Renedra Ramshackle Barn review

G'day folks! A quickie here, it's Renedra's Ramshackle Barn. Today I'm trying out a Time-lapse software for my phone, so without further ado here's a video of me assembling it. 

Like their Dark Age cottage (which I will review shortly) this comes on three sprues of grey plastic. Read more after the break.

The first sprue with the gable ends and the roof and wall of the lean to.

Unlike the Dark Age cottage one of the sprues is doubled up, that is two of the three sprues are identical. Some clever sculpting in my opinion since you then only need to make two molds and still make a fairly large model.

Second sprue with side wall and roof section. There is two of this one in the box.

The second sprue has the only piece that has details on both sides. That is the side wall of the lean to, which has a door on one side. This means that they didn't have to make to separate pieces, as one of the sides will have the door outwards and the other side will have the door inwards and only display an ordinary wall. One might argue that having the exact same window with the exact same broken plank on each side would look unrealistic, but the lean to will cover up one of the windows.

As you can see the barn is larger than the cottage. Well, it's a barn so it should be.

Construction is fairly straight forward as you can see in the video above. A simple diagram is featured on the box but anyone with half a brain shouldn't have any problem assembling it. The only problem was which way the side walls go, with the window high up or lower down. Careful inspection of the planking detail lead me to the conclusion that the window should be positioned lower down on the wall, which the box confirmed. If you put the walls upside down, the lean to will not be able to cover the window on its side.

To summarize, this is a kit that could wind it's way onto almost anybody's wargaming table, almost. I don't think the style is appropriate for ancients, maybe not dark ages, but should be suitable from 16th century and onwards. And in a fantasy setting like Warhammer of course. Detailing is nice with broken planks, doors ajar, ropes hanging on the doors. You also get two ladders, two pitchforks and an old wooden wheel as extras. Bits are always nice so that is a plus. The downside is no internal detailing and that the doors are already molded onto the walls which makes it hard work to open them up. This is a compromise to bring the price down, since interior details and separate doors would almost certainly mean more parts which would need an additional sprue.

I haven't talked about the price yet, which is a bargain; £15 RRP, which means you can get it for less if you look around a bit.

I give this kit 4 out of 5. The lack of interior details drags it down a bit, but it's a damn nice kit for almost no money.