Model Scale Comparison

All 3d printed, except for the 1/300 model which is from Heroics & Ros.

I've filled out a bit more of my range of scale comparison models to include one at 1/150 scale, which would be in the 12mm figure bracket  — that would cover about 1/120 to 1/160 scale, with the most common probably being 1/144. In truth, the Bishop probably wasn't the best vehicle to choose for something like this; I just sort of fell into it.

I'm pretty heavily committed to 1/100 (15mm) scale, and that's not very likely to change in the foreseeable future. I've got a whole bunch of 1/300 and 1/285 stuff as well, though I almost never use it these days.

If I was starting WWII wargaming again from scratch, I think I'd probably be going for 1/200. Big enough to see, small enough to store easily, and small enough to play satisfactory games on a relatively small table.

Dark Satanic Mill

I just finished printing and painting this factory by Paul Deeming, a freebie from his kickstarter.

The model is designed for 28mm; I've printed it scaled at 60% for 15mm.

The figures are plastic 15mm WWII Russians from PSC.

Voroshilovets For Everyone!

Everyone with a 3d printer, that is.

I've rebuilt my 15mm (1:100) Voroshilovets model for home printing, and uploaded it to https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/voroshilovets-heavy-tractor/

The canopy is a separate STL, and there are two versions of the tractor itself: one all in one piece, and the other with the tracks split off to ease printing in FDM. The split-up version includes a few other tweaks aimed at FDM printing as well, so if that's the sort of printer you have, that's the version I'd recommend you print. The one-piece model would be better suited to resin printers.

One-piece tractor

Multi-part tractor

203mm Tracked Howitzer

I finally got around to painting the Soviet B2 203mm tracked howitzer that I printed many months ago.

If I recall correctly, this is one of Bergman's 1/200 scale models, enlarged to 1/100 for 15mm games. I don't have any Soviet artillerymen suitable for heavy artillery, so I guess if I need a crew I'll just have to draft some normal infantry.

The Voroshilovets heavy tractor is a design of my own. It's available from my Shapeways shop, but I haven't yet got around to redesigning it and I've now redesigned it for home FDM printing; it's up at my wargaming3d.com shop. I'll probably add another version with the running gear separate, which should make it more straightforward to print.

Russian Bully-Boys

I'm printing Soviet T-28 medium tanks at the moment.

The left-most one is a resin and metal model from Battlefront, for comparison; the others are designed by M. Bergman, and printed by me in eSun PLA or PLA+, using a slightly modified FDG miniatures profile for the Ender 3.

The most recent print is the middle-right one, printed in plain old PLA. I dropped the temperature for that one right down to 190° — I've found that eSun PLA filaments seem to be happiest printing at much lower temperatures than those actually recommended by the manufacturer. Printing it this cool has given me much cleaner surfaces, and almost no stringing at all.

I'm intending these for the period of the Winter War, 1939-40ish, when the Soviet Union attempted to steamroller Finland and got their arses resoundingly handed to them until eventually numbers (and lack of support for the Finns) began to tell.

They should really be painted white, and I will do a couple like that, but leaving them in green isn't completely out of the question since the Russians went into Finland ridiculously unprepared. And having them green does make them more flexible in terms of their usefulness on the wargames table.

AD&D DM Screen — WiP

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 I'm very slowly making myself a new DM screen for AD&D, to replace the one I made about 35 years ago from photocopied bits of the DMG glued to bits of cardboard.

The page size is A4 (landscape), and so far I'm up to five panels. I probably don't want to go any higher than that, as it would tend to be wider than our gaming table.

The page order as shown here is only provisional, and there are a lot more bits and pieces I could include (and probably will).

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SdKfz 234 Variants

This is a German SdKfz 234/3 "Stummel", an eight-wheeled armoured car mounting a short-barrelled 75mm gun. It's handy having a vehicle that counts towards a force's scouting value, while also mounting a fairly hefty gun for blowing-things-up purposes. The model is 1:100 scale, for 15mm gaming.

The model is designed by Zachary Kavulich, printed by me at 0.1mm layer height in eSun PLA+ on my Ender 3.

The crewman is one of the passenger figures from PSC's SdKfz 251C pack, and he's not ideal; I have a real shortage of figures suitable for crewmen for this sort of vehicle. That's one of the reasons why I'd like to get myself a resin printer, so that I could design and print figures for this sort of purpose.

This one is the SdKfz 234/4. Rather than the low-velocity howitzer of the 234/3, this one mounts a 75mm PaK 40, an excellent German anti-tank gun capable of handling almost any Allied tank right up until the end of the war.

This model was designed by M. Bergman, and the crew figures are a couple of 15mm German artillerymen from Peter Pig.

Leaky Roof

This is one of the 3d printable buildings from Printable Scenery that I printed some time ago in 15mm scale, their French House-Shop.

I've taken the roof component and remixed it to show some damage, and I'll use this roof in exchange for the original undamaged roof piece, when I want to indicate an "unstable" building in our WWII Chain of Command games.

An "unstable" building may (or may not) collapse at the end of any given turn, potentially killing everyone still inside.