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I've decided to start building up my terrain collection as I'm moving to a new place with more room, so will have the chance to make a nice table for Infinity. I got my hands on the MAS objective room, the L-shaped apartment and holo-ads. I've just finished building the objective room and it was a bit of a nightmare. I ended up breaking about 5 pieces [two of the acrylic holders on the large doors, a piece of wall, a corner tab that holds the large acrylic parts and a reinforcement wall part]. It was really difficult even to get the floor to line up square with the walls; the instruction say not to be gentle pushing the walls together, but the only way I could avoid large gaps between the wall and floor was to push them in together as hard as I could to the point where the cross pieces flared out. I shaved off some slivers around each connecting tab and it was still really difficult to put together. Is this a thing or am I just ham-fisted? Any advice for future projects?

Par for the course with MAS MDF buildings. The joins are really, really tight. It's best to do some filing to get them to fit without using force. One of the reasons I refuse to make any more of their buildings, as there's plenty of manufacturers out there that make well fitting buildings that aren't a nightmare to construct.

I'll be fair and say MAS buildings look great, but it's not like other companies efforts look bad. Some are just downright better looking as well as easier to build (Warmill comes to mind).

I found the same with Micro Art apartments, I broke one piece trying to force them together, thereafter took my time and shaved bits off the lugs where necessary.

In my (somewhat limited) experience -

Loose fit, need rubber-bands whilst drying but look great in the end - Sarissa and CNC

Tight fit, care and shaving bits off required - Micro Art

Fit just right - Warmill and Zen.

Zen also come completely precut so no cutting away from the frame, which is where I hope they all go in the future, it saves so much time and gives a better finish.

I didn't need to use rubber bands to hold my Sarissa stuff together. I built them the same way as everything else, by partially gluing the construction. Glue the walls together and slot into the base without gluing it down. Then glue on any layered bits like angled roofs, then just fit the roof itself on without glueing. Walls will be separate from the base as well as the roof for separate painting.

The pods with the angled walls were just placed upside down while the glue dried for the angled part that was at the bottom.

BP Laser, an Australian company, also provides their stuff entirely cut from the frame. It's very much appreciated since cutting stuff from frames is the most irritating part of MDF terrain.

Thanks for the reply guys, makes me feel a bit better about breaking bits off my expensive building! Will make sure I shave all of the connecting parts first with the next MAS building. Got some Zen stuff on the way so looking forward to a nice easy build

I was planning to get that objective room but have heard nothing but bad things about its construction so havent.

I've had enough of ultra tight joints. I broke a terrakami train with a rubber mallet trying to get parts to move the final couple millimeters after jamming. I had thought I'd oversanded due to edges turning to gak but it still got stuck. Cracked multiple parts hammering it into place after lol.

I've only ever bought 4 pieces of the MAS HDF terrain pieces and they ALL gave me issues.

Sheets not cut all the way through and zero tolerance on fit seemed to be par for all of them.

Loving the Warmill stuff I've done, and ditto the Warsenal stuff. I've got more of the BPLaser and CNC stuff since they are the locals but we can get Warmill through the FLGS and a distributor in Sydney does the Warsenal stuff, so that makes them both easier to get in.

Customeeple do an objective room that's a lot cheaper, if less detailed. No fancy acrylics. It's got the added bonus that the doors are the correct size for Narrow Gates (MicroArts are not, so it's best to use the Narrow Gate markers). It also has the option to have a roof, so you can use it as a regular building with playable interior.

I just finished building my objective room and I filed down most parts so that everything fit just well. I still got some buildings to build from them and even ordered some more. I just like the look that much and they are the easiest/cheapest to get here. Definitly not for the faint hearted though.

Yeah, the L-shaped apartment building went together pretty well after shaving down all of the connecting parts [although the instructions weren't great]. I think I could do a much better job on the objective room second time around.

For what it's worth, the MAS stuff fits together better if you make sure it's all really dry first. It seems to pick up moisture from the air during storage and swell very slightly. I recently made a second Objective Room which needed quite a bit of sanding, but after priming it I left it in the sun for an hour or so and all the tight joins were loose as the moisture evaporated out...