As the title hints more than a little, this is the second set of walls and ruins from Italeri – well actually it is more like set 1.5. That is because one of the two sprues is exactly the same as a sprue in the first Walls and Ruins set – the one with the smaller elements. The big pieces in our top rows are new however, so we shall begin with them.

As with the first set, the large pieces are composed of wall sections which can be used in isolation or put together to make free-standing corners as shown in our photos. These follow the instructions given by Italeri, but of course there is room for variation – see the image of the sprue for images of exactly the parts included. Again we find various sections of walls made of brick or stone, and in the case of the former (top row) this has been plastered, but that plaster is in poor condition, as is part of the wall itself. The door with its charming door knocker cannot be opened, but it is a nice little piece. The second row shows another combination of parts, this time built of stone and with an arch that is partly bricked up. Again a nice piece, and the brickwork allows a good position for someone to fire from. Like the first set, all these pieces are one-sided, in that they have depth only at the edge, and viewed from the other side they are featureless.

The last three rows contain the items also to be found in the first set, although here we have made up some of the pieces. The low ruined stone and brick walls in the third row are the same as those in the first set, and while neither quite reaches waist height on a standard man, they offer some nice pieces of terrain and urban rubble for some street fighting scene. The pieces of sandbag barricade are also the same, and as we observed in our previous review, these are rather odd and do not convince if slotted together, at least not without extra work by the modeller. However piles of sandbags has its uses, and there are another 20 individual ones in the bottom row, which could also be used as supplies etc. The extra piece of stone wall in the same row seems like something of an unnecessary extra, but the bench next to it is unique to this set, and seems rather random but is by no means useless as either street or indoor furniture perhaps. The individual stone blocks and bricks are another repeat, and as we said on that set, much patience will be required to build anything with these – rubble strewn about seems a more useful purpose for these parts.

The single-sided nature of the large pieces is less than ideal, but they do make an interest backdrop to some battle scene and look good. This was one of the sets that was used to add value to some of the Italeri battle sets, and as such it works well. With some useful items for the diorama builder, and perhaps the gamer too, this is an appealing set with both interesting major pieces and the sort of small detritus that most battles of recent decades would have had plenty of.