I’ve wrapped up my final two buildings from Black Site Studios–review pending after I get a few more shots of them in action.

The last two kits were the Temara Safehouse ($70) and Baghdad Hotel ($80). I list the prices for good reason: they became a tale of two very different kits.

These are the official images from the site–I figure that helps you to compare and contrast the changes I made. Let’s start with the Temara Safehouse:

I repainted the exterior walls entirely, striped the interior, painted the floors, repainted the rails–I basically changed almost everything. I even left off the crumbling exterior. I am very pleased with this kit. It was up to the standards of the remainder of the set with proper interior walls, functioning interior doors, and overall great kit quality. It took a long time to repaint and put together, but was well worth it.

The next kit is the Baghdad Hotel. This was a case of buyer beware. Here’s a photo of the interior off the website:

It is entirely on me for not having noticed here that the interior walls have no texture and no interior doors. I was caught off guard by this as I built the kit and quite frustrated. My solution was to turn difficulty into opportunity, though, so I went to work wallpapering the walls, dirtying up the inside, and even 3D printed my own sliding doors for the interior. I also fixed the roof of the small room on the… er… roof of the building. It has nothing to hold it in place, so I fixed some scraps to it to prevent it from sliding around. The result:

I’m quite pleased with the kit in the end, but it was a lot more work to get it ready compared to the remainder of the set, and had various small issues. I can forgive the lack of interior detail and doors: that was advertised. But my kit’s front door slot was too small for the doors provided. I had to trim a door down repeatedly to fit it.

And again, not having a properly functioning roof for the small room on the top of the building was a strange choice, especially for a kit that was redesigned.

Ah well. I managed to get everything but the hotel onto a table for a recent game of Chain of Command and I must say: it was beautiful. The preview of my review is simple: get everything but the hotel and the the Rashid Building (the blue building in the images below). The Rashid Building is a good quality kit, but the balconies prove an odd nuisance in practice as they tend to fall off. I’ll likely cut their legs off and glue them into the building to solve the issue altogether.

While I was frustrated with the hotel, I’m glad I bought and put these together–even as a person with an excellent 3D printer. They’re truly beautiful, functional kits, and the process of upgrading them was enjoyable and a good learning experience. I got the chance to try wallpapering for the first time, as well as the opportunity to test my sliding door concept. It was a great holiday project and a great way to wrap 2023.

Ah, well. You’re not here for the blathering. Here’s the photos of my recent Chain of Command game. I will do a… tabletop battlefield tour?… at a later date after I get the interior furniture done for these buildings to show them off proper.