Greek and Persian: the new kickstarter from 3D Breed to print-at-home your Battle of Marathon army

By Paolo Paglianti

Oops, 3D Breed did it again! After a couple of successful kickstarters about World War 2 and one about Ancient world, the Spanish STL producer just launched a new Kickstarter focused on Greek and Persian army. The previous “ancient” Kickstarter spanned from Republican to Imperial Roman age, so now we travel back in time to the Thermopylae and Marathon battles, when the Achemind Persians tried to invade Greek and were stopped by the Hoplites from Athens, Sparta, Thebes and other Cities form “Magna Grecia”.

You can find the Kickstarter here, and – after just a few days from the launch – it is already founded. Right now, we are around 17,000$ well surpassing the initial goal of 500$, so we can be sure we will receive the STL files to print our Greek and Persian armies at home before the end of May 2022. 3D Breed always met its deadlines so far, and we are confident they will deliver the files as promised before Summer.

So far, the Kickstarter includes the Greek army with 12 different hoplite models and poses; 12 greek Psiloi (the light infantry, with slings and short throwing spears), and a command group, plus Themistocles special character, both on foot and mounted on a horse.

For the Persians, the core set includes 12 Kardakes (the medium infantry) and 12 mixed archers/spearmen forming the feared Sparabara infantry, the usual center of every Achaemenid army of the 5th BC Century. We also get a Persian Command, Mardonius character (again, both on foot and mounted on horse), and a full Trirereme boat.

*Some miniatures printed and painted by 3D Breed artist. As you can see, the final effect is very close to metal or plastic miniatures. (Photo from the Kickstarter page).*

However, since the Kickstarter is already founded and successful, we already know we will get some juicy bonuses. At time of writing, we will have lots of extra models: Greek Peltasts and Thorakistes, Pasti swordmen, Athenian and Persian cavalry, the famous Theban Sacred Band, the Persian Takabara, and sickle-armed medium infantry, the Immortals and extra archers, and even some Skythian archers. Each bonus range has 12 different poses and models. We also got Thessalian and Dromedary cavalry, the Persian war chariot, and then the full Spartan army with Leonidas.

Since we are more than 15 days away from the Kickstarter end, we can hope to reach even more bonuses; if the Kickstarter will reach the total funding of 33,500$, we also will get the Macedonian army, with the Phalanx, the Promodroi cavalry, war elephants and Alexander the Great. After that and up to 40,000, a selection of mythological models, including the Argonauts, Achilles and Ulysses, Skeletons and the Minotaur.

NDNG received some sample STL files, and I printed them with our Elegoo Mars Pro 2. The result is the expected one: very beautiful and detailed models. You can easily paint them with basic techniques like Contrast colors or drybrush, or you can spend more time with traditional painting. The models are similar to the average plastic models you can buy on sprues. If you wonder if 3D printing miniatures is good for you, have a look at our article we published few months ago.

The test model 3D Breed sent to us: we printed some 28mm and some 15mm, and you can see the front and rear. Details like the Greek helm, the inner wooden part of the shield, or the vest of the Persian are extremely crisp.

Like all 3D Breed ranges, both ancient and WW2, the miniatures are a bit “chunky”: if you don’t like them, you can always print scaled down on the X- and Y-axis at 90% (leaving the Z-axis at full size), and they become instantly more slender and thin. By the way, if you want to print a test model, 3D Breeds has a hoplite for you for free (and many other miniatures from precedent kickstarts) here.

All models will be delivered in both 28mm and 15mm scales, ready to be printed – but you can obviously scale to 1:72 or any other scale you want. 10 mm is probably the lowest scale you can reach with a 4K 3D printer.

The 15mm models are presupported, so you just need to put them into the printing program. For 28mm, you get both the presupported and the unsupported models, if you prefer to place the supports. (Photo from the Kickstarter page).

Our scale comparison. The 15mm hoplite from 3D Breed is near a Xyston and an Essex 15mm miniature. The bigger hoplite is next to a Bolt Action German. Obviously, you can scale the miniature slightly to adapt to any range you already have.

Considering the cost of the Kickstarter – only 40$ – it’s definitely something you should consider if you are interested in the period, even if not in the next future – for example, you could need to wait for the release of the next Saga army book about Age of Alexander, scheduled for the end of 2022. After the Kickstarter ends, the files will cost much more: if you look at 3D Breed, you’ll see past Kickstarter ranges cost 10/15$ each (for 5-10 models), and the full ancient Rome collection has a price of 350$. But if you want to have the Kickstarter, be quick: it will end on April 29th.