Games Workshop completely changed the game with regard to terrain in tenth edition, giving us standardized terrain layouts for the first time and at the same time, completely changing said layouts from what they’d been doing in ninth edition, increasing the number of terrain footprints and breaking up sight lines even more. This has been pretty great for the game but a bit of a disaster for tournament organizers and players, who found themselves with a bunch of terrain footprints and MDF terrain that no longer worked for the new layouts. And that probably happened again when the new terrain layouts for Pariah Nexus were released, featuring a bunch of new U shapes and Ls facing the opposite direction from before.
Which is all a long way of saying that yeah, it’s not a bad time to be looking at new terrain kits, particularly those offering modular solutions which require a minimal amount of painting. Cue Bandua Wargames, who started out with Kill Team sets and are now moving into making matched play terrain sets for Warhammer 40,000. Bandua have previously worked with the WTC and Spanish Kill Team communities to produce terrain kits for those formats and now are bringing their expertise to the broader 40k line.
Before we dive into this review, we’d like to thank Bandua for providing preview copies of these terrain kits for Review purposes. It’s worth noting that I received a prototype build for this review and provided some feedback which made it into the final product; the prototype doesn’t reflect the changes made to terrain layouts for Pariah Nexus, which were publicly released shortly after the prototype arrived. The final version on Bandua’s site reflects these changes, with fewer U shapes and more Ls.
Assembling The Terrain
The terrain arrived in a fairly flat box and was pretty lightweight considering the MDF contents. This highlights a pretty important part of the terrain: If you really wanted, you could assemble this with no glue and repack it more or less flat each time. I wouldn’t personally recommend it – I think it’s a little flimsy and needs glue – but it’s an option.
The stained glass windows for this kit arrived on a single sheet and needed to be cut out, and that’s probably the most time-consuming part of this kit – and something you can avoid by just going with one of the other themes. Several don’t have stained glass windows at all. The basic construction here is really simple: You put the walls together, then add the floors, and then use the rods to secure it all in place. You can build the basic structure of one of these in about thirty seconds, and it goes together like this:
Larger buildings are more sturdy since they have more connecting braces, but on the whole I’d recommend using some PVA (Elmer’s) glue to hold everything together. It doesn’t take a lot and the structure dries pretty quickly and stays together well.
The printing on the terrain looks really sharp – it’s very good for MDF and while it’s still a flat surface that honestly works well for giving the terrain a kind of brutalist, concrete feel. It’s got a glossy finish that comes across as high quality. The wall sections hinge together very easily and can be oriented in either direction – this is overall a good thing but does mean you have to be careful in assembly – it’s possible to have your Ls going the “wrong” direction if you aren’t paying attention.
Each terrain piece is made up of between six and twelve pieces, give or take, depending on how large the structure is and how many windows it has. My prototype kit had more windows, owing to having to break up more large sections of wall. Updated kits will have more L shapes, leading to fewer windows.
While the windows look great, that’s a good thing for assembly time. The windows are by far the most time-consuming part of the build, so if you’re building a single table for home, I’d recommend getting a windows kit but if you’re a tournament organizer, I’d focus on the windowless kits to save time. Assembling a window here requires cutting out a window, gluing it to the wall, then gluing on the two frames – one on either side. Not difficult, but time-consuming, thanks in large part to the drying time required for the PVA glue.
The Assembled Terrain
Fully assembled, the Terrain looks great. It feels plenty sturdy – the floors feel stable and I’m more than comfortable putting metal models on top of them – and it works well on any type of terrain mats.
In my opinion the stained glass windows really make this and add to the atmosphere of the kit, helping it stand out from standard MDF but again if I were building for an event I’d forego all that in favor of ease of build when it comes to getting out 8-24 kits in a short period of time. On that note, the aesthetics work very well and it’s a big improvement over painted MDF, even if it’s not as good as plastic.
The prototype kit I have still works reasonably well for some layouts and looks great but I’m very glad for the changes Bandua made – the updated kit works much better for the new Pariah Nexus layouts, and we ended up buying updated sets for the 2024 Goonhammer Open this year, which worked great for the terrain.
We had 32 players in our GT and ended up assembling all 16 of our kits in the two weeks leading up to the event with very little issue; we split the terrain building prep across a few people, who were able to assemble their kits on weeknights after work. The terrain doesn’t store as perfectly as you’d hope – the floor sections mean that you can’t stack this in corners or flat – but it doesn’t take up a lot of room and you can fit multiple kits into a box or tub pretty easily, making stowing the terrain pretty easy.
Final Verdict
It’s no secret that we love this terrain. While it’s not going to be as striking as fully plastic kits from Games Workshop, it’s both much cheaper and easier to assemble and not having to paint it is a huge time saver. We’re using Bandua terrain for all of our events, and I’d recommend these kits for any tournament organizer looking to quickly get set up with a full event’s worth of terrain. They work well and pair aesthetically with Bandua’s terrain mats, creating some solid aesthetics if you want a board that’s low cost, looks great, and doesn’t require a ton of hobby time and painting. Bandua’s kit is among the best MDF options on the market, if not the best – it’s certainly the best I’ve seen so far.
I didn’t receive a set of terrain mats in my box, but I got to play with those at the Goonhammer open. They’re thin neoprene mats and as such don’t slide around. They look great and store well. There isn’t a ton to say about them but they’re also high quality and I love that they match the terrain aesthetic.
If you’re interested in this terrain, consider ordering through the link below. We receive a commission for these purchases.
The Bandua Wargames Matched Play Set for WH40k
Personally at home I’ve preferred to use GW plastic terrain, both because I painted a full table’s worth and because it matches GW’s events, and I’ll attend all of those this year. But with the Pariah Nexus changeover GW put me in a bind – my plastic Ls no longer face the correct direction for every layout, and so I’ve taken to using the Bandua terrain more for play at home as a result. Though as you can see from the photos, the table still looks great and so do the battle report photos.
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