Product Reveiw - GF9 Blood Crystals

I've bought a fair amount of GaleForce nine Battlefield in a Box terrain.  There were the two hills earlier in the year and now a box of Blood Crystals.  In all three cases I've been very happy with the product.  The hills are works of art.  I had to move them out of my office because I'd just sit there and stare at them.  My wife even liked them.

The blood crystals box.

Product Description:  The blood crystals are colored resin crystals.  They're called blood crystals due to the fact that they are, shockingly, red.  There are ten crystal sets in the box.  Three large clusters, one large, fallen crystal and six small clusters.  They are, as alluded to above, blood red.

The back of the box.  The pictures don't really do them justice.

Style and Character:  8/10.  These are definitely crystals.  They are instantly recognizable as what they are.  The color is very eye catching, which is what these are designed to do.  They will stand out on the table top. I wish the lines were a little more sharp, but that is a minor quibble.  These are a great way to add an alien element to a table top.  They do what they are designed to do and they do it well.

I'm inordinately fond of this piece of Styrofoam.

Production Value: 9/10.  These are well cast, with very few bubbles.  The bubbles are almost impossible to see except through the Macro lens.  The color is consistent.  The facets reflect the light so that you can easily see that they are crystal shaped.  The clusters hold together well.  I didn't try throwing them against the wall or dropping them from six feet, but they should hold up just fine to gaming.

Here they are in all their splendor.  I can't say my picture is actually better than the box, but it's different at least.

Assembly and Conversion: 7/10.  There's no assembly or painting required, so that's pretty easy.  These could be used in conversions but it would take some more advanced skills.  If you need a crystal inside of something you could break apart one of the clusters and cut off the part you want.  I think there is very limited need for such things for most people.  These are really well designed as scatter terrain, and not designed for other purposes.  On the other hand, if you are looking to build crystals into something, these are  a good starting point.

You can see a couple of bubbles here.  The texture, which looks like sweat, serves to catch the light and make them shiny.

Quality: 7/10.  The box of ten sets cost me $25.  For pre-painted, ready out of the box scatter terrain that's pretty hard to beat.  They came packed in styrofoam with Battlefoam style cut outs for the clusters to keep them intact.  There was no damage.  They are robust enough to survive gaming.  Once I drop them I'll come back and update this if it turns out they didn't survive the fall, but there are limits to the sacrifices I'm willing to make for a review.  I'll be keeping the styrofoam it came in, with some reinforcement, to carry these.

Next to a 15mm Sahadeen (Rebel Minis) for scale.

Service: N/A.  I bought these at Collectormania so the service was stellar, as always, but it didn't have anything to do with this product in particular.  So while the service was great, it is not a reflection of the product or its manufacturer.  

Next to a 28mm Celt (Warlord).  This is the smallest cluster.

Overall Score: 8/10.  This is a quality product that gives you interesting scatter terrain for a reasonable price. It works for both 15mm and 28mm.  While best for Sci/Fi, I can also envision it's use with fantasy.  The product line also has blue and green crystals.  I can see grabbing a box of the blue at some point in the future.