Two Guns Blazing's Terrain!

[Two Guns Blazing]

I've been wanting to get a 3D printer for a long while, but just never bit the bullet for various reasons until recently.

After getting it, I've purchased a heap of different STL files from various sources, as well as downloaded free stuff from Thingiverse, so I could fill my Red Planet neoprene mat with Battletech orientated terrain. This mat has hexes that are 53mm from flat edge to flat edge, and is 29 hexes x 26 hexes, or 5' x 4' in size. I also plan to do a Moon mat and Grass mat further down the track. That table the mat is sitting on is my downstairs gaming table, it is actually 5' x 4.5' in size...so I can make the mat slightly wider...perhaps add another 4 hexes to its width, which I may do at some stage.

The first terrain pieces I printed off with my new 3D printer, were desert themed hex hills. I had to re-scale these from the original STL files I purchased so they'd fit the hex size of my gaming mat, and also so they were 25mm tall per level, rather than the 20mm they were originally scaled at. I've painted them so they kinda colour-match the mat, but have made the upper surfaces of the hills stand out from the mat for visual interest by painting them with a very light brown. There're enough hills there to give good coverage of the gaming area if I only want to use these hills and no other terrain features, and there's more than enough if I include rocky outcroppings (as blocking terrain), buildings, trees and roads etc, etc.

Also shown below are a couple of buildings, a Sensor Control Tower and a Fusion Power Generator, sitting on their future bases. I've got a heap of buildings planned, mostly focused around remote military bases, research facilities, comms facilities etc, etc...all good objectives for gaming...I probably won't go down the route of a full-blown urban set-up. I'll get to the buildings a little way down the track as I want to finish off a heap of trees and some rocky outcroppings first.

Also shown below are a couple of tree bases, they're all pines. I plan to have 20 x Heavy Woods and 30 x Light Woods. The Heavy Woods will consist of 1 x large tree (75mm tall) and 2 x small trees (50mm tall), and the Light Woods will consist of 2 x small trees (50 mm tall). In-game, I'll make the Heavy Woods Level 3 and the Light Woods Level 2. I plan to do the bases for the trees in a dark brown at this stage, that way they'll kinda fit in with both the Red Planet mat and the Grass mat I plan to do in the future.

The large tree in the pic below is painted as I've been mucking around with different greens to see what I think looks the best, I think I've settled on the green shown...maybe with a bit more drybrushing of the lighter green...and yes, I do realise that having green pine trees on a Mars-like planet seems odd, however it is Sci-Fi and with trillions of planets out in the universe, who's to say what normal is? Besides, I like the colour contrast of the green against red, it is visually appealing to my eye :)

Bring on all those wonderful plastic Mechs and Elementals from the Clan Invasion kickstarter...I've got some painted Inner Sphere Mercenary Mechs here for Clan Ghost Bear to practice their weapons accuracy on :)

[JA Baker]

Love the fine details on the terrain: makes it look very natural

[dread12]

well done  :thumbsup:

[Daryk]

The trees look good, but how do you put a model in their hex?  ???

[Two Guns Blazing]

Thanks guys  :thumbsup:

The trees look good, but how do you put a model in their hex?  ???

If the hex you've decided to finish your units movement in currently has a tree base in it, you pick up the tree base that is in that hex and replace it with your unit. When the unit moves out of that hex, you now place the tree base back into the vacated hex.

While the tree base it not sitting in its usual spot on the gaming table due to being displaced by a base with a miniature on it, you simply place the displaced tree base nearby, on the edge of the table, or preferably on the record sheet of the miniature that displaced it as a reminder that that miniature is now within either Light or Heavy Woods, if it wasn't obvious for some reason (like it was a single small stand of trees in the open).

[Simon Landmine]

Those hills look really good.

[Daryk]

Makes sense... thanks for the explanation!  :thumbsup:

[jwt708]

Looks like a lot of fun! Interested to see when you have buildings, etc. set up as well.

[Two Guns Blazing]

Thanks jwt708!

I've been knocking over some trees over the last couple of days. The basing isn't specific to the mat colour like the hills are, because I will be using these tree bases on other mats too, and I wanted them to be general purpose use...and anyway, I just figure on this planet there are patches of fertile soil, dark brownish in colour and trees grow in these patches :)

I've completed;

20 x Heavy Woods (a tree base with 1 x large tree and 2 x small trees)
10 x Light Woods (a tree base with 2 x small trees)

...and I still have another 20 x Light Woods to complete...should have them done in a few days I reckon. I printed off enough trees to make an additional 6 x Light Woods tree bases on top of what is listed above, and I think I might work those bad-boys up next week sometime...even when I imagine another 20 x Light Woods tree bases on top of what is in the pics below, it still doesn't seem to be over the top...so an additional 6 won't hurt.

Here's a pic of my production line;



...and here is a pic of a Merc Lance shutdown in position, waiting to carry out an ambush upon a supply convoy of vehicles...

[garhkal]

How much did the printer cost?  THe material for making all that terrain??

[Simon Landmine]

...and here is a pic of a Merc Lance shutdown in position, waiting to carry out an ambush upon a supply convoy of vehicles...

Someone is about to have a bad day.

[Two Guns Blazing]

How much did the printer cost?  THe material for making all that terrain??

About $650 (Australian Dollars) for the printer, and each roll of filament I used (PLA+) is about $24 AUD, and I used about 2 rolls for all those hills and trees. Those hills are up-sized by 60% in the X and Y dimensions and about 25% for the Z dimension so they would fit my (just over) 2" hexes and have the recommended 1" height for levels...and I also wanted to keep the pieces as single pieces as much as I could. If you were printing for standard sized hexes and/or are happy to cut the models hills into bits (really easy to do) and either glue them after printing or just push them together on the table top, you could easily get away with a smaller and cheaper printer, something like an Ender 3 which is very popular and easy to use, and costs maybe a little over $200 AUD...my printer cost more money not because it has higher quality prints than an Ender 3, but because it has a bigger build plate.

Someone is about to have a bad day.

Sure are :)

[Two Guns Blazing]

I finished off the last of the tree bases today...pretty happy with how they've all turned out and also happy with the amount of coverage I can get on the board with them...especially considering, once I've printed and painted them, I'll also have rocky outcroppings, buildings and roads to throw on there with what you already see.

The remnants of three Merc Lances throwing tactical caution to the wind and making a fast move towards their secondary objective after a hard fought win over their primary objective...

[Daryk]

They look pretty strung out... I hope they regroup before hitting the secondary objective, or that it's not very heavily defended...

[Two Guns Blazing]

They look pretty strung out... I hope they regroup before hitting the secondary objective, or that it's not very heavily defended...

John (the Commander) always has been fairly reckless, he should never have taken the secondary objective in the contract with such limited time constraints for completion, or at least negotiated two separate contracts to be fulfilled independently, one for each objective. As it is, he's left his withdrawal options from the secondary objective severely limited with his dropship now dirtside at the first objective recovering three of his own badly damaged Mechs, as well as enemy salvage. The secondary objective is 57.34km from the first and he has nominated a rendezvous point, which also serves as his forming up point (always taking short cuts, aren't you John), 5km out from the secondary objective, where he will reassess the tactical situation, issue any further orders and progress in a far more tactical manner towards the objective..for now though, its hell for leather to get there as fast as possible...if it was me, I would've used the dropship, but you know John, he never misses an opportunity to grab as much salvage as possible!!!

[Daryk]

Well, best of luck to him on that secondary objective!

[Two Guns Blazing]

The next thing I want to print for my board is some blocking terrain...something that can't be moved through, seen through, shot through or jumped on or over (by most units anyway for the jumping)...these terrain pieces will take the form of large rocky outcroppings.

I found some suitable candidates on Thingiverse...now I just have to scale them to the correct size and make a few changes to their shapes to have them fit onto a multi-hex base that will in turn fit perfectly into the hexes of my Red Planet gaming mat...this will take me a while, as I I'll have to touch-up on my Blender knowledge before tackling these...but shown below are the three basic shapes I am starting with...the two taller ones will likely fit into a 7-hex circular base and be about 8 levels in height and the shorter one will likely end up being a couple of hexes wide and maybe 5 or 6 hexes long and about 4 levels in height.

Once printed and painted to match the hills and mat colour, I think they'll look pretty cool and will suit the theme...

[Two Guns Blazing]

Well, best of luck to him on that secondary objective!

Thanks Daryk, I'm sure John would appreciate your wishes! :)

[Two Guns Blazing]

I finished scaling and sculpting the 1st rocky outcropping shown above, to match the sized hex base I wanted, and I now have it on the printer...time estimate for it is about 20 hours of printing. Once it is finished printing I will prime and paint it to match the colour of the hills and gaming mat...

Here's a pic of it in the Cura Slicer being prepared for printing...it is 200mm high, so Level 8 for my terrain set...

[Two Guns Blazing]

Just over 10 hours into it and everything seems to be going fine...

[Daryk]

You're printing it SOLID!?  :o ???

[Two Guns Blazing]

You're printing it SOLID!?  :o ???

I guess it looks a little bit like that due to the angle I took the picture...here's another pic from the top-down where you can see it is most definitely not solid...it is set at 8% infill...

[Daryk]

Ah, thanks for the clearer angle... that makes MUCH more sense!  :thumbsup:

[Two Guns Blazing]

...and here's the completed print. It fits the hex base perfectly, and will be Level 8 terrain on my gaming mat. I'll do another 2-3 of these (different sizes and shapes) over the next couple of weeks and once they are all painted up to match the hills and gaming mat, I reckon they will add to the game nicely, both visually and tactically.



...I also did a quick paint job on one of the test buildings I've printed, a fusion power generator. This was an exercise in colour selection, and I think the red windows add too much colour (not even sure they are meant to be windows, I guess they can be if I want them to be). I also think the white stripe is too thick, and the building needs more edge highlighting.

So, this is what I will do to it and see if it improves;

1 - Block in the red windows with the same dark grey that is found on other parts of the model,
2 - Place a thin black stripe on the front edge of the white stripe...this will make the white stripe thinner and add another dimension to the striping,
3 - Add a building number in the centre of the white stripe,
4 - Add a horizontal white stripe/band around the upper portion of the "Chimney",
5 - Add some harsher edge highlighting.

I think that will make it look better.

Also, I'm wondering how I should base it. I'm thinking that something like this would be constructed on top of a thick concrete slab, so I am wondering if I should design and print a concrete slab with a ramp at the front, to glue onto the double hex base, and then glue the generator on top of the slab...I think I'll make that up tonight and print it off tomorrow after work and see what it looks like...probably about 3mm thick for the slab I reckon, don't want it too high. The rest of the double hex base around the slab would be painted to match the mat...

[Daryk]

If it's installed anywhere near water, you want it as elevated as you can make it.  Water and electricity do NOT mix...

[Two Guns Blazing]

I've finished painting my first rocky outcropping, but in the pic below the paint is a little damp and there is a bit of shine...I'll let it dry overnight and give it a coat of spray matt varnish tomorrow and it will then look the same as the hills.

I've also decided on how I will do roads and probably a river, too. I'll use the same image that I did for the gaming mat itself, and in Photoshop, I'll cut out a single 2' x 2' section and place over the top of that image, road and river sections...straights, bends and intersections...and then get 2 or 3 of those printed and shipped to me, and when it arrives I'll use a steel ruler and a heap of fresh blades for my knife and cut the sections out. This way, they'll be made of the exact same material as the mat, with the exact same colouring as the mat, with the exact same hex sizes as the mat, so will suit perfectly...and the thickness of these roads and rivers will be 2mm, which is the same thickness as the laser cut black acrylic bases for my Mechs and other units, as well as the tree bases and the bases for the buildings and rocky outcroppings...so it should all fit in well together.

Can't decide between sealed or unsealed roads though...this planet is a backwater planet, and has little infrastructure and no large civilian presence, so probably unsealed I guess.

I've also started painting another building. This is a sensor and turret control tower. I also have a few turrets that I am going to paint up after I finish getting the tower and generator looking how I like.

This will give me a small building package of;

1 x Sensor and turret control tower,
4 x Turrets
1 x Fusion power generator to power the tower and turrets.

I've decided my next rocky outcropping will be about Level 5 or 6, and it will have a cave entrance.

For my first games with all this new terrain, I want to do a two-part scenario, where an attacking Mech force is aiding a larger Infantry force to carry out a raid upon an enemy underground facility.

Both players choose a Lance of 4 x Mechs with the Attacker having a +15% BV allowance over the Defender.

All battle damage carries over from Part 1 to Part 2.

The attacker's Infantry force is story only, no need to choose any Infantry for the game.

Part 1

Attacker - has a full Lance of Mechs and must neutralise the facility defences to open the way for the Infantry force to enter the underground facility through the cave entrance to kill or capture enemy military and civilian staff, and to gather intelligence from the facility before destroying it.

Defender - has 2 x Mechs and 4 x Turrets and must defend the facility from the attacking Mechs (the other 2 x Mechs from this Lance are currently out on patrol).

Attacking Mechs will be operating under forced withdrawal, defending Mechs will not.

Turrets can be neutralised by either destroying the turrets themselves, or destroying either the tower or generator (both are hardened targets).

Part 2

Attackers successful in Part 1 - the Infantry force is now fighting through the labyrinth of tunnels and rooms in the underground facility carrying out their raid, and the remaining attacking Mechs topside, must now defend against a counter-attack by the 2 x Mechs returning at speed from their patrol after receiving an enemy contact communication from the defending Mechs under attack.

Attackers failed in Part 1 - the remainder of the attacking Lance must carry out a fighting withdrawal across the board (on a new board set up, which is North of the facility), the remainder of the full Lance of defending Mechs start on the edge of the map and attacking Mechs start 10 hexes in front of the following defenders...at least 1 Attacking Mech must make it off the opposite board edge.

That's the sketched out skeleton of the scenario anyway...no doubt it will change some when I start putting it down on paper.

[Two Guns Blazing]

I just put a few bits of terrain out in the corner of my gaming mat because I just wanted to see if the big piece of rocky terrain I very recently finished was coloured matched well enough to the hills and the mat, and to also see if the blue buildings contrasted well enough with all the red of the table and other terrain. I like the blue, but think I want to try some grey buildings, I have a couple other generators printed, so I will paint them in grey and see what they look like. Still not 100% sure what I want to do with the building's bases, which is why they are still just flat grey. You can also see a smaller rocky outcropping in the background, which I finished printing just a few hours ago.

So a pic of the above, plus a couple of close ups of the two buildings (probably should put a couple of numbered decals and some symbols on them), plus a couple of pics of the next two rocky outcroppings I'm printing...the one with the door is currently on the printer...

The idea for the one with the door is that it is the entrance to an underground facility...vehicles enter the rocky outcropping through the door and come to a stop on top of a huge lift, which takes them deep underground to where the facility has been built.

I've also started some work on the turrets.

[Daryk]

Cool idea!  :thumbsup:

[SeeM]

I think of a Mars campaign for Dragoons. +10 for hexes. :)

[Two Guns Blazing]

Some more progress on my project...I've got 2 more rocky outcroppings to print...1 x the small one on the left in the pic below (which is on the printer now), and 1 x of the large one in the middle (but without a front door)...then I'll base and paint them and that'll pretty much do it for all the hills, rocks and trees.

At the front there, you can see a 6-Hex straight road piece. It is laser cut from 2mm thick black gloss acrylic and has been sprayed with Clear Plasti-Dip (which is a spray-on rubber-like finish -> you can also get it in a tin like normal paint), 2 x coats on the top and 1 x coat underneath. The top coat removes the shine and gives the surface a very matt slightly rough texture, much like how bitumen can look from a distance, and the underneath coat gives a very significant grip to the road sitting on the neoprene mat...the rubber also does a great job of protecting the pieces.

There's a pic of the Plasti-Dip rattle can down below, as well as a screen cap of the roads file I sent to Lasergirl for laser cutting (I'd love to have my own laser cutter!!!). For the roads, there are;

4 x 6-Hex Straight Pieces
2 x 5-Hex Straight Pieces
4 x 4-Hex Straight Pieces
2 x 3-Hex Straight Pieces
9 x 2-Hex Straight Pieces
11 x 1 Hex Straight Pieces
6 x Curve Pieces
2 x Y-Junction Pieces

These roads have been cut to size so they perfectly fit in the hexes, with the short edge of the road piece being exactly as wide as the hex edges...that should be more than enough to make a small road system with a few twists and turns in it around terrain features and through forests, for those times I want a road on the map. I was originally going to do the roads in a dark brown, kinda like turned earth rough track, but I didn't think it would contrast against the mat well, so I went with black instead. This planet isn't intended to have large civilian populations, so fully sealed roads everywhere would be unlikely, however I figured having some sealed roads between science, mining and military facilities would be reasonable.