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Its hard to describe exactly how the buildings from one manufacturer compare in size and "feel" to those from another manufacturer. You can give all the measurements in the world, but seeing is truly believing. Since I had just completed the six 4Ground buildings for Dead Man's Hand I decided to do some comparison photos with similar buildings from my collection of Battle Flag, Gamecraft Miniatures, Sarissa Precision, Aetherworks and Tri City Laser (Knuckleduster). Each photo shows a 4Ground building next to another similar style building. In this case I'm only going with two comparisons; 1 story buildings and 2 story buildings. Where possible I have removed porch roofs and awnings to get better pictures of the buildings themselves.

The pictures of the Tri City Laser (Knuckleduster) buildings are the old models, I haven't ordered the re-designed buildings yet, but I will get a few as soon as funds are available. Keep that in mind when looking at the comparison pictures and my comments. 

First up are the 1 Story Buildings. Please note that I left the 4Ground Side Street Building #3 off its foundation base which would increase the height another 1/2" or so. I also didn't include the staircase to the second floor on the backside of Main Street Building #3

Aetherworks Brick Building and 4Grounds Side Street Building #3

These buildings are very similar in size. The Aetherworks building is shorter but has a much taller false front giving the impression of a much larger building. Which is pretty much exactly the purpose of the false fronts to begin with.

Battle Flag Saloon and 4Ground Side Street Building #3

If the 4Ground building was on its foundation, these two buildings would be almost the same height. The Battle Flag building is  a little wider and a little shorter.

Gamecraft Miniatures and 4Ground's Side Street Building #3

The 4Ground building is much deeper than the Gamecraft. Again, the Gamecraft building looks much bigger from the front because of the huge false front and high peaked roof. Overall its a considerably smaller building.

Sarissa Precision Medium Building, 4Ground Side Street Building #3

The Sarissa Precision building is narrower and much deeper than the 4Ground building. It is much more typical of the shotgun style of building that was popular in the west at the time. I didn't measure but the Sarissa building is probably close to the proportion, popular at the time, where the front of the building would be 1/3 of the total length.

Sarissa Precision Small +, 4Ground Side Street Building #3

This is the Sarissa Precission Small + series. Its as wide and tall as the 4Ground building but is considerable shorter.

Sarissa Precision Small Building, 4Ground Side Street Building #3

Sarrisa Precision Small building, both narrower and shorter than the 4Ground building. Note the open hatch to the roof in this picture.

Tri City Laser (Knuckleduster) Small Building, 4Ground Side Street Building #3

The Tri City Laser (Knuckleduster) building just has odd proportions. Its wider and the false front is taller, and its considerably shorter and it has a very squat look to it. Now this is the old version. Tri City has re-designed all of their buildings so these pictures are not an accurate reflection of what they look like now.

Tri City Laser (Knuckleduster) Larger Store, 4Ground Side Street Building #3

The larger Tri City 1 story building. Again wider than the 4Ground building, but about the same height (especially if you put the foundation on the 4Ground Side Street building), and longer. Closer to the shotgun style building but a bit wide and again has a very squat look to it.

Battle Flag Photographer's Studio, 4Ground Main Street Building #3

Battle Flag's 2 story building is just a bit wider than the 4Ground building. Otherwise they are nearly identical in size. I did leave off the back stairs of the 4Ground building which would make it longer overall, but these two buildings are almost identical in size.

Gamecraft Miniatures 2 Story, 4Ground Main Street Building #3

The Gamecraft building is a bit wider and a bit longer than the 4Ground building. The Gamecraft building has some odd looking proportions because of the 2nd Floor window placement.

Sarissa Precision Large Building (I have misplaced the roof at the moment which is flat, the pitched roof is not an option for their Large Buildings), 4Ground Main Street Building #3

The Sarrisa building is narrower and longer than the 4Gound building. Again it has that shotgun style that I like.

Tri City Laser (Knuckleduster) Hotel (old design), 4Ground Main Street Building #3

The Tri City Laser Hotel is both wider and longer but a bit shorter than the 4Gound building. The Tri City kit doesn't have quite that same squat look as the 1 story buildings but it still has something of an odd feel to it.

So there is a quick photographic guide showing how these buildings might look on the table together.

I finished up the rest of my 4Ground western buildings. Overall I'm pretty pleased with these buildings. They have a few issues with the instructions and some of the sub-assemblies like the doors can be a bit fiddly and delicate until you get them into place. The other sub-assembly that can be a bit delicate is the balconies on Main Street Building #3 and Side Street Building #3. Because you glue the main assembly together before you glue it to the building you don't have anyway to square it up while it dries because there is only one cross support in the front. So if you wrap a rubber band around it the unsupported back section will collapse. The solution is to make a little spreader, equal to the length of the front crosspiece, from a scrap of sprue to place between the two rear uprights to keep the assembly square while the glue sets.

Also, in case you missed it, the roofs on all of these buildings are interchangeable since everything is built to the same footprint. So while the line may suffer a bit from use the same "base box" you really can mix things up on these buildings if you choose to. You can even swap levels. For instance if you could take the 2nd story from one of the Main Street buildings and use it on top of one of the Side Street Buildings or even make that second story a 1 story building on its own (although you would need to some how acquire another roof).

Once again the Female Huckster from Reaper will provide a bit of scale. She is not as tall as Black Scorpion but is a bit taller than the other lines that I have (Wargames Foundry and Dixon).

Here are the pictures, sorry a few of them are a bit out of focus.

Side Street Buildings 1, 2 and 3 (not necessarily in the right order mind you). I have left off the awnings, makes it easier to see the buildings.

Our favorite Huckster ready for a card game

After successfully building Side Street Building #2 I figured I would dive right in and build one of the Main Street buildings while some of the lessons were still fresh in my mind. For my second build I grabbed Main Street Building #1 mostly because it was red and matched the Side Street building that I had just finished. I don't think much of a preamble is necessary for this one so I'll jump straight into the pictures of the build.

The package was stuffed full of these. Take them out carefully some will fall right out of the sprues. I lost a set of windows out of one of the side street buildings.

Getting the walls together

The window sequence. These are fancy but I would have preferred the fancy stuff on the top (either way is appropriate for the period).

Everything in place on the second floor.

Stacking things up for a test fit.

Working on my favorite type of roof, although its definitely getting covered with something to hide that ugly roof seam. As a point of interest all the roofs for the first DMH buildings are interchangeable, that gives you some opportunity to mix things up a bit. The other nice thing about this roof is it is not possible to get RH1 upside down. If you manage to get this triangular equivalent of RH1 I want to see pictures!

The stairs. I really like these.

Finished building with roofs in place

Roof off, showing the second floor.

Second floor off to get to the first floor. I like the way these buildings come apart. You can have action on both floors without a problem.