3D Printed Gaming | John's Wargame Page

My plans for 2026

January 22, 2026

A bit late getting started but being a task oriented person, I thought it might be motivational to set out my plans for 2026.

3D Printing: I’ve been perfecting my print methods for printing 28mm miniatures. I have 2 projects here. The first is for the Battle of Five Armies using Dragon Rampant. I’ve selected most of the miniatures from BriteMinis. These miniatures are easy to print as they require no supports. They also have a nice looking old-school vibe. A few of the miniatures come in part from Fat Dragon Games. They also require no supports. I’ve replaced some of the goblin wolf riders with the torsos from a few of the goblins FDG offers. The printing is largely done. I have to do a fair bit of painting now.

As well, I’ve done a Viking kickstarter from 3DBreed. This was a great value as it came with full armies of Vikings, Saxons, Irish, Franks and Byzantines. Fantastic value for the $40 or so I paid for the kickstarter. The armies post campaign are about $40 each now. I’m planning on building armies, initially for a game called Brethren. It is a small skirmish game featuring about a dozen models per side but can probably accommodate up to 50 models per side. These armies are already printed. I’ll get up to 40-50 models per army and play Lion Rampant for a larger game. I think most folks know that one written by Dan Mersey. Finally, I’ll build the armies up even larger to play On Bloody Ground. This game is kind of WABesque. There are hits and armor saves using D6. Weapons do matter. Not so much a historically accurate game but it looks like a fun game with a historical backdrop.

I’ve also dragged my 15mm ancient armies out to try out a game by Jim Webster called Ancient Rules: Ionia to Carthage. I’ll be doing Heraclea as my test battle. This is a great battle to test rules out with because it features both the Hellenistic and the Roman army systems. Essentially, if it existed in Ancient times, it was on this battlefield.

The armies have been setup for some time, surviving the occasional errant box of Christmas ornaments that was temporarily placed on the game table. The season has passed and life is slowing down, so hopefully I can get a game in.

I want to concentrate on the smaller scale army gaming with DBA on a grid as well as with 1 Hour Wargames using my 3-hit mod. I have the grid mat for DBA which is 4’X4′. I’m going to use 15mm armies mounted on 65mm trays. These can also be used for 1 Hour Wargames battles on a 2’X2′ board with all rates and ranges reduced to 2/3 the originals.

Finally, my plan going forward with the blog is to try to get 2 posts in a week, to include gaming, painting, and all sorts of other musings about the hobby. Until next time, good gaming!

5 Comments | 3D Printed Gaming, Fantasy, Miniature Games | Permalink
Posted by John

The IJN of 1905

December 26, 2019

I’ve been printing out ships on my 3D printer over the last couple of months and have even put brush to plastic! I based them on some artist matting board and painted in the sea foam. The masts had to be added to most of the ships. I used a bit of Plastruct plastic rod 1mm radius.

Battleships and 2 armored cruisers by thingiverse designer “marcusmole”.

Armored cruisers by thingiverse designer “bigwig_mark”.

The ships were all 1:5000 scale but I enlarged them to 1:2400 scale (208%). The battleships road a little high so I dropped them below the print bed by 1.5mm. That is a common trick to shorted the height without actually knowing how to design a 3D model. The armored cruisers were designed too wide so I ended up narrowing the model by 20% (I think). I also shortend the model (Z-axis) because I did not know I could just lower the model below the print bed. This left the funnels too short. So I ended up replacing them with my own funnels with tiny bits of plastic rod.

The Fuji (2nd from the left) was also designed way too wide. In reality it was not any wider than the Mikasa (left). I narrowed it by 25% and it looked spot on. I am quite happy with the way these turned out. I’ve got some cruisers, destroyers and torpedo boats to paint and then it is on to the Russian navy. I already have 3 Russian ships for the action off Ulsan. They need primed and painted though.

1 Comment | 3D Printed Gaming, Miniature Games, Tsushima | Permalink
Posted by John

And now for something completely different…

November 11, 2019

A couple of figures from Dungeon Works. One death knight and 1 lich/skeletal mage. I found that these figures print bigger than the figures from Fat Dragon. For 1/72 scale I’ve been scaling down to 75% size for FDG figures. For DW figures, I found 67% is more appropriate. I guess FDG is true 28mm while DW is more like 30mm.

Left to right: Death Knight, Lich

Figures were printed on a Creality Ender 3 Pro.

2 Comments | 3D Printed Gaming, Painting/Sculpting | Permalink
Posted by John

3D Printing 20mm Figures

February 25, 2018

I’ve been experimenting with some figures created by “Duchmogul” on thingiverse. The figures are billed as 18mm but after fiddling with scaling, I have found that they match 1/72 scale figures perfectly as is. There are some older models that he has done that are more in line with 20mm figures but that is neither here nor there. They all do work without modification to scale. I’ve printed them perpendicularly with mixed results. The lines are rather pronounced and as they are fairly detailed, sanding is not really an option. Painting these figures requires an old school mentality. Much of the detail has to be painted in by hand not unlike painting in the belts and straps on some of the very old figures out there. The figure I tested with is called “Hollow Soldier.” He sort of screams “Barrow Wight” or “Ghost” so some sort of dull gray paint scheme will be in order. here is the finished rough along side of a Viking Huscarl. The cloak on the Huscarl shows off the print lines. At 3 feet away, they are hardly noticeable, especially to the Grognard’s eyes.