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.

Going Big

This week the printer has been going big with some larger prints being produced.

First up was a Abyssal Dwarf Hellfane for Mr T. This is very much a centre piece model for the army which also buffs the infantry.

It's a big old beast and the files came as quite a few separate parts so it was a real relief to get to the end and find that I needed barely any trimming to get all the bits to fit.

The Mantic Vault files do include three crew to ride atop the beast which I've sub-contracted out to the Cirencester arm of the printing empire as they have a resin printer. I can't wait to see how Mr T paints this chap up, though I suspect it's going to take a while.

Next on the large print queue was a larger Stuka, the one I'd printed before didn't really look the right scale against other vehicles. These will just be 0200 Hours objectives to be blown up so they don't need to be super detailed. One bonus was that each is a single piece, so no gluing was required.

I've also completed the painting on the sand-bag emplacements I printed off to match the resin ones I already had. A close up picture shows you can see a bit of layering on the PLA print but once you step back a bit it's really hard to tell them apart. Had I go with the smaller 0.20mm nozzle I expect the difference would have been even smaller.

And last of all I printed off a Kaijudan for Deadzone. The proper model is much smaller than this so I had to blow him up, but it worked out rather well. I just need to sort out a base and slap some paint on now and he can start terrorising cities!

Home of the Future 2

Printing efforts this week have been focused on roofs, barriers, walkways and ladders to go along with the building walls produced in the previous weeks.

With the buildings I printed being blue I've gone with red for the roofs, walkways, and ladders to add some interest to the buildings and then grey for the barrels so they can be painted up a variety of colours.

I look forwards to seeing how they all look once they've been painted up.

Home of the Future

This week I've been rather under the weather so I've not been able to do any painting. However, having the printing as a side hobby has at least allowed me to feel like I'm getting something done.

The something in this case is some terrain for Stu over at Cirencester Wargames for a new game he's looking to get into, Five Parsecs from Home. This will be a project for solo gaming once he escapes from the daily drudgery of work next year.

All the bits are from the same terrain pack I purchased and I will probably end up printing some more out for myself at some point. 

So far I've printed out all the buildings and now I need to sort out the roofs and other accompanying parts. It's probably another couple of week worth of printing unless I take a brave pill and start printing over night / whilst I'm at work.

Making Tracks

 Most of this week the printer has been busy churning out road sections for the desert war. I now have more than enough to provide some options for the normal table size of 48" square.

I also have the sandbag emplacements I had printing out at 0.08mm layer height and they look really good, almost as good as the resin versions I already had. Once I have the painted up I suspect you won't be able to tell the difference.

The Road to Success

One week into owning my 3D printer I've realised how much I still have to learn but I did manage to design and print my very first object.

In fairness it's not much but it did give me my first taste of design in Fusion 360 and you have to start somewhere :-) 

What we have is a 6" radius scoring zone for Firefight, Kings of War uses a 12" radius scoring zone so I'd need to print that out as inner and outer sections for it to fit on my print bed. In any event this is my first published design, unfortunately no downloads yet.

Other than that I've mostly been printing off road sections this week. Again I've picked up a lesson in that even though all the files come from the same pack they aren't actually all on the same level. A good lesson to learn in checking the number of layers involved in making a print. 

Most of them are of a very similar height so as I'm adding more sections I'll keep to the ones that are close in height and leave the others out of the production cycle.

Speaking of layers, today I've cranked up the detail to the smallest layer height and got some extra sandbag emplacements on the go. I will be interested to see how these compare to the resin ones I've already had printed.

Getting Started

So for my first post it feels like a good place to list to equipment and software I'm using, as this changes I will try to come back and update.

Hardware

Bambu Labs A1

Bambu Labs AMS Lite

Software

Bambu Studio

Fusion 360 - Free version

With this bits I plan to get to a stage where I can design and print (along with some purchased bits) a Stalingrad board for a game I'll be basing on the Deadzone rules. It feels like quite a big task to undertake but I anticipate this being a long term aim with lots of side tracking to print off bits for games I'm currently playing.