By Kreighton Long
With my Bolt Action Stalingrad German Army completed (for now), I set my sights on a display board to accompany my army. My plan was to make the most of some extra textured mats procured from Michaels for a previous project.
By Kreighton Long
With my North African Italians finished it’s time to look forward to a new project. After attempting desert bases with my Italians, I had the idea to challenge myself with new-to-me basing themes for my next few projects.
The next project will take me from the sands of North Africa to the ruined cityscape of Stalingrad. If I said the German Veterans release from Warlord Games had nothing to do with this choice I would be lying. Having never attempted urban bases before, I spent some of my prep time looking for different ways of creating urban bases and came up with three options to experiment with: Green Stuff, plastic mats, and sand.
By Kreighton Long
After completing my North African Italians I committed to building a set of desert terrain for them to fight in. In addition to the standard dwellings and walls I wanted to build palm groves to add some soft cover and greenery to the table. While wandering around a Michaels store I came across bags of palm trees on sale and decided the time to start the palm groves was now.
By Kreighton Long
As many a tabletop war gamer has learned, the winter holiday season is a wonderful time for terrain builders. This past winter I stocked up on the three styles of Lemax mats in stock at Michaels with the idea of using them to build European style cobblestone roads for my urban tables.
I wanted to build 6 x 12″ sections of road that will allow me to easily stack and store the road sections as well as drop them down on the table as needed. I found a pack of 20 basswood sheets measuring 6 x 12 x 1/8 inches on Amazon and added them to my cart.
By Kreighton Long
Feeling adventurous, I set out to build a pigsty for my rural Bolt Action terrain. Most of the materials were easy enough to order online. The wattle fences came from Renedra Ltd; the mother pig from Warlord Games; and the balsa wood, match sticks, coffee stirrers, and green stuff from my hobby cache.
By Kreighton Long
Slowly but surely I’ve been working on improving my terrain options with the focus on Bolt Action. My primary army project for this year is overhauling my Soviet forces. Accordingly, my terrain optics have been focused on the terrain pieces that will best fit the Eastern Front.
By Kreighton Long
I recently stumbled across Father and Son Gaming’s Organic Shapes MDF Terrain Base Set and thought about the improvement they could offer my current terrain set-ups. For years I’ve collected trees, a couple at a time, from various conventions.
I’ve used those same trees on nearly every table I’ve thrown together. From time to time I’ve had a minor hiccup where my opponent or I would need to reposition a tree or two to accommodate units moving through the clusters of trees and in doing so would lose track of the intended outline of the trees. For the most part these are friendly club games and we’ve been able to work through it for the spirit of the game.
By Paolo Paglianti
I really like to have custom bases for my miniatures, as you can see and read here (), here () and here (), I normally try to have small dioramas for my Flames of War or Team Yankee infantry teams. When I began painting my new Iraq army, and I come to the three platoons infantry formation, I wanted something different. One of the three platoons would fight on rocky ground, the same I used for my “Sicilian” bases for my British WW2 Paras. Some great inspirations come from my friend Luca Papisca and his US bases!
For the other two platoons, I chose an “urban street” scenario and a “rural village” scenario, using my new 3D Resin Printer (). I think 3d Printing is a true revolution in modeling and in our hobby: not only because you can print the tanks you need, but especially since you can “create” almost everything you want, you just need some creativity.
By Mitch Reed
One of the best aspects’ gamers love about Blood & Plunder is its historical setting in the days of the early colonial Americas. Once a gamer has painted their miniatures, they immediately look to create a beautiful table to show off their amazing models. Firelock Games has some great solutions for those who wish to pick up some great terrain that will create that world in which the game is played.
By Tom Burgess
Editor’s note: This is the second of our two part look at 3D resin printing for wargamers.
I know what you are thinking “wouldn’t it be great if I could print the high quality wargame miniatures I want on demand?” The true wargamer response to that has to be “of course!” That’s what I was thinking when I ordered my own 3D resin printer. But it has been an interesting journey for me with some pleasant and some not so pleasant surprises. This endeavor has made me think about the future of wargaming and how I will fit in with it now that I can make my own models.
Quality resin 3D printers are coming down in price and there are so many people offering free and for-a-fee 3D print files, it just may be that we are entering a new age for miniature wargaming. So where might this road be taking us, and is 3D printing for everyone? These are questions that I will attempt to look at in this article. There may be some misconceptions.
So the first thing you are thinking about when considering to buy a 3D resin printer is probably that you’ll save a lot of money on your wargame miniatures.
