Yes, this isn't a particularly new model. In fact it's been on the market for some time now.
Normally with 28mm buildings I go either with resin models or scratch building. I happened to buy a batch of these from another hobbyist for little under half retail and like such acquisitions often go, they sat on my shelf for an unspecified time (frankly, I've no idea).
Being somewhat fed up with painting celts I wanted some change and decided to make some buildings for a city scape. Well, these aren't very urban but I decided to knock them together while waiting for my Italeri Berlin houses to arrive.
First Impressions
The model comes in a box that contains three sprues, but only two sprues actually contain house parts. The third sprue is Renedra's generic fencing sprue, and contains short sections of three different types of fencing. The house sprues also contain some accessories, namely a chair and two barrels.
The house is clearly a wargaming model. The parts are as large as possible, with almost no separate detail parts. Apart from the optional chair, there are no fiddly easily breakable parts and even that is relatively sturdy. Assembly should be pretty straight forward. Unfortunately the pieces only have detail on one side -- the interior of the building will be completely blank except for the doors, which do have detail on both sides (giving some options how you want to assemble them).
The doors are designed to open, but I'm not too sure how durable the plastic hinges will be in the long run. Well, you can always glue it later when they break I guess...
Assembly
There are noticeable mold lines on the parts, but they are easy to clean. And in fact, most of the lines would be hidden on the finished model anyway so you may want to clean it after assembly. The walls glue in pretty easy, but you should make sure you keep the walls nice and square so the roof will fit on. It's probably a good idea to tape the roof on while the glue dries of the wall.
Speaking of the roof, you are faced with something of a dilemma: This model was clearly not designed to be opened. As I mentioned, there is no interior detail at all (especially atrocious with the fireplace) and quite frankly the whole structure is supposed to be solidified by glueing the roof on. If you're okay with this then everything is fine.
However, if you want to place models inside the building you have two stability issues at hand. First, the house frame is not very sturdy without the roof. I will probably glue mine on a base, which is something that was not provided with the kit. This will also provide a floor for the house.
The other problem is that the roof itself is made of two large slablike parts only joined at the very top. If they are not glued to the house walls, there's no way they'll survive actual play. You could leave them separate, but then they would easily fall off the house at the slightest bump to the table. What I decided to do was to cut supports from the sprues and glue them inside the roof to solidify the structure (sorry, no pics).
The model has very pronunced texture and very little fiddly detail, painting it should be easy enough.
Verdict
I was a bit underwhelmed by this model. It's okay for the price I paid, but for the full price I'm not so sure. Without additional work the model will be basically a solid piece and if you're not going to use the interior anyway then you have a selection of resin models for roughly the same price point.
The chair seems a bit fragile, but maybe ok if glued to the porch or used as a part of some other larger set. The barrels are basic, but unfortunately the fit of the halves is rather bad. These are ones you'll want to hide at the bottom of the stack.
The fencing sprue seems a bit stupid addition. Since there's three different types of fence on the sprue, you will need several sprues to produce any meaningful length of fence. Maybe it should have been left out bringing the price point down or maybe it should have been replaced with a sprue containing interior details (fireplace) and more accessories.
There is only one way to build the house, so using several of them (I have three) may end up looking a bit funny. I'll have to vary the paint schemes at least.
Sucks!
