Review: Sarissa Precision Oldwest Shack

The completed shack, sans banjo playing hick!!!

Well late last night my first review of a Sarissa Precision piece of scenery went live Here. This review will be another short review, as I have a lot of buildings to get through...

Product Description

This is another laser cut, and etched HDF scenery kit. It comes 11 pieces as you can see from my excellent piece of photograph... ahem... yes well, moving on. Most of the pieces are big and chunky, but the two porch stanchions, towards the top of the picture and center right, are very fine and a bit delicate. Be very careful with them, they will break if forced.

Usefulness 8 out of 10

Again, in terms of gaming piece of scenery, we're talking about a 4" by 4" box, with a roughly 2" by 4"covered porch area to the front. The pitched roof can be removed to gain access to the inside space as always. So you can shoot out of those windows at the bandito's advancing on your position. It's a relative sturdy construction when assembled. Although this was assembled without glue for the photographs, you will have to glue at least the roof together to be able to use it as a gaming piece, as it does have a tendency to come apart when removed.

Character 7 out of 10

 

They might look good Part built with some wooden beams...

This again is a hard one to judge really. The building looks, well, like what it is supposed to look like. A small prairie home, even though it is called a 'shack'. If it truly was a shack I'd expect it to be a little bit more ramshackled!!! Plus the inhabitants seem to be able to afford a lot of glass!!! I'd personally have liked the opportunity to have maybe personalised it a bit more. One of the shacks is going to be turned into a Guild / Sheriff's office, to go with the Jailhouse. The other I will turn into a small farmstead I think. So I'll be adding to what is already there, and as a starting point it's certainly made my life easier. It does though look like a Wild West frontier building, so it does do what it's supposed to.

Detail 7 out of 10

The pitched roof will require some glue

The detailing on this piece is also perfectly fine for what it is. The wooden slats look like wooden slats. The Porch stanchions and roof add a nice bit of detail to the front of the house. But ultimately there's not really much more they could have added to the piece without it being OTT. Look, do you want skulls and twin tailed comets everywhere? Well do you? No didn't think so. The door and window frames are also raised off of the surface itself with extra pieces of HDF, which adds a little bit of depth to the building.

Quality 7 out of 10

Much like the Jailhouse this piece is constructed of slightly thinner pieces of HDF than the Micro Art buildings that are designed for Infinity (review coming up soon of those). However, this building is more than suitable as a gaming piece. My only genuine concern would be how thin the porch stanchion's are, and whether they might be easy to break during gaming, because of their width and location on the building. The pitched roof will also definitely require gluing together for it to stay in place as the tabs on the supports aren't enough to hold it together.

Service 8 out of 10

Here you can better see how delicate those stanchions are

Erm... I said hello to them at a games expo in Derby. They were friendly and gave me lots of advice about which buildings would be good for Malifaux. They showed me how they went together, and where to put glue so it wouldn't be visible after assembly. They took my money, said thank you with a smile and put it in a plastic carrier bag for me. I can't say fairer than that.

Price 8 out of 10

The price for this fine piece of scenery is a very respectable £11. Now I think that is a very reasonable price, for what is a sturdy piece of scenery, which also allows you to gain easy access to its interior. If you plan on building a Wild West type town, you'll need some houses. This is perfect for that.

Overall 8 out of 10

Size comparison, with the help of my shiny Guild friends

I really like the shack, and I think coupled with other pieces of detail and 'furnishings' it'll be a really versatile piece of scenery. I do hope however that they produce a few more varied 'abodes', maybe a Governor's house. A few 'middle of town' type houses, maybe some two story buildings would be nice. But overall I'm pretty pleased with how this goes together, and how it'll fit into my Malfaux games. A very worthwhile addition to my scenery collection. Peace out!

Link to Sarissa Precision, where you can buy this stuff