First off, let me say this review has nothing to do with the merchant. Aries is great, had excellent prices, fast shipping, safe packaging. No complaints on the merchant front.
The product itself is another story. The Battlefield Support Emplacements pack is somehow both over- and under- engineered. Units that could easily have been built as one piece are split into multiples, several options preclude you from using leftover bits on others. Pieces include a ball-and-socket fitting for 360 degree rotation also have pins for directional facing. You’d need to use both if you wanted the piece to sit flush (more on that soon) so the system is redundant.
Which is unfortunate because both locking systems are flawed. The ball and socket aren’t keyed properly. The “ball” is really a dome with no detent. So it won’t fit in the sockets unless you cut the excessive flashing. But by the time you remove enough flashing, there is no longer any positive pressure to retain the fit. On top of that, the ball is still too tall for the positioning pins to reach. The towers fit like Jenga blocks stacked on ball bearings. The whole setup is terrible.
I suspect the problem is that the tolerances are way off, but that’s the case for every piece in my box. Even if these were to spec, it’s hard to imagine the system working well.
As it is, I’ll be hacking the pieces up and magnetizing everything. It really makes me wish they would have just saved some cash by leaving empty sockets so you could save a step when magnetizing everything yourself. Just leaving everything flat so they could stack like children’s blocks would have been better.
For the price, you could have nice models printed for you. If a diehard tournament organizer or painting forum demand you only use official models, make sure to credit them for showing off the janky wobbling dumpster forts.
Will say I ordered this after viewing the Death from Above wargaming review. I generally like and trust those guys pretty well. Even though they left a positive overall review, they still had the same problems I did. Still, they must have received a better batch than mine. Just be warned, they really undersold the problems with using this set out of the box.
