sarissa precision heroic old west shack review - part one

this weekend I received the Sarisaa Precision Old West Heroic Shack I ordered last week.  I thought I'd share my thoughts.

Sarissa precision make a large number of nice looking laser cut mdf buildings in a number of different

styles from Wild West to their new infinity highly customisable sci-fi range.

This shack is from the Heroic scale Old West range.
I thought I'd try one out to see how it worked with the Malifaux figures before potentially buying numerous more of these.  A toe in the water as it were.  After all, I didn't want to spend lot's of money just to find they didn't work in scale with the figures...

This is what turned up in the post, after extraction from a decent padded jiffy style bag.

The Shack Pack

Pack contents

And this is what the contents look like after unpacking.

What you get is




A floor section, two side walls, two end walls, two roof sections, two triangular pieces that hold the removable roof together and a pack containing the porch roof, the supports, window and door frames.

Contents of the sub pack

The porch roof, supports and frames come in a separate pack.










You also get an A5 piece of paper with the instructions printed on it.  The instructions take the form of an exploded diagram of the shack and a couple of sentences below this.  This is more than you need but it does leave you wondering about a couple of things, namely how best to go about fitting it together and what type of glue to use.  It does say words to the effect that you fit the walls to the floor but doesn't really say which order to do this in.  Without the floor the walls don't fit together so well that they stay together on their own, so putting them together then fitting the floor to all walls at once is a tricky option.  If you insert the walls into the floor first and fit them together as you go, you do end up relying a little on flexibility and the last wall in is a tricky fit.  As a result I did end up with a slightly 'fluffed' tab on the bottom of one of the walls, which isn't going to help longevity if I want to flatten and build this each time I want to use it/ put it away.

With regard to gluing Sarissa have informed me they use PVA.  Whilst another option is to use Super glue, but this will, apparently, set quickly on the mdf.  I will probably be using PVA and will report back on the success or otherwise of this option.

Each piece of the kit is laser etched with appropriate texture - wooden boards, roof tiles etc..  everything looks lovely.

The kit smells a bit.  Like the ashes of a fire gone cold.  It's not unpleasent or overbearing, But it is there.

Once the dry fitting pieces have been put together it's time for a little gluing.  The window and door frames need to be glued into the relevant places on the outside of the building.

It's a quick and easy job to put this kit together, apart from the gluing I completed this shack in 10 minutes, even with experimentation to find the best way to fit it together.

Once complete it looks very nice indeed, whether or not it needs painting is a matter for consideration as it actually looks rather good as it is.

Check back shortly for part two of this review where I will post pictures of the completed shack and also discus it's suitability as Malifaux scenery.

Part 2 of the review

Sarissa Precision

(Previsouly published elsewhere January 2011)