4Ground Late Saxon Hovel Review

Today, I built the 4Ground Late Saxon Hovel, which had been given to me as a gift. This is the first 4Ground structure I've ever built, and I am very impressed.

All of the parts came off the "sprue" cleanly with little effort and assembled very easily. I was most impressed by the precision of the subassemblies and how well it all fit together. In total, this build took approximately one hour, during which I paused to photograph each step for this review.

The Kit

All the parts

First I assembled the outer walls per the instructions, then while the glue was still wet (and the walls could be adjusted) I glued the walls to the floor as seen below.

Again, while the glue on the outer walls was setting up, I glued the inner walls into the structure.

At this point, I was pleasantly surprised by how sturdy the model felt.  This is clearly designed to withstand the abuse associated with wargaming and not just a static model for the display case.

I added the window as seen above.  This is the one piece in the entire assembly that had a small defect. The edges of the window are nearly paper thin, and in the one corner of the window insert, the piece separated.  I was able to fix it while gluing it into position, and it didn't affect the look or ease of assembly.

The door assembly and doorframe was next.  I was impressed by how easy the door went together even with the very small pieces.

The fire pit

Next, I glued the door into the frame and the fire pit to the floor.  I chose to assemble the door in the closed position, but tried it both open and closed.  I decided to go with closed to allow for maximum figures to be spaced inside the structure, if the scenario ever came up in a game.

Next was the roof.  Here, I made one minor error; I removed all the parts without checking the lettering.  It was only after I had the four parts out did I realize the two pieces creating the actual roof were slightly different size.  I decided to dry fit everything to make sure I understood the assembly before gluing.  All went well.

The roof before adding the thatch

Okay, here is where I was VERY impressed... the roof section slipped perfectly onto the buildings walls. The fit was just right - nice job 4Ground!

The thatch actually comes in the three pieces needed - no measuring and cutting required.

Above, I used a disposable "acid brush" to spread the glue evenly before applying the thatch.

The roof material has a natural direction to the "thatch," and I made sure to attach it so the thatch was flowing down toward the ground.

I applied glue per the picture in the instructions for the final piece of thatch and then attached it.

Here's the completed 4Ground Late Saxon Hovel.  I will wait at least 24 hours before the next step of flattening the thatch with a 50/50 water/pva mix.

This was an easy build and resulted in a table ready piece in about an hour.  I will be exploring more of the 4Ground structures in the future.  And, a special thanks to my best buddy, John, for giving me this one to build.