brush Studios Facebook page, on Instagram or via e-mail.