New NATO Cold War stls by Henry Turner

By Tom Gall

If you have a resin 3D printer and have been watching the variety of Kickstarters going by with STLs to choose from there seems to be an explosion of offerings for tabletop wargamers.

I’ve been very skeptical of printing my own 10mm/15mm infantry figures. Sculpts and print quality are my primary concern, as things get smaller, would the results be reasonable? What happens when small resin figures are on the tabletop, with dice, dropping, etc, will there be shattered sadness?

Before we get to my own experiences, I want to highlight the work of Henry Turner who has a Kickstarter up for NATO troops set in 1983. Within the Kickstarter, he has both US and British infantry in a variety of poses that are meant for a variety of scales. At £30 or $50US for both sets it’s a good deal and you’ll see why in a moment.

In a word, quality.

Earlier Henry had released a set of Cold War era Soviet infantry on https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-258906 This had been part of a prior Kickstarter that was later released for purchase. As I like to play Soviets for Battlegroup NorthAG and Team Yankee this was a tempting link to explore.

Now, this is where my skepticism kicks in. With 28mm figures, I’ve test printed a few American War of Independence and have been considering printing up some Seven Years’ War figures. A larger scale like 28mm is one thing but what about something smaller?

Let’s think in terms of 15mm and Cold War era. Infantry? How well will the printer do?

In the two pictures a few things to take note of. First, plenty of detail, the sculpts look marvelous!

Henry does great work! You can see how the support system connects to the figures as they are being printed. These are clipped off and can leave a small mark that disappears with priming. [Editor’s note: soaking the prints in HOT water for a moment prior to support removal aids greatly in reducing support bumps – but only prior to curing the models.] Mold lines, flash, and support scars, no matter the technology, hard to escape a little post-clean-up.

I have a Saturn Elegoo S, it’s a 4K printer which refers to the resolution of the system used to form the model. Already for consumer use there are 8K resin printers, I do wonder if there would be much of an improvement possible. This already seems quite good.

And a couple of shots as these are getting close to being fully painted (and I am no award winning painter) and ready for the tabletop. Faces need some contrast paint to pull in the detail. For 15mm I’m definitely happy with the results. Henry’s work is outstanding!

No matter what Cold War era rules you might be using be it NorthAG (CentAG will be available for sale soon) by the Plastic Solider Company or something else, 3-D resin-printed figures with quality results are here.

Henry’s kickstarter is worth supporting, I think you’ll be very happy with what you will be able to print for yourself.

Last I’m going to appeal to you please continue to purchase figures from game companies for the rulesets that you play. The reason, companies need to make money in order to continue to develop and support the games that we all love to play. If we take away their income, that takes away from their future product development.