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Review of Mediterranean Farm
Blurb from the publisher: 'Wheat, emmer, barley and common vegetables were farmed extensively throughout the ancient Mediterranean region, with farmers and their families living in farmhouses such as this. Ideal for rural wargames set in the classical era, this kit would make an excellent objective or centrepiece.
The farm is supplied unassembled and unpainted in kit form with full instructions.'
What you get: Your GBP 30 or equivalent will buy you Mediterranean Farm, a Roman-time farm that can serve as exterior and interior scenery for any kind of ancients and medieval wargame with a Mediterranean touch. The farm is part of the Streets of Rome line of Sarissa Precision, a publisher specializing in MDF wargaming terrain. We will see more of its products shortly.
The building comes as a kit in eight different panels. Each panel contains anything from three to a dozen items. Certain features have been already pre-burnt on the MDF, like the floor or the roof tiles. The kit is accompanied by extensive instructions as well as advice on how to better paint, assemble, and glue everything.
The strong points: Fighting out on big open air battlefields with my ancients army is fun, things however are even better when there are obstacles or other terrain features on the ground. The Mediterranean Farm is just that feature to use in your ancient battlefie- let me rephrase that. The Mediterranean Farm is just that feature to use in for any battlefield irrespective of time and place. Why? Because it is distinctive enough to look Mediterranean, it is also however generic and adaptable enough to fit almost anywhere you place it by altering the colour scheme. I can easily see this as terrain in real WWII or even sci-fi WWI like that in Dust, as well as more traditional ancients games like Hail Caesar and Clash of Empires (which we will visit together shortly) and everything in-between. When a structure can find its way in almost any time frame in almost any genre, you know that a lot of background work has been put into it. And no, I don't mean that the farm used generic imagery or that it looks boring. Small windows, in order for the building to remain warm in winter and cool in the summer? Check. Internal yard, as was the standard in architecture in ancient times for the non-pariahs? Check. Limited exposure when it comes to external windows facing outwards, in case of attacks by bandits? Check. Multiple separate areas to be used towards a different purpose (people's living quarters, animals, supplies)? Check. If somebody told me that Sarissa Precision lifted the blueprint off from an existing archaeological dig, I wouldn't have trouble believing it.
The Mediterranean Farm is not supposed to serve as a facade only, with your troops fighting it out in the garden. If you are running a skirmish game, the interior is usable itself. This is a fully functional piece of scenery, with door openings from one area to the next, windows, and an internal layout. The house does not have furnishings like a toilet (as good as Romans were with sanitation, you wouldn't expect a farmhouse to have it) and you will have to buy the furniture and other trappings elsewhere, that is however to be expected. The roofs are detachable, allowing you to check the action on the inside. Only a small part of the structure has an upper floor. Climbing on that floor requires some suspension of disbelief, since there is no internal staircase. That might not be uncommon in structures of this kind, even though I would have preferred to see the staircase.
I really recommend painting this beauty, and you'd better do most of it in advance, in order to facilitate its assembly and final set up. This does not mean that you might not need to retouch it when it is fully set up. It is however better to deal with the details at that time, instead of trying to paint at impossible angles into places that you don't have easy access to.
I really like the range of buildings the publisher has in the Streets of Rome line. You don't like, or you don't need, a Roman-style farm? No worries, there are another 52 (!) items in this game line alone. Even better, I am counting five different bundles which can save the wargamer money while at the same time producing some really exquisite scenery. Were one to purchase every single item on the line, he could create a fully stocked Roman metropolis. Tempting, no?
The weak points: Just in case you are reading without paying too much attention: this is not a plug-and-play item. You will need time in order to paint and assemble it, in order to bring it to the state that it deserves to be. It is not a hard piece of scenery to assemble. In fact this might be exactly the sort of piece that an acolyte would like to start from. Just don't expect to finish in a few minutes work and have it ready for your game later in the evening.
Conclusion: I enjoyed both the aesthetics as well as the usability of the Mediterranean Farm. It looks cool, can accompany a variety of pieces of scenery, ancient Roman or not, and can enrich a landscape irrespective of whether you want it for a skirmish or a major battle. If it had bothered with a staircase between the two different levels it would have reached perfection. Now, where do these people hide their wine?
To find out more about the Mediterranean Farm visit Sarissa Precision's website at https://sarissa-precision.com.
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