Build a better Boat

Last week I came back from the South Oxford Armada event feeling enthused about all things Armada, and not just because I managed to snag first place somehow. Armada is a great game and painting up a fleet isn't that massive an undertaking when compared to many of the other games we play.

It got me thinking about playing a new fleet and I wanted something that would fit the look of my Kingdoms of Men. The obvious choice would be the KoM fleet that Mantic do but the models didn't really fit and the rules aren't the most interesting so after some looking around I settled on Northern Alliance / Varungur. 

I downloaded the files and a base pack and loaded them into the Bambu Lab software and it struck me that I could probably print most of the parts as a single object rather than fiddling around with tiny pieces.

A quick bit of research soon revealed how it is to merge objects in the Bambu Lab software. Essentially you select two objects and then choose to Merge, you then move one piece onto the other making sure they actually touch and the software does the rest for you. You end up with something like this below, which is the Northern Alliance Draakar.

I used the following settings for the prints and let the software sort the rest out:

Nozzle: 0.4mm

Layer Height: 0.12mm Fine pre-set

Material: Bambu Matt PLA

Supports: Auto Tree with outer Brim

These are the first two prints I did and have undercoated, I wanted to see if the layer lines where obvious and they really aren't. I could have gone down to the 0.08mm layer height for even greater fidelity but I don't think that's really required in this case. On these first two prints I'd left the base depth at 2mm but it did seem a bit thin so I've increased that to 3mm for the others and I suspect I will use these as test subjects for the paint scheme and go back and print a couple more with the new thicker bases.

So since the first couple of successful prints I've also printed out an Icebreaker this morning.

A pair of the large Serpent models where printed yesterday. I've left the rear sail and mast as a separate piece to aid the painting process but it could just have easily been attached to the hull as well.

One failure I have had is the Snekkja, I'd not set the mast properly into the base of the ship so it snapped off as I tried to remove the supports. I will go back and sort that out and then can print it out again.