Adventures into 3D

I have been thinking about a 3d printer for a little while but they seamed rather expensive however i did find a UK supplier which sold a pre built one for less than £200 , it was a basic model so no heated bed and a smallish build volume however since this was my first go at this sort of thing i went and ordered it.

It arrived in just short of 2 weeks from date of purchase and it came with a free roll of PLA filament which would normally retail for about £20.

So here is my first go at printing something , i did some scaling down to the size of model that a wanted , had a few failures but that was just that the bet was not quite level and not using the glue stick as the plastic stuck down so hard a spent a little while chiseling off the melted plastic.

the next results were a-lot better

I learnt a little from this , for instance the spanner was to small to work , the gaps created were too close together and the ladys arm was too thin , and messed up the scaling on the T72

But after what i had learnt over this time stood me in good stead and did some 15mm vehicles from thingverse , this is how they came out of the printer after about 8 hours

I found that you have to pick the right spots to start removing the support material of you could snap off the smaller mouldings , another learning curve

and after a clean up i was really pleased with the quality

So i have started a new project which will be a 15mm force on force game for the cold war / 21st century. , i have worked out that if i print about 30 vehicles i would have paid for the printer , well just had a little measure and to date i have used 25% of my 1kg roll so by that costing all my prints and all the mistakes i have made while learning have cost me £5 plus about 5-6 hours per model in time to print

here are another 3 prints for my Russians

My next lot to do are a T90, BMP-3 and a ZSU23-4

Done some more work and made another mistake , well it is a learning curve , I modified a free 3ds 

(i split the turret from the hull) file for the ZSU 23-4 but made the guns and radar supports too small so the print did not work very well but never mind i replaced them with pins and a few other issues need a little sorting

Thought i would try something smaller , this was a scaled down BMP -3 to 1/285

The detail was not bad on the surfaces but the tracks and wheels were a bit of a disaster , these were printed in this direction with a raft all my other models were done standing on their rear side with a raft

Here are my latest models

started on some terrain all of which were rescaled for 15mm

Rather pleased with these prints , a stryker at 15mm , 10m and 6mm from the same stl file

a closer pick of the 10mm and 6mm

Well had some nice success with my 1/285 Stryker unit

done the infantry as well though they were not very well affixed to base so scrapped this idea

 Start of my next project is to play Advanced Squad leader with miniatures , 1/285 scale on an enlarged mapboard

 Here are both 1/285 armies printed , painted and based

I have even designed some Russian buildings from scratch

Well i would like my own hind to go down the shops in unfortunately i had to make one as i couldn't afford a real one ( rotors by me ) and my heavily modified stl file to get it printed in this scale

Here it is in all its 1/285th scale

Made and armoured train for my ww2 polish

some 15mm buildings

my 15mm samurai village

Poland...or Bust

This was my 3rd go at Rommel this time I went back to 1939 and a blitzkrieg attack with a German panzer division into Poland , the pols held a strong defensive terrain supported by some artillery and some tanks

The Germans roared onto the table

and did a road order on the first turn

The pols dug in and waited for the onslaught but the germans went around their strong points

And proceeded onto the objectives allowing the german infantry to keep the pol's occupied

A few Pols pulled back to keep their supplies healthy but the germans pushed on

In the end it was just too much and the pols lost the objectives and their supply point

Aftermath

I actually played this game twice , the first had me charge the panzers into the infantry in the woods , this resulted in the german armour being some what dented and having a hard time , so the panzer divisional commander was sacked ( couldn't send him to the eastern front as that had not happened yet ) the replacement commander thought about things and re read the rulebook and came up with a new strategy.

I used my GHQ mini's for this battle which was a nice change as i hadn't got them out in a while. For tipping I used a 1 base in front 2 behind and for normal it was 2 in front 1 behind.

On the whole a very interesting game , i do think the pols may have deployed too far forward but that was where the terrain was so a difficult choice for them.

Rommel... in the back garden

Well not really the back garden but a winter game in '44 so you could say it was modelled on a battle of the bulge engagement

The forces were as follows :-
german 116th panzer (7 units) 3 hv tanks, 3 infantry 1 sp Art all motorised
german 2nd panzer (7 units)  3 hv tanks, 3 infantry 1 sp Art all motorised

US 84th Infantry division (8 units) 7 infantry 1 artillery
US 4th Cavalry (2 unit) 1 infantry 1 lt tank  all motorised
US 3rd Armour (2 unit) 2 med tank all motorised

I thought that the Germans would over run the Americans on the first turn but dug in and defending towns and forests proved quite a tough nut to crack

also this was a dawn attack ,  well the light from the window changed though the day changing the picture i took so it made sense

The germans have 3 objectives to take , the town in the centre is worth 2 points , the others 1 point , the germans open the first move

Table setup

First Turn for both sides

The initial attack stalled but did proceed around the top of the table

The Germans have finally taken the town and pushed the Americans back leaving a few isolated US units to be mopped up over the following turns

I decided to end the battle here as the Americans now had the opportunity to carpet bomb the area if the weather cleared , if it did not the Germans would be all over the Yanks like a rash

Aftermath

Another fun game and defiantly thought provoking for both sides , again the ops were not reset for either side. I am also sitting on the fence as to wether it is better to mass your tanks and go for a open area push of give the infantry support in the bad terrain.I will have to do some bocage boards to see how those work and have penny packets of germans defending that terrain

Rommel..... on paper

Having just got the new Rommel rules and pondering on hoe i wanted this to look i had a splash of inspiration , not sure how well the rules will play solo so i have made a board and counter set to see how it all works , will pose a report on how well they work solo later in the week

Had my first "Rommel" game using the scenario from the book

Setup with the Allied Force at the top and the Axis forces at the bottom

I have also made my own ops sheets which combine the early , middle and late sheets into one for all sides. The pictures were taken at the end of a pair of turns. the white disks represent one hit , yellow two hits and red three hits

Since the Axis started the game i took the bull by the horns and did an off road event allowing the germans to do a rapid advance and try to smash and take the right most VP

The British try a counter attack to try and break the german supply route but due to the poorer British armour the germans nearly always got the armour advantage when attacking and nullified any advantage when they were defending

Both sides scored a few hits both the Germans and the British push on with losses about even

Both sides cut each others supply lines in various places

but by the end of turn 8 ( 4 turns for both sides ) the Germans have captured the British supply point and managed to get their supply lines back in some sort of order.

Aftermath

When i first read the rules i did have some concerns as to how they would play solo , i can now confirm that they do play solo very well the only foible is the event item " Intercepted Signals" which i ignored for this game. Also i found that once a plan had been put into action and the forces committed i found that i wanted to continue with this plan and didn't want to reset the ops sheet.

I also decided to end the battle here as i think with the British losing their supply point they would have to withdraw.

Mulling around Mollwitz

Something different for my next Commands and Colors , a refight of the battle of Mollwitz , in 15mm

i made a custom mat as i wanted hexes at least 60mm across the flats so it was a case of draw and print a template then mark through the paper onto the cloth and lastly use some dots of pva and flock to mark the corners of the hexes which i do say my self turned out rather well as you can see

Setup , Prussians are at the top of the picture

Figures are based on 60 by 40 for cavalry and 60 by 30 for infantry

Will post the battle report when i have fought it

Well that was an interesting battle , the Austrians stole the battle by aggressively attacking the Prussian right

first moves

The Prussians Counter with an attack on the Austrian right but the Austrian cavalry hold and counter attack

But in the end the Austrian hit the Prussians where it counted 

and beat the Prussians with losses of 5 - 3

Aftermath

The Battle started as the original but the Austrian cavalry proved to be better than on the day , this paralysed the Prussians which restricted the Prussian infantry even though the firepower from the infantry did turn some Austrian cavalry back ( also the Prussian cards were not friendly in that they had very few centre cards )

I have altered the matrix for my 7YW table modifiers

Download Link

Late 17th to Late 18th century C&CN Mods

Here are my modifications to the Commands & Colors : Napoleonic system for use in the earlier period , i hope it is easy for you all to understand , I am also looking to do a renaissance modified set as well though i am not sure if i will use the Ancient set or the samuri set yet ( i decided on the ancient set ) and i am also going to do a Dark Age / Medieval set which will span the period from 500AD to 1500AD

Link to Download

9YW & WAS & 7YW  ( uses the napoleonic dice set )

Here is my next update , a Renaissance set , it is designed around the Ancients version of Commands & Colors

1500 to 1700  ( uses the Ancient dice set )

Link to Download

AWI & FIW ( uses the napoleonic dice set )

Link To Download