I arrived home yesterday to find both a large box of Crescent Root Studios 28mm Middle Eastern buildings and three new Hirst Arts molds waiting for me. Naturally I had to unpack them immediately – here’s some of the buildings arranged into a street to give you some idea of how useful they’ll be.
While I ordered two each of the 28mm Middle East line I’ve only used one of the largest buildings (the 28d1) in the photos for this review. This is because the other buildings are built to exactly the same scale, so the doorways and windows are comparable sizes, and they all have the same removeable roofs and doors. My order was also for unpainted buildings just to save a little cash, and because I don’t mind painting terrain.
First Impressions
As usual my order from CRS was well packed and even double boxed! Each building came in a separate sealed plastic bag, while the various roof and door pieces were packed into several ziplock bags. Nothing was damaged in transit thanks to the careful packing. As I live in New Zealand and usually order from the US/UK, it’s comforting to see a manufacturer pack their orders so well.
These larger 28mm buildings are cast from the same off-white resin as CRS’s smaller 15mm buildings. I don’t know what this material is but it’s tough while being quite light which is ideal for international shipping. Every part has been sprayed with a gray primer which means you can paint them straight out of the box. Checking the buildings and extra parts I noticed no miscasting nor any bubbles which is superb.
Assembly
This photo shows the largest 28d1 building broken into its parts. For scale indication I’ve placed a 28mm DAK German (holding the SMG) from Artizan Designs and a 28mm Archaeologist from Copplestone Castings in each shot as well.
Each building is cleverly designed so the removeable roofs are well supported at each corner. The roof pieces are all a good 2-3mm thick and the hard resin is unlikely to chip or break during gaming. All of the buildings are also cast onto a harder sheet of white plastic which is a thoughtful detail as it should stop the buildings from wearing around the edges.
The removeable doors drop into a slotted frame behind the doorway. They’d be a little fiddly to open and close during gameplay because you have to remove the roof first to get them out. However for pre-game set up they’re excellent, allowing you to close and lock certain rooms or buildings in a street.
The parts fit together surprisingly well. I received eight buildings and only had to file two of the roof sections for best fit. I suspect on these two buildings a couple of the walls around the roof sections had bowed in slightly (say ½mm to 1mm) which explains the tight fit. The bowing isn’t at all visible and may just be a side effect of the curing resin.
Apart from the two roof sections, the only other clean up I did was file around the interior frame of each window to clean away a bit of a resin lip left from the casting process. All up it took me maybe 10 minutes to clean everything up ready for painting.
The Buildings
Here’s the building put together with our German friends again. I’ve placed the Archeologist in the doorway for scale. He just fits underneath the door frame, but it’s worth pointing out this gent has a small metal footplate that has been glued down to a GW base. So he’s gained at least 3mm extra height from his basing.
This close-up nicely shows the rich texturing, with exposed bricks, rough patches of plaster, cracks and broken sections of wall. Several walls also have a light scattering of bullet holes across them. Depending on your tastes you may want to patch these holes prior to painting. The texturing means these buildings should be quick to paint with ink washes and several layers of drybrushing. You can also see the rough stairs with appropriate platforms for ascending figures which will be useful during games.
Here’s the SMG totin’ trooper peering through a window. I took this photo to give you some idea how the figures will look up against windows during gaming. Figures with extended rifles and pistols should easily be placeable so they’re firing through the windows.
Incidently look at the bottom of the building and you can see the way it’s been cast onto a thick slab of white plastic for extra strength.
In Conclusion
I was very interested when Crescent Root released these buildings back in July because they seemed ideal for 28mm skirmish and Pulp gaming. Plus I already own a set of CRS 15mm Middle Eastern buildings and anticipated the 28mm versions would be at least as well made as their smaller brothers.
Now I own a set of these buildings I can happily say they have exceeded all my expectations. I was particularly surprised at how well they went together out of the box! Believe me it takes skill and not a little patience to create modular terrain that fits together so easily. I’m really looking forward to getting them painted up and playing some fast and furious .45 Adventure scenarios over and through them!
In conclusion if you’re looking for 28mm scale Middle Eastern buildings for gaming I believe you need look no further than Crescent Root Studio’s excellent (and expanding) range of terrain.