Old Town Scenics - Townhouse A

So, another day, another Townhouse from TTCombat. Yet again they have produced a really nice kit with a larger footprint than the previous building and a second floor, too! 5 sheets, about 50 minutes build time and only two "Huh?" moments!

A few tips for this build:

1) I would suggest building one floor at a time.
2) Be aware that there are differences between the sheets and the images on the eBay auction. Notably, the window frames are a little different and the large window and frame on the front are quite different. Also, note the side wall on the ground floor that only has one window. The window is towards the back on the eBay picture, but towards the front on the sheet.
3) Since I kept knocking off the window frames during the previous build, I cut them all out first this time and as each wall piece was cut from the MDF sheet, I glued the frames on immediately. That way they were all dry by the time everything else was cut out and the building was ready for assembly.

The first "Huh" moment occurred while I was building the upper floor - I couldn't figure out where the triangular roof pieces were supposed to go. But then I realised the front and back outer walls didn't have any tabs on them to take the roof so I figured they should be glued to the inside of the front and back walls.

The second "Huh" moment occurred while I was about to call it done - I noticed that the stairs don't actually reach the ground floor..they are about 2 steps shy. More on that later.

All things considered, this is another great building for Malifaux or WWE and - as is the theme with the TTCombat range - very reasonably priced at £12. While I would have once again liked to have seen some detail on the ground floor / upper floor, such as some wooden planks, my only real complaint here is the stairs. While this can be remedied quite easily by cutting up some of the MDF left on the frame to create a raised platform at the bottom of the stairs.. or by TTCombat extending the length of the stairs.. the real concern is the way it is attached to the upper floor. 

Because it is slotted in and not in anyway attached to the ground floor, every time you lift off the upper floor you are taking the stairs with it and thus you risking moving / knocking over models that are inside the ground floor and any models unfortunate enough to be on the stairs are probably going to fall off. Even if you remove the upper floor successfully, you will have to slide off the stairs before you can set the upper portion of the building down somewhere and they might be easier said than done depending on how many layers of paint you have applied to the MDF. Instead, I think it might be better if the stairs are glued to the ground floor and the top of the stairs simply butt up against the upper floor without slotting in. 

Tomorrow I will hopefully tackle Townhouse B, then it is on to the tower! Next week I'll probably return to eBay and pick up a bunch of the new buildings that just popped up today. Dare I say it, but they look even better than the ones I have built so far!