Les Batiments, LLC. was very generous in sending a variety of samples that they feel would be applicable for use in Classic Battletech. Although they had no prior knowledge of battletech they had no problem helping us out in providing materials for a review. They first and foremost get a big thumbs up for being so prompt and honest with great customer support and willingness to help.

Upon first opening the packages we didn't notice how nice some of the details were, those details didn't come out until later down the road when the pieces were painted. Excess resin was not so kind to us on some of these pieces. Although the flash could easily be removed with our fingertips on the craters it was a different story on the sandbag piles, the dremel was required to remove the excess resin and our filing bit did not fare too well.. friction caused the resin to melt onto the bit. Long story short: the excess resin was removed, but the filing bit was a casualty of war.

Uziel for scale:

As you can see below the scale in impeccable. The craters and embankments provide partial cover to 'mechs, infantry, and vehicles behind them and look incredibly realistic with their precise carvings.

Craters and Embankments:

The holes in the center proved to be a short problem, after painting the craters we realized that they craters did not look very crater like with a big green splotch in the middle. It would have been nice had a thin sheet of resin been left in the middle of the crater for matching purposes, but this problem was easily averted with the use of duct tape to cover the hole, which was then painted to match the rest of crater.

Here's what the craters look like in action. They blend nicely with the terrain and look great.

The sandbag piles are modular. Some pieces are straight while others are curved, allowing you some freedom of set up so you argent looking at the same thing every time you play. This is a big bonus, because nothing takes the steam out of a game like looking at the same terrain over and over again.

These sandbags will be very useful to surround turrets and infantry in urban combat settings.

As you can see there was some considerable bubbling in the resin (click image to enlarge)

We have to say, the sand bags look pretty damn good when they are finished, they're perfect for our infantry and gun emplacements (supplied by GHQ). The width of this particular sand bag pile is perfect for two hex bases to fit in comfortably, bonus.

Embankments:

Here you can see some more of the goofs in the casting resin, it appears that too much resin was added to the mold.

Here's a common question you might ask yourself: Why would I buy simple embankments like this when i can carve some of my own out of polystyrene?

Answer: The detail! Although the goofs in some of the castings are noticeable their definitely overshadowed by the amount of detail that is present. As you can see for yourself below they are pretty damn convincing pieces. Even with the excess resin the scale is awesome. These resin pieces are durable too. You can just throw these things in a box and forget about them, not like polystyrene that usually requires wrapping in protective packing materials to survive the multiple trips in and out of packing boxes.

Overall the pieces were easy to paint and get ready for battle, but we did have a casualty of war in the process (dremel bit) and there are some noticeable problems with the casting resin which limits Les Batiments to a four out of five Marauder rating. We highly recommend these pieces to anyone looking for some detailed and modular terrain pieces.