A couple of weeks ago I ordered $50us worth of 15mm North African buildings from ‘Crescent Root Studios‘ and they just arrived this morning.
I have to say I am a completely happy customer! The buildings look fantastic and Mark Neimeyer from Crescent Root Studios was very helpful and friendly, indulging me with both a custom order (I wanted just the buildings, not the bases) and working out shipping costs all the way to my home in New Zealand.
I will definitely be keeping an eye on CRS for any future product and see they also have a line of 25-28mm Fantasy buildings. I notice they’ve also recently added 15mm European buildings too.
My $50us gave me one of each of Mark’s 15mm NA buildings with a few extra copies of the smaller buildings. All of the buildings are well detailed with doorways, windows, trap doors, stairways and cracks and exposed brick work.
They’re cast from a robust resin product by the feel of it and I think they’ll hold up to painting and gaming well. I also noticed no issues like bubbles etc. in the casting at all. They’re reasonably light as I suspect they’re cast over a foam filler so they may move during gameplay unless based on something heavier like MDF. I will probably base them anyway as I’d like to add extra detail like boxes, etc.
All of the buildings in these photos are unpainted and straight from their well packed box. The buildings come in three sizes:
Large
The large buildings will hold at least one large Flames of War infantry base on their rooftops, probably two for the left and right buildings.
Of the three the right building is probably the most versatile with it’s large square roof and staircase. The central building is a very characterful split level and the left building will be great for blocking LOS, even from elevated opponents.
Medium
The medium buildings are all good for hiding infantry behind and placing observers on.
A staircase is nice but all the buildings without staircases actually have subtle trapdoors sculpted into the roofs. They’re hard to see in the photos, although you can just make one out slightly off-centre of the right building’s square roof. A bit of careful painting will make them more obvious.
Most of the medium buildings also stack onto the large buildings too which is nice for some extra variety.
Small
The small buildings are all for extra detail. You can stack them, or rest them next to a larger building as an extension.
Many of the Crescent Root building sets also come with those flat side pieces. They work really well to convert a house style building into a more market or shop feeling building. I don’t quite know why that is…possibly the arched doorways and tiled roofs? But combine a few with the normal buildings and you end up with a very nice ‘town square’ or ‘market’ feel. I’m debating whether to fix these to buildings before I paint everything, or keeping them separate for variety. Hmmmm or perhaps I should just order more buildings!
In conclusion these buildings are exactly what I was after, they’re very nicely sculpted and well cast, their scale is perfect for 15mm and Crescent Root Studios were a absolute pleasure to deal with. So if you’re after reasonably priced 15mm, 20mm or 28mm scale terrain I say definitely check them out.