Accurate deterministic forecasts of 10 m wind over complex terrain remain challenging, and the relative performance of nested regional and variable-resolution modelling strategies is still insufficiently documented. This study presents a controlled comparison of five deterministic forecast products over Türkiye: four nested WRF configurations at 12 km parent and 4 km child domain resolution with one-way and two-way nesting, and regional MPAS-Atmosphere with an approximately 4 km refined inner region. All experiments use identical 0.25° GFS forcing, are initialised daily at 00:00 UTC, and integrated for 48 h. After excluding the first 6 h as spin-up, verification is performed over lead times 6–47 h using 10 m wind speed observations from 509 TSMS stations during January and June 2023. Terrain effects are explicitly addressed through a Terrain Ruggedness Index computed from SRTM GL3 elevation data and a three-class terrain stratification. Model performance is assessed using mean error, mean absolute error, root mean square error, and Pearson correlation coefficient.</p> <p>MPAS achieves the lowest error across all aggregate metrics, with ME of 0.76 m s−1 and RMSE of 2.16 m s−1, compared to 0.99 m s−1 and 2.27 m s−1 for the best WRF configuration. All models exhibit systematic positive bias. The performance gap between MPAS and WRF is strongly terrain-dependent: negligible in low-complexity terrain but reaching 41 % ME reduction at high-complexity sites. Increasing WRF resolution from 12 km to 4 km does not consistently reduce bias, with the coarser 12 km two-way configuration outperforming the finer 4 km two-way configuration across both months and all terrain classes, pointing to grey-zone boundary layer limitations and lateral boundary constraints. Two-way nesting provides meaningful improvement at 12 km but offers diminishing returns at 4 km. MPAS’s aggregate ME advantage partly reflects a compensating bias structure: reduced overprediction at calm and moderate wind speeds is offset by stronger underprediction at high wind speeds, reaching ME of −3.28 m s−1 at high-complexity sites. This wind speed dependence also explains the spatial reversal along the Aegean coast, where WRF 4 km configuration outperforms MPAS at 70 % of stations. These results indicate that neither modelling approach offers a universal advantage; relative performance depends on terrain complexity, local wind climate, and the verification metric of interest.