D&D with a 3D Printer

Nov 23

Nov 23 D&D with a 3D Printer

In April I finally pulled the trigger on buying a 3d printer. I was tired of buying minis from Games Workshop and I thought it would save me money in the long run.

I did a bit of research and bought the Wanhao Duplicator i3 for around £300 and I was very happy. You can pretty much use it straight from the box ( all i needed was a way to get the files from my laptop to an SD card).

First up you need to download a slicing program. I use Cura and I've never had a problem with it.

After that you'll need some 3d objects to slice.

This man is a HERO. Miguel Zavala has designed every single monster from the Monster Manual and is working his way through Volo's Guide to Monsters. He also has a large selection of Player Character models too. Oh yeah, it's all free too!

I also use Thingverse for minis and terrain pieces, it's easily searchable with D&D tags and 28mm scale. Scenery is really where a 3D printer comes into it's own, getting high quality scatter terrain adds new levels to tactical combat.

The completely modular dungeon concept OpenForge intrigues me but I have not had the time to get a decent amount of it printed to give a review but it is on the horizon...

HeroForge have also allowed their designs to be downloaded for home printing too.

The PLA plastic comes in 1kg spools for about £15 on Amazon and comes in a wide range of colours including Wood, Clear, Metalic and Glow in the Dark! I've been using it a lot over the last 6 months and I'm yet to get through a full spool.

There are some drawbacks however. It is not whisper quiet as the manual suggests. A 28mm Player Character sized mini will take about an hour to print and the detail can leave a lot to be desired. Also the support struts take ages to clean out and you run the risk of damaging the model. For this reason I've used mine mainly for bulk minions such as Goblins and Kobolds or larger models such as Dire Bears and Dragons as the size allows a greater level of detail. If I want a model to have impact I will look to Reaper or Games Workshop.