Product Review: Charlie Foxtrot Buildings.

      Like other things, I had not only gotten around to paint some long awaited miniatures, I found some time for terrain as well. I will most likely will post this year's first Terrain Blitz later. Back at Historicon, the convention vendor hall is always a dangerous place. I am sure it is like any other wargamer walking into this area like we were kids allowed to buy whatever in Toy 'R Us! But sometimes I buy things and forget about it. I seems strange, but I noticed the longer I live with this hobby of ours, the more it happens. Either that, or a memory has struck me like lightning: " I am pretty sure we bought that!" DVD's were like that until my wife really organized it. Two copies of "Band of Brothers", "Transpotting", and "Saving Private Ryan", you understand.
     At the convention, I was looking at the Charlie Foxtrot Models' buildings. I have been looking at them, but I had not taken any plunge into them. One reason has to due with my previous review of various MDF buildings on this blog. I still would rather have resin buildings, but it is not as strong of a conviction as say my metal miniature snob stance. We could blame 4Ground for some of this. They had the tendency to bring out the "colorful language" building models. So much, I pre-warned my friend, Danny about them. He ask me to build his first ones for payment for using them at my wife's Bolt Action Tournament from last year. This last month, he order quite a few buildings. Out of luck, quite a few were Sarissa. But the ones that weren't also bought out the rainbow of colors that I seldom seen in conversations.
    However, with the case of Charlie Foxtrot models, they are no near the headache on building. I bought the Normandy Cafe, which came together quite nicely. The whole affair took me about 30 minutes, unless you count the hour and half looking for three pieces I did not realize I knocked off the table into a nearby box. The model gave the options of two to three stories, in case you did not want it to be as tall. They are came with various shutters, so you can have some windows enclosed if you wanted. For a tight fit, they included extra squares to glue underneath for some better stability. Overall, the details were nice and crisp. The building time might vary. I used my trusty Loctite Control Gel Super Glue. I can usually carry on in a build after counting to 40 most of the time.
   Now, for the negatives of the models are really more of minor complaints. The package did not come with any directions on how to build it. There were no check lists for the pieces to make sure you have everything. This could be a mishap in packaging. When I was looking for pieces at the very end of building, I felt more upset that I could not finish the model without modifying with some sort of damage. Lucky, this was just a minor knock off the table. As a positive, the parts make no noise when falling, so you can secretly build those models you were not suppose to buy in the middle of the night without any noise. But because, I had directions for this model and a pig pen model, if you are good with looking at the images, this is really easy. I would say it is a skill level one in modelling.
    In short, I am upset with Charlie Foxtrot Models, because they have only convinced me to buy more of their stuff in the future. And like some act of evil, they recently came out with a Italian/Spanish Buildings as if they knew I was going to need some for an upcoming convention game. I will just have to try to resist the clicking of the "Add to Cart" button!

Front view of the cafe.

Back view.

It is a little small for a room, but I have seen some small rooms.

Disassembled.

The spacers for securing the floors.

Painted front view.

Painted back view.