The set includes 7 different buildings (with 2 textures, Pueblo and Maghreb) and many extras to add variety. There are plain huts, huts with an arcade and huts with stairs. There are two different sizes of each hut, small and large, so you can stack the buildings to make and endless variety of building shapes. There is also a well house with a domed top to act as a center piece for the set and your tabletop.

The whole set comes as a zipped file with each building packaged as a separate PDF. The instructions come as a separate PDF as well, in both English and German language versions. This separation of files saves time in searching for elements and paper when printing only the building parts you want.

Textures

Christopher has done a great job with the textures in this set. Nice desert yellows and browns give it a worn look, enhanced by tasteful weathering and cracks that make the buildings really look like they've been there for a while. The set isn't overly textured and dark, so it should save on printer ink for those of us who print a lot.

The cut and fold lines are very thin and almost get lost in the printing, but are dark enough to be useful and seem to disappear when the model is put together. There are differentiations between regular and reverse folds which is helpful. Beyond the cut and fold lines, there is very little information on each page about the model and thus you must refer to the instructions PDF.

The resolution of the textures does not look very high as certain elements look a little blurry, like the cracks in the buildings and the wood textures. However, once printed out, they look fine and work well, so rather than increase the size of the files, I think it works with this set. The wood textures (ladders, doors, etc) look a little flat and undefined, but still give the impression of wood.

The extras included such as awnings, market stalls and crates filled with fruit and other market items are bright and colorful. The awnings look like stretched fabric which is a nice effect. These extras really add some great contrast to the worn look of the buildings.

Overall the texturing is quite effective and I'm impressed by the clever highlighting along the building edges, which gives the models a bright, sun worn appearance.

Models

As stated before, there is a separate PDF of instructions for the entire set. These instructions detail how to build the buildings and the extras. The instructions are written in a clear, concise manner with plenty of pictures and examples.

The models themselves are relatively easy to put together, using the instructions as a guide. The roofs are made to be removable, which is a great feature for wargamers. I found the roof reinforcements and the stairs to some of the buildings the only relatively tricky modelling parts, but was overall very satisfied after putting these together.

The variation of models as a set is impressive as you can create varied buildings by stacking the smaller buildings on the larger ones. You can definitely create a small city with the different styles of models.

Theme

The desert theme of the buildings and the variety included allows for a host of options when bringing this set to the tabletop. You can create a small North African city or an American Indian reservation. By including other elements, not part of the set, you could push this to a fantasy Arabian Nights set or even a science fiction settlement on a desert planet. I imagine modern miniatures battles in North Africa, a vertical build of pueblo buildings like Mesa Verde in Mexico, and a dusty space settlement like Tatooine.

Paper Model sets are typically full of editing and modding potential and this set is no exception. I think it would take very little effort to make even larger buildings and complexes using multiple prints of the smaller buildings and putting them together. Elements such as graffiti and outside equipment (power, gas, etc) would bring the set into a more modern or even futuristic theme. I can easily think of a half dozen other mods that could be done to push this set even further and those of us who like to do that will be very happy with this set, I think.

Recommendation

I give this set a high recommendation. It really looks good on the tabletop and the amount of different models you get for the money, it's quite worth it. The amount of time it will take you to put together a decent sized city should be somewhat small and I found that after the first couple, I was popping them together in much less than 10 minutes for each.

This is Christopher's first commercial product and I think it is a great first attempt. I can't wait to see what's next in store from him. As his model making and texturing skills mature even further, I think the sky's the limit. With his unbelievable (and free) LOTR series and now the Desert Village, I think he's going to be a major player in the paper model market in the future.

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