Plastic old west buildings ( a review of Renedra and Dead Man's hand kits)

[Freelancer]

I have been updating my old west terrain recently. My original town buildings have been either scratch built or mdf laser cut, but after years of transport and use a few were getting tatty and needed replacing. When I saw Great Escape Games had released plastic old west buildings for Dead Man's Hand, I thought I'd give them a try as they looked lovely. I opted for the 2 storey model and at the same time bought the Renedra American Store by way of comparison.

Both buildings look lovely with lots of extra detail pieces to add on. They size quite well together. The Renedra one is a bit smaller ( true 28mm) but the low verandahs are very typical of early colonial buildings and look the part. If I planned to use them as a fixed diorama, I would be very happy. As gaming pieces, there are a few issues.
The DMH building comes with modular floors. It is the 1 storey building kit with an additional floor and wall sprue and an alternate roof. I wanted to have each floor accessable to miniatures as they have nice interior wall and door details, so I did not glue the roof and top floor piece in place ( there are notched fitting guides that keep them in place). However, the external stairs and balcony posed a problem. They are designed to sit on the boardwalk sections that go around the building. Without the boardwalk they sit too low. The boardwalk has irregular plank edging, so does not sit flush against the walls. The balcony needs to be glued to boardwalks and the top floor piece, which means you cannot remove the top floor. I got around this with lots of trimming. The balcony posts were shortened about 3mm each so the balcony could attach to the lower floor, leaving the top floor removable. Bits of sprue were superglue welded ( super glue with bicarb of soda sprinkled on) to reinforce the connection between the boardwalk and the building.
If you had the single storey version of this building, there would not be as much of a problem.
The Renedra store is the same model kit as their farm house, but with an alternate store front section. There is no interior detail and I opted for a closed model in the end because it was quite tricky to glue together. Without a floor piece, the walls are held together by their edge joins only, so the roof needs to be glued on to provide structural stability ( and needed quite a bit of clamping to keep the joints square and joined). You can see I had to do a lot of reinforcement to make it game ready by the white hazing from my additonal superglue welds.
So both were lovely when finished, but posed modeling challenges. I might go back to scratch building my last few buildings to complete the project.



Renedra and GEG buildings with Perry Nap' Soldier, Artizan and Foundry Old west minis for scale

[mweaver]

They look very promising.  I have the new DMH kits, but not he Renedra kit.  Yet.

Thanks for the heads-up about the balcony/stairs problem.

-Michael

[Tom Dulski]

 I find 3d printing is the way to go for buildings. Check out Etsy there are quite a few sellers offering some amazing stuff

[carlos marighela]

Interesting. Thanks for the heads up on the DMH building. Might have a use for that in another setting. Any chance of a photo of the roof?

[CapnJim]

What you've done with them looks good.  I have the Renendra house/cabin, but haven't put it together yat.  I'll keep your construction comments in mind when I do...

[Malebolgia]

However, the external stairs and balcony posed a problem. They are designed to sit on the boardwalk sections that go around the building. Without the boardwalk they sit too low. The boardwalk has irregular plank edging, so does not sit flush against the walls.

I used pieces of sprue underneath the boardwalk to glue it to the building. This gives it enough grip and strength to attach them to the buildings.

[Codsticker]

I found the Renedra farmhouse and store a bit tricky as well but still really like them. I glued them to MDF bases which adds quite a bit of security and allows the rooves to stay detached. I think they aren't really meant to be for skirmish games (although they do have doors that can open and close); more likely, they are for table dressing in big ACW games.

 I wonder if using a base with the DMH buildings would offer another potential solution to the issues with anchoring the lower floor, boardwalk and balcony and allowing the top floor to be easily removed.

[carlos marighela]

 I'm not sure the DMH building is ideal for internal play either.

Clinker built, overlapped timber or what is locally known as weather board is ubiquitous in timber frame buildings here and I can't think of a single instance where I've seen overlapped timbers applied internally, either in ancient or modern dwellings. Even the most humble abode would have either plastered interiors (typically a wattle and daub type on 19th C buildings) or morticed timber planking internally. A clinker built interior makes no sense whatsoever. The only reason timbers are overlapped is to make them weather proof. An odd choice, as it would have been just as easy to have made the interiors plain, arguably easier.

That said it's a fine looking structure and as I tend to use buildings as set dressing rather than dolls' houses, it works well enough for me. Once the windows have been glazed, I'm not keen on people examining how the sausage was made.

I've built a couple of those Renedra farmhouse/ storefront buildings. Whilst they are a little bit fiddly, I wouldn't say they are particularly tricky to build. The beauty of them is that with the store version you still have all the bits to make the farmhouse/cabin. The left over store front is ideal for scratchbuilding your own version using plastic card or balsa. Two buildings for not quite the price of one.

[Freelancer]

Basing the models would help. And Malebolgia, I used a lot of spare sprue as reinforcement 
As I said, they are both lovely buildings, but both have a few design issues that would make it challenging for a novice modeller and for how the buildings are used in games. I think the single storey DMH building would be the most usable, if I were to buy more.

[Legionnaire]

I think it's a very well put together post, like your views on the experience and thoughts for those who might give these a go at some point.

I have always likes working with MDF and my only plastic building attempt was of the Renedra Church. Nice kit, little bit fiddly and a little bit small for my (then) 28mm collection. That said, I made both the belfry (snipers nest) and the main body modular so you could play internally.  I was considering putting pews and altar inside as well, but have sold that collection to go Heroic 28mm (32mm) instead and that church would be miniscule together with that stuff.