Dave's Games Low Ruins and Crosspiece Ruins

I didn't expect my review of the Dave's Games Ruined Longhouse to be so well received, but on the other hand, it is a quality product so I really shouldn't have expected anything less. This time, I am going to show you two more of the ruined buildings sets from Dave Graffam, which I have combined to make one building.

The floor and four exterior walls are from the Low Ruins set, whilst the internal walls come from the Crosspiece Ruins set 1. The first decision that I had to make with the Low Ruins was to decide on its footprint. You have four options - 6" by 6", 6" by 4", 4" by 6" and 4" by 4". In case you are wondering, no, the 6" by 4" and 4" by 6" choices are not the same. One has long north/south walls and the other has long east/west walls. I opted for the 6" square choice.

The Crosspiece Ruins set is simply a collection of various lengths of wall that slot into each other to create a cross piece. They are not so much buildings per se, but parts of buildings. I thought that adding one of them to this model would break up the large expanse of empty floor space and make a much more interesting ruin with greater playing options for hiding figures in it. The first problem that I encountered is that the Crosspiece walls are much taller than those on the Low Ruins. The clue is in the name, Low Ruins, as they are only about 2" tall. So I had to cut off about an inch from the bottom of the Crosspiece walls in order to make them fit in better. Also, instead of a Crosspiece I opted for a T-section, giving me three rooms, one measuring 6" by 2" and the other two measuring 4" by 3". The layers that I chose for them were concrete walls with bullet holes for page 4 of the four pages provided. I cut a door frame in the long wall but deliberately left off the door. Presumably it got destroyed with the rest of the building. The short wall is made up of two small pieces with a gap between them to indicate where the door once was.

This overhead view gives you a good view of the floor and how the Crosspiece walls form the three rooms that make up the building. The Low Ruins set comes with a selection of eight floor patterns - cracked brown tiles, cracked grey tiles, flagstones, grey concrete, hardwood, patterned tiles, weathered wood and yellow concrete. I chose the cracked brown tiles for my floor. I also added two layers of rubble to it. You can add up to three layers of rubble but I didn't want to overdo it. Note how thick my walls are because I glue my printouts to thick mounting card. This gives my models incredible strength and durability.

This is the front of the house, or south exterior wall, showing a solid-looking front door. You can choose a metal door with a concrete frame and concrete framed windows, or a wooden door with wood frames for the door and window. Note that the door is not flush with the ground, so mind the step!

Moving round, here we see the west wall with a single window in the centre of it. The external walls come with a choice of nine textures - brown bricks, brown stone, grey bricks, grey concrete, grey stone, red bricks, stucco, weathered wood and yellow concrete. I chose the brown bricks for my external walls. The internal walls can match the external walls, or you can choose a different texture for them, as I did. You have the same nine options as for the external walls. I chose yellow concrete for my interior walls to match the colour scheme of my Crosspiece Ruins. The only layer option that is missing for the interior walls is bullet damage. That was no big deal, as I made sure to include bullet holes on my Crosspiece walls.

This is the south wall, which again contains a single window framed in concrete. I have added two layers on top of my external walls - air vents and gun damage. The air vent on this wall is located near the centre at the bottom.

Finally, we come to the east wall. I made a silly mistake when I printed out this wall. I added the door and window layer to it. The problem with that is the door is located at the far left of the wall, meaning that I'd have two doors in that corner, as the door on the south wall was literally just round the corner. This is my one and only criticism of the model. Having both doors in that corner makes no sense if you want to build this model with two doors. I was forced to reprint this wall without the door and windows layer on. If you make this model, you can only have one door on the outside, either to the right of the south wall or to the left of the east wall.
The amount of options you have for the Low Ruins set is just mind-blowing and makes it incredible value for money. I wasn't too sure whether I'd get any use out of the Crosspiece Ruins set but with this model I found the perfect use for them, even if I did have to trim them down to size. The Low Ruins is one of the easiest ruined building models you can make. So too, are the Crosspiece Ruins. Combine the two and you have a slightly more complex model, but one that I thought was well worth making. I am very happy with the outcome of this model and it just goes to show what you can do if you think outside the box.