Renedra – Mudbrick House

This review about the Mud-Brick House by Renedra, that I thought I already published (you could see it in my review on the sandbags), got lost somewhere in the past. I wanted to refer it in the upcoming review on the two-storey houses, but after not finding the review I realized, that I took the pictures, edited them and so on, but never wrote the actual article. Anyhow, I think it still generates value to talk about this kit, especially with a further terrain sets by Renedra, picking up the middle eastern theme.

The mud-brick house is available on its own or along with an acccessoiry sprue that covers a dome and further details for the building itself. More on that below. The main kit covers a medium sized building, spread across three sprues.

The instructions for assembly can be found on the back of the packaging and are not printed on a seperate leaflet.

Casting quality is okay. Where as Renedra is quite fit in casting miniatures, they seem to have a bit of trouble with larger items. So mould lines and the occasional flash is there, but easy to clean. Larger pieces might be slightly warped, which is an issue that happens with plastic in that size, and we have seen that with Land Raiders or terrain pieces by Games Workshop as well. The sprue is not tightly packed, so there is a lot of open space that could have been used for smaller accessories, as they are included in the additional sprue.

The accessory sprue, that is available as an add-on, covers a dome, a small wall piece, a few clay pots and a cloth roof.

The kit is quickly assembled. The roof is a square-bowl that is framed by four wall pieces. There are quite noticeable gaps in between the parts, which unfortunately is nothing new with the renedra kits. The fit on kits this large often suffers a bit. Had similar problems with the Western Buildings. Yet, as this is a mud-brick house, it shouldn't be a big problem, as some filler can easily be applied and will look the part.

Adding the stairs along with the back wall to the side and the main building, as meant from the kit is done.

The accessory frame is from my point of view a musst have, as it adds quite the value to this kit. Obviously you won't need the dome for every building, but it makes it pop. The cloth roof is a nice touch, but honestly something you can easily build from skewers and a bit of tissue or cloth, dipped in pva.

That canopy is quite flexible, as you could put it on the roof, on the side or in front of the building, as well as the smaller side walls. You get a few clay pots to drape around the building. For my taste of these could be more in this kit, as there is still plenty of room on the sprue.

The building fits a lot of purposes, you could use it for Northern Africa, far before world war 2, upto the sci-fi regions of Tallarn or Tatooine.

Assembled it has quite the foot print and added with maybe a base and some of the additional bits and pieces, really does a great job fitting multiple scenarios.

Conclusion
17 GBP is a reasonable price for this kit, even if you add a single accessory sprue for 5 GBP it is still a good deal. Gaps is still an issue, with the rather rural buildings not that of a problem to fix. As mentioned above using a bit of filler along the edges / gaps, will do the job.

The mud brick house is versatile, as you can use it for quite a broad time frame, from the middle ages / crusades upto modern warfare. And a lot inbetween, like colonial wars or the North African campaign. And adding the right bits and pieces, this could be one of the Middlehammer Orc buildings or used with Star Wars Legion to cover one of the desert planets.

If you want to cover large ground, I think it is worth looking into mdf or 3d printing, as you can get a whole compound or set of buildings for the same price. Yes, these will need some post-assembly work, but this one will do as well, so the argument is fair.

Renedra provides casting for multiple miniatures companies and covers a range of bases and terrain accessoires by themself.