This was a very enjoyable read for me. I’ve never played 40K but have always been impressed with the craftsmanship and dedication of the community.
I remember a lot of the early hype around 3D printing, most of which hasn’t panned out where the consumer-hobbyist-level machines are concerned. My local game shop makes a lot of cool 3D printed stuff and sells it online or at cons, but even Etsy is now cracking down on prints of “commodity” STLs. IIRC under their new policy, you can’t sell a print you didn’t design yourself. This is ostensibly to cut down on the huge quantity of identical articulated toys.
But the bigger takeaway (i.e., the kit car Ferrari analogy), is similar to how I’ve been thinking about AI image generation lately. You can walk down the streets of New York and buy a counterfeit Birkin bag or Rolex from a street vendor. Are knockoffs “disrupting” the market? I guess, in a way. But I think they also make the authentic item _more_ valuable by being so cheap and fake by comparison. AI-generated “Ghibli” pictures are the same.
I remember when "Warty 40" was invented and largely supplanted Warhammer itself. I remember Citadel Miniatures and (A)D&D 1st editions, not to mention Traveler, Runequest, Tunnels and Trolls, Car Wars and many more. I was pretty decent at painting (quickly and accurately) and several kiddies used to pay me to get their latest regiment of space marines into action with the right colours. I went to a posh school and some of the kids had a lot more disposable income than me. I also had a lot more free time than I do now.
Nowadays I own a 3D printer (Prusa 4S+ with nobs on upgraded from a 3) and an IT company.
16 year old me would have committed ... a minor crime ... for the printer but given that IT was a Commodore 64, I'm not sure how I would have driven the thing.
However a 16 y/o me today with a 3D printer probably would be printing armies out of filament. I used to make plastic models too and saved up for several months to buy a double action air brush. My printer can churn out a small scale tank that rivals a Tamiya effort from back in the day. Some finishing is required but not much.
I might have a go at some Warhammer models and see how it goes, just for old time's sake ...
> But I think they also make the authentic item _more_ valuable by being so cheap and fake by comparison.
Depends.
Here in the balkans, for some reason, Louis Vuitton bags (the ugly brown one with lighter/gold lettering) have become popular with 'the kids' some years ago.. those bags normally cost as much as a modern laptop, some even much more, but due to chinese manufacturers and local market sellers, you can get counterfits for 10-30eur, depending on the design. Are the materials, seams, zippers, metal parts (well.. metallic painted plastic), etc. worse? Sure. But from far away, it's hard to notice the difference.
Now, due to the huge cost difference between the original and the fake and easily obtainable fakes, most of such bags you see in the street are fakes.
Since it's hard to tell them apart, people just assume it's a fake bag, when they see someone carrying it. I personally know people who are pretty rich and buy expensive stuff "just to show it around", and they don't buy those bags anymore, because no one thinks it's an original bag. A 100k mat black mercedes? Can't fake that. 30k gold watch? Sure it can be fake, but few people wear watches nowaday, even fewer notice them, and very few people assume that the watch is fake. But a 3k louis vuitton handbag? In whatever shopping center or larger cafe/club you go with that, there will be a couple more girls with similar, fake ones.
> I remember a lot of the early hype around 3D printing, most of which hasn’t panned out where the consumer-hobbyist-level machines are concerned.
That is not true. I have a resin printer that is around 3 years old (Anycubic Photon Mono M5s) and it has a level of detail that simply cannot be matched by injection molded parts. I have printed some miniatures that have details much smaller than a human hair, like the needle of a syringe in 32mm scale.
Once painted, the figurines are indistinguishable from non-3D printed ones unless you pick them up (they're heavier often).
That said, the article is still right. Resin printers are a massive pain. They're highly toxic, and the time spent preparing, and then post-processing is quite high, but also stressful because of the toxicity. I use my filament printer almost every day, but my resin printer has been collecting dust because of this.
> I remember a lot of the early hype around 3D printing, most of which hasn’t panned out where the consumer-hobbyist-level machines are concerned.
In my opinion people simply stopped following the big visions of that time and got satisfied with the current state of 3D printers instead of continuing to iterate on highly experimental designs that could bring the world nearer to these visions.
Do they? The high quality fake Rolex that only a watch nerd can tell apart, vs the shitty fake Lolex are different worlds. Similarly, the AI fake Ghibli of myself is just fun. Would it mean more if if flew to Japan and commissioned a painter at Ghibli-world for $3,000 to make the same picture? Sure, but I'm not going to do that.
> even Etsy is now cracking down on prints of “commodity” STLs. IIRC under their new policy, you can’t sell a print you didn’t design yourself.
Not really true. There was a lot of drama about this when it came out, but I suspect there were more videos on YouTube about the subject than there have been actual products taken down over this. You just have to disclose that you made it with design partners. (ie, an STL you didn't create)
I waited what I thought (and what was suggested by enthusiasts to be) long enough for the tech to be mature and approachable, and finally bought a highly-recommended beginner printer about three years ago.
I’ll never touch the tech again. The chemicals seem sketchy as hell (I don’t really want any hobbies that make me feel like I need a dedicated area of my house that I only enter while wearing significant PPE, and with gloves that never leave that dirty-zone) and after probably ten joyless hands-on hours burned over a couple weekends, I never got the fucking thing to print a single one of its test designs.
Seems like yet another fiddly hobby for its own sake (that might eventually yield some not-remotely-worth-the-cost fruits) rather than a useful tool. I don’t need what it offers that bad, the amount of money and time I’m going to put toward it in the rest of my life is zero. It’s probably a fine activity if the act of fiddling with 3D printers is the main draw for a person. Otherwise, no.
I 3D print items that aren't mass produced, either because I'm one of few people who wants them so there's no market or I'm the only person who wants them because they're customized for me.
Most reasonable 3D printer users don't believe they'll replace mass production. They use them for parts you can't buy.
Once you get a 3d printer, you do tend to find many uses for them for things you could easily buy (organizing bins and the like) but I don't think anyone is buying them with this in mind.
I'm part mechanical engineer and I 3D print things on a near daily basis. My job would be a lot slower and more cumbersome without it. Mind you this is all FDM.
I only played with resin printers briefly, and not only do they produce extremely brittle and off-dimenension parts, they are extremely messy and use chemicals that you really should think twice or three times or four times about having under the same roof as the one you sleep in.
With how useful FDM is to me, it seems really strange that resin printing's killer app has been "miniatures", like it's the niche it fell into after everyone bought one and discovered they aren't great for much else. I am in disbelief that people would willingly deal with resin printers just to do miniatures, like there's no way it could possibly be worth it even if you really like that hobby. It feels wrong even to refer to both under the same umbrella of 3D printing.
That said, if you're not regularly designing parts you need made and/or aren't a CAD user, I don't see much use in the average person having a 3D printer (I have 5 btw)
It sounds like you underestimate the enthusiasm for miniatures in general. There is a lot of demand for finely printed models––look at Tribes on MyMiniFactory, or the success of primarily 3D printed games like Trench Crusade.
On the other side of this _is_ the affordability of 3D printed miniatures. The linked-to article is salient/cogent/great, but the secondary topic at hand––lowering the price of entry for miniatures-based table top gaming––is still salient. 3D printing won't necessarily upend GW's business model, but it does provide an entry point that is more affordable by some calculus.
Bambu; their app and their website of things to print from your phone without any fuss, means that even if you don't do any CAD yourself, there's still a vast library of things you can print without opening fusion 360 or a hacked copy of SOLIDWORKS.
I think there's a distinction between printing existing 40K/other commercial wargame pieces, vs custom pieces for RPGs, scenery and so forth. My in-person D&D games had lots of custom items (including minis of our characters) which were 3D printed, and resin was only used for detailed prints, with FDM used to provide much of the underlying structure.
I play a wargame (Battletech) where the rulebook says "use a bottlecap if you want to as long as you can tell which way it's facing" and even there 3D printed minis are uncommon. For Battletech there's two official sources of minis, plastic from CGL and metal from IWM[0]. IWM has a model for almost every unit published in the last 40 years, but some of them are... very hard to look at. CGL's plastic ones look much and cover the most common units so you can usually get by with just them (although, I did just order a couple minis for an upcoming tournament). If I ever see a printed mini, it's either a) one of the ones where the IWM model looks terrible, or b) a model ripped from the Mechwarrior video games that the person thinks looks better aesthetically.
Where 3D printing has been revolutionary for Battletech though has been terrain. Battletech's played on a hex grid, and ever hex has an elevation printed on it to form hills, buildings, and rivers. There's one company (Thunderhead Studios) that makes STLs of the elevation of the official maps that's very popular. Popular enough that they've actually started mass manufacturing them and selling prepainted terrain retail. That shows up in every event I've been to, even official events where 3D minis are banned. But it's a decidedly ancillary part of the experience for Battletech.
This was a great read, and perfectly conveyed the combination of passion and anger of every WH player I’ve ever met has had.
Given the time, it’s hard not to view this same argument through the lens of AI. People who love crafting their creative works will still do it, even when AI can do it. They will still inspire others because they demonstrate what humans can do, and what we can aspire to.
This. As with all creative endeavours, part or even most of the enjoyment is the creative process, not the result.
Learning a skill and practicing it is still extremely enjoyable, even if a machine (or a factory) could do it better, faster, cheaper. The point is not the product, but the process.
Thanks for sharing. I've recently been thrown into the 40k universe thanks to my son (who is 9) becoming obsessed with it.
What started out as a "oh look, they've opened a Games Workshop store in this shopping centre... hey it looks like they're giving away free miniatures and showing you how to paint, lets kill 5 mins in the store" has turned into starter packs, combat patrols and lore deep dives with books. All in the span of... 4 weeks.
That said, I have to say, it's been awesome learning about everything Warhammer 40k from him. Normally, I would research something myself to the point of overkill so I could answer his questions, but on this one his enthusiasm is driving it all and he's constantly telling me about this particular faction or that faction.
It's just nice to have a hobby that keeps him away from screen time these days. It also requires patience, dexterity, and creativity - plus there is obviously an incredible amount of lore, world building, backstories, etc, plenty to keep his imagination entertained.
The one big problem, of course, is the money required! Which is why someone recently said to me "maybe get a 3d printer" and we had this exact discussion about quality of printing etc, and regardless, I just don't see that impacting things like book sales or codex's.
Anyway, cool to read about how people got into it and just thought I'd share!
First hit is free; it is a cool hobby though and I like how it combines arts and crafts with gaming, strategy, world lore/building and storytelling, as you noted.
Also the skills are likely transferrable to RPG minis as well as general model building and painting.
I think custom game pieces for basically any tabletop game are a killer app for 3d printers. Also custom scenery and minis for RPGs (for example a mini customized for a player character, a custom monster, a key NPC, etc.)
Probably good for making doll house (or action figure hideout) furniture and accessories as well, though I expect part of the charm of that hobby is making tiny furnishings etc. out of realistic materials like wood, fabric, or ceramic.
And of course for creating replacement components for any toy or model as needed.
Its a much more accessible game that doesnt have a predatory business model behind its ruleset.
GW is frankly a shitty company, they are extremely litigious and their business model hinges around nerfing armies and then launching new models to make up the gap.
I fully agree with the article, and I have experienced the exact same pain with resin printing, which has been collecting dust since my first printing streak.
But I have to say that the comparison between the time investment in resin printing and preparing official Warhammer models for painting is very incomplete.
Ultimately, if everything goes well with the printing (and it usually does), the whole process will take around an hour of active time (preparing + post-processing) a plate of 20-30 models (however many you can fit). It will DEFINITELY take longer than this to get the same level of quality from plastic sprues. Removing the pieces from the sprues, removing the mold lines, filling the worst ones, etc. is extremely time consuming, and it is really the most boring part of the hobby.
It took me at least 20 hours to prepare around 100 models (small ones), when it would take only 4 or 5 when printing them. This time saving is time you can reinvest in painting.
I also still believe that at some point, with advancements in printers (which happen consistently year over year), but especially in resin formulations, we will reach a state where it will be safe (or at least much safer than it is now) to 3D print models using resin, at which point it will indeed have a large impact on Games Workshop's business.
JLPCB White Jet Process (WJP) service starts at $5, and is full color including clear.
Home Resin Printers should be in a vented garage, as the unpleasant odor is the least of its issues. The low-viscosity washable water-like resins tend to be much easier to handle, but even when vented outside... an activated charcoal filter is wise if you have neighbors. =3
I'm one of those small sculptors in this space, and I chuckled at the comparison to a Meth lab. Honestly though, my own printer is more like a grow-op. It's all contained in a half size grow tent in order to contain the mess, and easily vent the vapors. It definitely looks sus, and I'm probably on a watchlist for all the gear I've bought.
Great essay! I have never played WH40k but have been quite into Magic the Gathering at times.
Before I started playing I asked a friend what was to stop me just printing or photocopying cards (even in the 90s this would have been possible)
I understood how silly that question was when I felt the pleasure of actually owning a high quality product. Sure, I could spend the time to make my own cards but playing the game is only part of the fun.
Warhammer and MtG get mocked for being expensive but in reality they are comparable to cars, sports, fashion, and all the other things humans spend their disposable income on.
It’s a good question though! I got into Lorcana in 2024 and spent way too much money. I became curious about the $3 “reproductions” for $50 cards on AliExpress and ordered a few, while having matching copies I had pulled myself from packs, so I knew mine were authentic.
I was shocked that even under a jeweler’s loupe, I could tell no difference. Even the microscopic ink patterns were identical, except for the very rare editions of cards that use a special holographic print (called “Enchanted” cards, which are fancier alt art prints of cards, but those have a regular equivalent for gameplay purposes in all cases). It was all just worthless paper at the point.
This “broke the spell” for me, so to speak, and I quit playing. Soon after, I’m guessing everyone else realized this too, or, more likely, were buying the same cards at full price without realizing their provenance, and card prices tanked substantially. I also quit playing because it took up a lot of time and I rediscovered why I stopped playing Magic competitively. I’m an extremely sore loser and when I get into a hobby I play to win, to the point of obsession.
I see at least 2 reasons why we don't see proxy play in MTG.
One is the strong dependence on your peers for approval. If your group is against proxies, then you are screwed.
Second is that there are now more ways to play against each other online for free. This approach is much more convenient compared to creating proxies IRL and allows you to play with other people outside your peer group.
> Warhammer and MtG get mocked for being expensive but in reality they are comparable to cars, sports, fashion, and all the other things humans spend their disposable income on.
I guess there really is some kind of "hacker-type" personality who does spend a lot on some things, but these things are typically "not very proprietary", i.e. not things where the producing company enforced the copyright and trademarks heavily, and "highly modifiable". So I guess to such people the question "what was to stop me just printing or photocopying cards" is not absurd, but to fans of WH4k or MtG it is: because of their very different product tastes.
His description of resin printing, especially the meth lab comparison and
> At one point, he said the phrase "you really don't want to get this on your skin" with the casual tone of someone who had definitely gotten it on his skin.
are spot on.
There are currently 10 3d printers in my household and there have been maybe 30 unique ones in total over the past 2 years but after the first 3-4 months of resin printing that was given to a friend and never revisited.
I felt like it couldn’t be done casually and even moderately safe at home but needed some sort of lab with good ventilation. We Jerry rigged a hood using a portable enclosure meant to grow weed in while routing the smell out of your dorm through a window and wore proper PPE the whole time but I still felt sketched out
It’s not that bad if you get it on your skin. You just wash it off. The danger is having it on your skin and not realizing it, then going into the sun. It’s an exothermic reaction and since it’s UV reactive, you’ll get an unpleasant burn. I just wore nitrile gloves and I already wear glasses, and printed thousands of miniatures without incident. There’s the GooberTown chemist guy on YouTube who prints lots of minis and he did a breakdown of the chemicals, it’s less dangerous than the bleach you likely have under your kitchen sink. Just don’t drink it or get it in your eyes, it’s not going to explode.
I moved from an isopropyl alcohol wash to using acetone, which resulted in much crisper details, but that felt substantially more dangerous than the resin ever did. It’s very unpleasant to breathe in. I just put the printer in an unused room, and opened a window every once in awhile, and did my minis washing outside with a mask on.
I was in a Telegram group for awhile that shared all the sets and ended up with dozens of terabytes of extremely high quality miniatures. Often video game modelers moonlight making high quality minis that are much better looking than anything in Warhammer. Once I stopped the hobby I left as it required you to sign up for $30+ a month of subscriptions you needed to share to get access to their group.
I’ve fallen out of the hobby after my good friend passed away because him and I made a lot of minis together, but it was a lot of fun. I was primarily using it for D&D minis though, with 1 resin printer for minis and 3 FDM printers for terrain. Nobody cared at all about “authenticity” and was just wowed by the presentation.
In my limited research into resins it seems they aren't that different from the UV glue they use at nail salons. So maybe less toxic than they get credit for.
But it's kind of like having an open can of paint in the middle of your house, just sitting there with the lid off. Most of the time that happens only when you're painting the walls, you don't live like that.
Similar experience as to you, I found resin printing to have too crap results given the level of effort to process them.
I’ve really had a similar experience as well. I’m just entering the double digits in number of printers owned, but I’ve resold both of my resin printers.
They are capable of incredibly impressive detail but the labor and safety investment required just makes it too much of a pain to enjoy in the same way that I do my FDM printers.
I have several Bambu Lab printers and even have a fun little side-hustle with them. I do have a single resin printer, and honestly, I've never really gotten the itch to do anything with it.
I don't know Warhammer that well, but I see a lot of 3D printing for historical wargames. Seems popular for naval wargames for instance, but I saw many printed tanks as well. Not so much small scale infantry perhaps. There are so many very specific models that can be needed for historical scenarios that mass-production can't provide everything. Some companies of course print models on demand now, but others sell STL files.
I'm in historicals! And I mess around with 3d printers!
The big difference in the historical wargame space is that there's no way to trademark Alexander the Great. Anyone can make the minis, whether it's a small-but-awesome company (Victrix! Wargames Atlantic!) or a dude with a 3d printer. As a result, there's some separation between people who write rules (which you can buy as books or PDFs) and people who make minis. The people making minis actually compete on price and quality, and we get fsck'ing awesome minis for ludicrously low prices as a result. Victrix is often $1-$2 per mini, often about a tenth of the price of GW.
I use an fdm printer for terrain, which is a complete game changer. It has none of the problems of resin, and you want big stuff for terrain and care a bit less about layer lines. It's awesome.
The only problem is that only a small corner of the miniatures wargame world plays historicals. :)
(So feel free to ping me if you're in sf/East Bay and want to roll dice sometime.)
Obviously there isn’t any of that in Warhammer, at least not officially. Even a pretty niche thing for them is probably at a scale where resin casting would make more sense (assuming they aren’t going to sell or license out STL files). There is a decent unofficial scene around alternative weapons load outs and such like, but it’s not going to destroy GW any time soon.
I'm so confused. I've resin printed DnD minis for everyone in several of the campaigns I've played in. They all love them. Yes, there were gloves. Yes, there was alcohol baths, but I just dropped them in the automatic washer and walked away for ten minutes.
The entire manual involvement for me from hitting go on the printer to handing out their minis to my friends, ready to be painted, I would estimate at just over five minutes per mini. This includes removing supports. This reads like it was written in 2010, not 2025.
3D printing is fantastic for terrain, which is typically larger and smoother, so it’s easier to hide or sand away any printing issue. It’s fine for things like busts or some display mini, where you can afford to be careful and spend the time fixing rough edges. But it really isn’t there compared to good quality plastic for smaller minis with dynamic poses. It’s too cumbersome, too finicky, and the material is too brittle or not hard enough. I don’t doubt that it will get there eventually, particularly for companies that can afford to invest in high-quality, expensive printers and material.
I think GW will sell in-store printed minis before sufficiently good 3d printers are common in players’ homes. The OP makes good points about why this is impractical in some ways, but I can see this happening for special releases or some less popular minis. The other side of the impulse-buy coin is that a lot of people need minis that are not usually in stock in stores. Then, waiting 15 minutes or even an hour (say, whilst you play a game or watch one, or paint some stuff, or just chat with fellow nerds) to get your mini printed beats the current "order on the website and then wait 2 weeks" process.
I am a new initiate into the world of 3d printing for minis. I decided a resin printer does not suit my small apartment lifestyle, and got an Elegoo Centauri Carbon FDM printer. It's pretty plug-and-play, there was very little setup required.
www.reddit.com/r/FDMminiatures/ will give you an idea of the level of quality you can reach. With the smallest 0.2mm nozzle, will it reach resin levels? Close but not really. Is it good enough for me to screw around with, improve my painting skills, and play casual games? Certainly.
Also I subbed to the OnePageRules patreon, they offer alternative minis and rulebooks that are very similar to GW, with an alternate for fantasy and 40K, as well as fleet battles and other stuff.
> Here we report “3D necroprinting,” a biohybrid manufacturing technique that repurposes female mosquito proboscides as high-resolution 3D printing nozzles. The mosquito proboscis, with its unique geometry, structure, and mechanics, enables printed line widths as fine as 20 μm ...
The figurines might have to be official and "proper" for tournament play.
But terrain is more vague. Though still dimensionally specified.
And I always feel that it is a shame that so much effort is made to paint armies near perfectly and yet the terrain is flat felt green, or matte grey painted chipboard, with some stuff chucked on it...
A 3D printer can make hills, ruins, furniture, burnt out vehicles - all the other cruft of a gaming universe to give it life!
You can even print rather large terrain pieces that use a smattering of filament. Low percentage lightning until and 2 walls, and you can basically spit out blobs as big as your printer can handle without much waste
Loved his writing style - happily read the whole thing.
3D printers are really cool, in a way that's hard to grasp until you use one. My apartment came with a single trash bin, conflicting with the CC+R requirement that you separate out your recycling. I designed and 3D printed a retrofit to hang two trash bags in a single can. Now I can separate my recycling without having it out in my living space.
I also had a kitchen island that came with a drawer that was shorter than my utensil tray, with a frustrating amount of dead space behind the drawer. I bought a dremel and some wood glue to mod the drawer to fit the utensil tray. I 3D printed the tools I needed to do it - like a jig and some vices.
I've been meaning to design and print some hangers for my plastic instruments - I still have my Rock Band kit from college.
Maybe people who play WH4K care about the OEM seal of approval. Maybe they look down at 3D printing. Surely, it still opens the hobby to people who _don't_ have thousands to invest in miniatures. I would 100% print miniatures if I was into that game.
But it feels like he's too focused on that particular micro-market. Maybe there's something in that subculture that makes them look down on 3D printers (and maybe not understanding that is a useful analogy to other "from the outside, this is dumb" situations). But there's a whole lot of utility in 3D printing that has nothing to do with wargames.
Also, my office has a makerspace. I've seen _plenty_ of people printing pieces for tabletop games. The author has his biases too.
Really enjoyed the article! I'm someone who could never afford 40K as a kid, but since gettinga 3D printer have been fascinated by the potential for printing minis and toys for my own kids. I'd definitely be planning to print my kids minis if they show an interest in future, now I have some knowledge and experience, especially as I find the games workshop business model too predatory for my liking. I'd much rather buy smaller artists model designs and stick to only heading down official routes for rulebooks, codexes and lore.
I'm seeing a lot of people in comments dismiss FMD printers for minis, and thought I'd highlight the work of a youtuber called 'Once in a six side' who did a deep-dive into FDM mini pronting and got some really impressive results with even stock settings and basic PLA filament (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8fuNDTQJCY).
Once he really explored support placement, settings and ideal configurations his best prints rivalled resin in some cases once painted. Really cool to see as someone who isn't interested in messing with resin anytime soon.
> For those who had friends in high school—and I'm not being glib here, this is a genuine demographic distinction—40k is a game where two or more players invest roughly $1,000 to build an army of small plastic figures. You then trim excess plastic with a craft knife (cutting yourself at least twice, this is mandatory), prime them, paint them over the course of several months, and then carefully transport them to an LGS (local game shop) in foam-lined cases that cost more than some people's luggage.
> Another fellow dork will then play you on a game board roughly the size of a door, covered in fake terrain that someone spent 40 hours making to look like a bombed-out cathedral. You will both have rulebooks with you containing as many pages as the Bible and roughly as open to interpretation. Wars have been started over less contentious texts.
I think it's also worth mentioning, along with all the very valid points of the article, that 3d printed figures, even at their best, simply cannot match the properties of GW's injection molded plastic at the same time.
FDM prints have visual artifacts you cannot escape with many shapes, and even the most flexible of the expensive resins isn't nearly as durable as a plastic model. Plus plastic models insta-bond with plastic glue making them both easier to assemble and repair (as everything will eventually get damaged through years of play).
I've been doing model work for 30 years, and while 3d print stuff has many uses within the hobby (like making epic terrain way more accessible), replacing the core figures for something like warhammer, to anyone who cares about finish quality and durability at the same time is not one of them.
Weird to mention FDM prints when people, including the author's examples, generally use resin prints which don't have any of the artifacts that you get from FDM prints.
> The community is incredible. When I moved from Chicago to Denmark, it took me less than three days to find a local 40k game
Somewhat off topic from the rest of the comments but:
Knew someone who was in the Jane Austen Society (New York City chapter). She told me how a member from the Melbourne (as in Australia) chapter was visiting NYC, had never been there and so reached out to the NYC chapter to see if people wanted to hang out.
After the hang out, my friend says: "OMG, she was one of the coolest and most fun people I've ever met! So much fun to take someone else from JAS around NYC for their first time"
This is one of my favorite stories about how a community can grow out of an interest in something and then span the globe. Cool to see the same thing is true of 40k
The author has a sharp poetic knife he writes with. I first came across war hammer while in school for jewelry design at FIT while the other students had painting miniatures as side gigs. At the time I was heavily into 3d printing jewelry models and it was much more involved because personal printers didn't really exist for easy consumption yet. Several years later and I have moved on to designing even smaller things (too small! No one can see them only feel their effects!) now I've tried to scale back up again, and keep coming back to 3D printing. The hassle of owning my own machine continues to make sending out for prints more appealing.
Happens all the time - a tool takes 90% of the effort out of part of an effort. They say Its a productivity miracle!
But the thing is, that was one step in a larger process.
For instance. It used to take hours to lay out your software widget controls - dialogs with checkboxes and pulldowns and whatever. They invented tools that let you do it in 10 minutes. CAD saves software!
But reality check: that part of the project was a whole six hours saved, out of a schedule stretching over months. The savings disappear into insignificance.
It is mostly a price point thing but I would expect this tech to come down in price at the same rate that other 3D printing technologies have over the coming years. We're in the 'Stratasys' era of full color high res 3D printing right now.
No, it has nothing to do with resolution or colors. Did you read the article? It's about the absolute pain that resin printing is because of its toxicity.
The moment you have fully non-toxic resin, it will take off.
3D printed miniatures are best printed not on FDM machines (the kind most hobbiest have) but on SLA machines. I'm not a gamer, but for Model Railroading, FDM 3D printing has changed the way a lot of modeling of architecture is done. For printing little HO scale people, SLA is a must -- and it's too messy/smelly/dangerous for me to deal with.
There are places where 3d printing has revolutionized the wargaming hobby. Terrain is one of them, and the biggest one I think. And there's games like Trench Crusade that got their launch via being 3d printable, allowing them the critical mass to get to plastic production.
But at the end of the day, if something is in plastic, I'm buying it in plastic. And I am disappointed by the amount of energy and talent not going into creating new things but...Legally Distinct Space Marines, often sculpted with no notion of actually ever being painted (way over-detailed, etc.)
> [about W40K] ... while still providing frightening amounts of depth if you're the kind of person who finds "frightening amounts of depth" appealing rather than exhausting.
This is me looking at Kenshi, Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, and most recently Stationeers in my "last played" games.
I've actually never heard a prediction for a "self driving car in every drive way within 5 years" and I can't think of a single context where that claim wouldn't be immediately ridiculed.
They are in some people's driveway. That's the remarkable part anyway
I visited my childhood general store while seeing family last week. I was interested to see that the decades old 'fill your own bag with polished rocks' display had been replaced with a bin of 2$ 3D prints.
That is a funny read. I love my Bambu P1S for the flexibility it gives us in our house. The 3d printing community is also only matched by the software community in terms of the open-source ecosystem. There's a big culture of remixing and this and that. My wife and I have printed half a dozen things around the house that are useful. I've only ever made one tiny item and I don't think it's of much use to most people because I just used an LLM to build it: a mount for my Eufy E21 baby camera. It's just a box with two pins that end in a cone shape for lateral strength. It works surprisingly well and all I needed was my calipers, a few minutes with Claude Code, and some iteration with the print. Great fun!
This game and Shadowrun where always meant to be either fully simulated in software or at least calculated turn by turn even on table top. It would eat up too much time otherwise.
"Games Workshop will be selling overpriced plastic crack to emotionally vulnerable adults long after the sun has consumed the Earth." and the earth is flat.
This was a great read. It reminds me slightly of the book Alchemy by Rory Sutherland. I used to play Warhammer (Fantasy, not 40k) so it was really nice to reminisce.
I get it though. I'm the kind of person who's willing to learn slicing, architecting supports and all the other wonky shit that 3d printing begs of because it provides essentially priceless (read: nonexistent custom things) for me.
Someone who's already well steeped in a hobby as demanding as WH40k and who already has access to items they can purchase alternatively probably is not searching for something else they have to get their head around. And MSLA printing is not a chill hobby by any measure.
Look, 3d printing is almost a psychological thing. You almost nailed it but skipped right past it.
The term proxy used to delineate between wysiwyg and non-wysiwyg. "I am using this chess piece as a marine" The Deoderant Bottle Gravtank from White Dwarf - Not a proxy. They made it custom rules. It was a miniature, and it was furnished with love and care. This culture is now only found in like, airfix or custom scifi modelling.
Modern GW has waged a psychological war on these things, encouraging game stores to do the same.
Proxy is now used, as you have demonstrated, to cover anything not GW. Even if its wysiwyg, its looked down upon, otherised. GW stores have even gone as far as preventing people from playing official GW minis that are end of life in their stores. Soon these will be referred to as like "official proxies" or something.
I have 2 local non GW stores.
Store 1: Owner does not permit unofficial minis in the store at all. Will rant about this policy to anyone who listens. He says there's no way he makes money on printed minis so screw them (I was in the store to purchase paints and brushes and so on for my printed minis when I caught this rant)
Store 2: Has 3 3d printers, sells printing services, sells resin. Doesnt give a crap.
But it doesn't matter in either case, because 40k players are policing each other. GW has shifted the language to otherise armies that even have converted 3d printed bits, let alone full prints.
Not to mention: 3d print resin isnt that bad. The 3d printer business makes a lot of money selling filters and tents and housings and gloves and what not at inflated prices. Some of these things are worthy, others are not. But I was using UV resins for SFX before printers caught on, and guess what, resin fx are smellier and less able to be hidden in a dark corner of your house. Not really a huge impediment. The terror about UV resin seems to be coming both from the people slinging the extra gear, and the people concerned largely with these evil "proxies".
Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but GW mostly makes money from new players. Old grizzled angry veterans arent their bread and butter anyway.
Give it 10 years, let more stores embrace 3d printing, let some more permissive games take hold, and then you might have a chance at killing gee dubs. But they will still be selling huge expensive kits to 12 year olds using mums credit card.
I think his main point, and what can’t be overcome without a cultural shift is on these paragraphs:
> For those in the 3D printing crowd who weren't big into playing, just painting, part of the point is showing off your incredible work to everyone else. Except nobody wants to see a 3D-printed forgery of an official model. It's like showing up to a car show with a kit car that looks like a Ferrari. Sure, it's impressive in its own way, but it's not really a Ferrari, and everyone knows it, and now we're all standing around pretending we don't know it, and it's uncomfortable for everyone.
> Once someone figured out one of your minis was 3D printed, shops generally wouldn't feature it in their display cases. So there was no reason for people who were going to put in 10+ hours per model to skip paying for the official real models. If you're going to invest that much time, you want the real thing. You want the little Games Workshop logo on the base. You want to be able to say "yes, I paid $60 for this single figure" with the quiet dignity of someone who has made peace with their choices
They want the “real thing”. I.e. the overpriced chunk of plastic a company managed to inflate the price of.
It is about the ritual. They want all the love, skill and time they put into this craft to be poured on this talisman. They don’t want it to be wasted on the cheap unofficial knockoffs.
It’s interesting how companies in consumerist societies manage to create artificial value by engaging communities in these type of branded religions (the article used that word, and I think is apt)
I dont play GW games anymore aside from Mordheim (discontinued), because frankly GW is a shitty company that I dont want to support.
Their entire business model is predatory, they nerf armies and then release new models all the time, the rules are monetized and outrageously expensive, and they are litigious to the point of taking down youtube channels in order to prop up their shitty streaming service.
There are so many better games that have embraced 3D printing and are actually fun to play.
The opening remarks before getting into the 3D printing itself, are a bit of criticism of over-optimistic tech predictions. It made me pause and wonder, why do those show up so much? I think it's because they have been right a lot during the exponential part of the silicon S-curve, and it feels like there is a bit of left-over cargo-cult behavior echoing from those times.
It is very well-known in the 3D printing community that the design of a lot of items that you see in your daily life are actually driven by the limitations of the production process that was used to produce them.
All in all, 3D printing allows a lot more flexibility in designs, but if you attempt to 3D-print many items of your daily life exactly as they are, the result will often be much worse than with the production process that the object was designed for, or sometimes it is possible to come near to the original object, but producing it using 3D printing takes a lot more effort.
It is rather a consensus in the 3D printing community that people should rather make use of the opportunity to use the insanely increased flexibility that 3D printing allows to reimagine how objects in daily life look like - and thus create better versions of such objects that are (by construction) also good 3D-printable.
--
Addendum: Concerning "the transparent insert thing": as far as I am aware with resin printing, you can 3D-print transparent things very precisely, and even with FDM printing, a lot of progress has been made with respect to printing objects that are quite transparent:
That's a weirdly specific requirement though... 3D Printing can also print shapes and objects that aren't possible with traditional manufacturing techniques. Not every process can be used for every object.
Another example is this one where the 3D print was done as a continuous printing (i.e. no slicer, or sorta like a vase mode print) to make the clear show a bit better: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sy50BrlDMo
Some people play warhammer to get outreache to sell their 3D printed components, which probably started out as a "hey look at me" but like all side gigs can, has become foundational in who they are, and now occupies them more than cameraderie or winning.
"I have a high tolerance for tedious bullshit. This exceeded it."
That has to be one of the more amusing reads I've had in a while. And agreed, dealing with all of the extraneous crap that comes along with 3d printing is amazingly high on the tedious scale. Frustratingly so.
Because the tldr of the article is that the authors' specific definition of fanaticism involving investment of hundreds of hours on side tasks like painting individual units is considered based and epic and totally not a collection of junk, and that other solutions involved around not doing things like that are actually not based and not epic and are totally big collections of junk
It's sort of weird because the issue isn't around proxies representing a figure in another form, but about the perceived "loss" of the value of their efforts from someone popping out something identical without wastin- spending as much time. "I do it, so I value it" is an interesting life code to live by.
neonnoodle|1 month ago
I remember a lot of the early hype around 3D printing, most of which hasn’t panned out where the consumer-hobbyist-level machines are concerned. My local game shop makes a lot of cool 3D printed stuff and sells it online or at cons, but even Etsy is now cracking down on prints of “commodity” STLs. IIRC under their new policy, you can’t sell a print you didn’t design yourself. This is ostensibly to cut down on the huge quantity of identical articulated toys.
But the bigger takeaway (i.e., the kit car Ferrari analogy), is similar to how I’ve been thinking about AI image generation lately. You can walk down the streets of New York and buy a counterfeit Birkin bag or Rolex from a street vendor. Are knockoffs “disrupting” the market? I guess, in a way. But I think they also make the authentic item _more_ valuable by being so cheap and fake by comparison. AI-generated “Ghibli” pictures are the same.
gerdesj|1 month ago
Nowadays I own a 3D printer (Prusa 4S+ with nobs on upgraded from a 3) and an IT company.
16 year old me would have committed ... a minor crime ... for the printer but given that IT was a Commodore 64, I'm not sure how I would have driven the thing.
However a 16 y/o me today with a 3D printer probably would be printing armies out of filament. I used to make plastic models too and saved up for several months to buy a double action air brush. My printer can churn out a small scale tank that rivals a Tamiya effort from back in the day. Some finishing is required but not much.
I might have a go at some Warhammer models and see how it goes, just for old time's sake ...
ajsnigrutin|1 month ago
Depends.
Here in the balkans, for some reason, Louis Vuitton bags (the ugly brown one with lighter/gold lettering) have become popular with 'the kids' some years ago.. those bags normally cost as much as a modern laptop, some even much more, but due to chinese manufacturers and local market sellers, you can get counterfits for 10-30eur, depending on the design. Are the materials, seams, zippers, metal parts (well.. metallic painted plastic), etc. worse? Sure. But from far away, it's hard to notice the difference.
Now, due to the huge cost difference between the original and the fake and easily obtainable fakes, most of such bags you see in the street are fakes.
Since it's hard to tell them apart, people just assume it's a fake bag, when they see someone carrying it. I personally know people who are pretty rich and buy expensive stuff "just to show it around", and they don't buy those bags anymore, because no one thinks it's an original bag. A 100k mat black mercedes? Can't fake that. 30k gold watch? Sure it can be fake, but few people wear watches nowaday, even fewer notice them, and very few people assume that the watch is fake. But a 3k louis vuitton handbag? In whatever shopping center or larger cafe/club you go with that, there will be a couple more girls with similar, fake ones.
iLoveOncall|1 month ago
That is not true. I have a resin printer that is around 3 years old (Anycubic Photon Mono M5s) and it has a level of detail that simply cannot be matched by injection molded parts. I have printed some miniatures that have details much smaller than a human hair, like the needle of a syringe in 32mm scale.
Once painted, the figurines are indistinguishable from non-3D printed ones unless you pick them up (they're heavier often).
That said, the article is still right. Resin printers are a massive pain. They're highly toxic, and the time spent preparing, and then post-processing is quite high, but also stressful because of the toxicity. I use my filament printer almost every day, but my resin printer has been collecting dust because of this.
aleph_minus_one|1 month ago
In my opinion people simply stopped following the big visions of that time and got satisfied with the current state of 3D printers instead of continuing to iterate on highly experimental designs that could bring the world nearer to these visions.
fragmede|1 month ago
bdcravens|1 month ago
Not really true. There was a lot of drama about this when it came out, but I suspect there were more videos on YouTube about the subject than there have been actual products taken down over this. You just have to disclose that you made it with design partners. (ie, an STL you didn't create)
phantasmish|1 month ago
I’ll never touch the tech again. The chemicals seem sketchy as hell (I don’t really want any hobbies that make me feel like I need a dedicated area of my house that I only enter while wearing significant PPE, and with gloves that never leave that dirty-zone) and after probably ten joyless hands-on hours burned over a couple weekends, I never got the fucking thing to print a single one of its test designs.
Seems like yet another fiddly hobby for its own sake (that might eventually yield some not-remotely-worth-the-cost fruits) rather than a useful tool. I don’t need what it offers that bad, the amount of money and time I’m going to put toward it in the rest of my life is zero. It’s probably a fine activity if the act of fiddling with 3D printers is the main draw for a person. Otherwise, no.
throw-12-16|1 month ago
There are some great sites with thousands of designs for reasonable prices.
TrevorFSmith|1 month ago
bdcravens|1 month ago
nancyminusone|1 month ago
I only played with resin printers briefly, and not only do they produce extremely brittle and off-dimenension parts, they are extremely messy and use chemicals that you really should think twice or three times or four times about having under the same roof as the one you sleep in.
With how useful FDM is to me, it seems really strange that resin printing's killer app has been "miniatures", like it's the niche it fell into after everyone bought one and discovered they aren't great for much else. I am in disbelief that people would willingly deal with resin printers just to do miniatures, like there's no way it could possibly be worth it even if you really like that hobby. It feels wrong even to refer to both under the same umbrella of 3D printing.
That said, if you're not regularly designing parts you need made and/or aren't a CAD user, I don't see much use in the average person having a 3D printer (I have 5 btw)
loiselleatwork|1 month ago
On the other side of this _is_ the affordability of 3D printed miniatures. The linked-to article is salient/cogent/great, but the secondary topic at hand––lowering the price of entry for miniatures-based table top gaming––is still salient. 3D printing won't necessarily upend GW's business model, but it does provide an entry point that is more affordable by some calculus.
fragmede|1 month ago
aragilar|1 month ago
RobotToaster|1 month ago
ranger207|1 month ago
Where 3D printing has been revolutionary for Battletech though has been terrain. Battletech's played on a hex grid, and ever hex has an elevation printed on it to form hills, buildings, and rivers. There's one company (Thunderhead Studios) that makes STLs of the elevation of the official maps that's very popular. Popular enough that they've actually started mass manufacturing them and selling prepainted terrain retail. That shows up in every event I've been to, even official events where 3D minis are banned. But it's a decidedly ancillary part of the experience for Battletech.
[0] Catalyst Game Labs and Iron Wind Metals
iroddis|1 month ago
Given the time, it’s hard not to view this same argument through the lens of AI. People who love crafting their creative works will still do it, even when AI can do it. They will still inspire others because they demonstrate what humans can do, and what we can aspire to.
marcus_holmes|1 month ago
Learning a skill and practicing it is still extremely enjoyable, even if a machine (or a factory) could do it better, faster, cheaper. The point is not the product, but the process.
chr15m|1 month ago
milchek|1 month ago
What started out as a "oh look, they've opened a Games Workshop store in this shopping centre... hey it looks like they're giving away free miniatures and showing you how to paint, lets kill 5 mins in the store" has turned into starter packs, combat patrols and lore deep dives with books. All in the span of... 4 weeks.
That said, I have to say, it's been awesome learning about everything Warhammer 40k from him. Normally, I would research something myself to the point of overkill so I could answer his questions, but on this one his enthusiasm is driving it all and he's constantly telling me about this particular faction or that faction.
It's just nice to have a hobby that keeps him away from screen time these days. It also requires patience, dexterity, and creativity - plus there is obviously an incredible amount of lore, world building, backstories, etc, plenty to keep his imagination entertained.
The one big problem, of course, is the money required! Which is why someone recently said to me "maybe get a 3d printer" and we had this exact discussion about quality of printing etc, and regardless, I just don't see that impacting things like book sales or codex's.
Anyway, cool to read about how people got into it and just thought I'd share!
musicale|1 month ago
First hit is free; it is a cool hobby though and I like how it combines arts and crafts with gaming, strategy, world lore/building and storytelling, as you noted.
Also the skills are likely transferrable to RPG minis as well as general model building and painting.
I think custom game pieces for basically any tabletop game are a killer app for 3d printers. Also custom scenery and minis for RPGs (for example a mini customized for a player character, a custom monster, a key NPC, etc.)
Probably good for making doll house (or action figure hideout) furniture and accessories as well, though I expect part of the charm of that hobby is making tiny furnishings etc. out of realistic materials like wood, fabric, or ceramic.
And of course for creating replacement components for any toy or model as needed.
throw-12-16|1 month ago
Its a much more accessible game that doesnt have a predatory business model behind its ruleset.
GW is frankly a shitty company, they are extremely litigious and their business model hinges around nerfing armies and then launching new models to make up the gap.
iLoveOncall|1 month ago
But I have to say that the comparison between the time investment in resin printing and preparing official Warhammer models for painting is very incomplete.
Ultimately, if everything goes well with the printing (and it usually does), the whole process will take around an hour of active time (preparing + post-processing) a plate of 20-30 models (however many you can fit). It will DEFINITELY take longer than this to get the same level of quality from plastic sprues. Removing the pieces from the sprues, removing the mold lines, filling the worst ones, etc. is extremely time consuming, and it is really the most boring part of the hobby.
It took me at least 20 hours to prepare around 100 models (small ones), when it would take only 4 or 5 when printing them. This time saving is time you can reinvest in painting.
I also still believe that at some point, with advancements in printers (which happen consistently year over year), but especially in resin formulations, we will reach a state where it will be safe (or at least much safer than it is now) to 3D print models using resin, at which point it will indeed have a large impact on Games Workshop's business.
Joel_Mckay|1 month ago
Home Resin Printers should be in a vented garage, as the unpleasant odor is the least of its issues. The low-viscosity washable water-like resins tend to be much easier to handle, but even when vented outside... an activated charcoal filter is wise if you have neighbors. =3
CobraMode|1 month ago
aleph_minus_one|1 month ago
AndrewStephens|1 month ago
Before I started playing I asked a friend what was to stop me just printing or photocopying cards (even in the 90s this would have been possible)
I understood how silly that question was when I felt the pleasure of actually owning a high quality product. Sure, I could spend the time to make my own cards but playing the game is only part of the fun.
Warhammer and MtG get mocked for being expensive but in reality they are comparable to cars, sports, fashion, and all the other things humans spend their disposable income on.
wincy|1 month ago
I was shocked that even under a jeweler’s loupe, I could tell no difference. Even the microscopic ink patterns were identical, except for the very rare editions of cards that use a special holographic print (called “Enchanted” cards, which are fancier alt art prints of cards, but those have a regular equivalent for gameplay purposes in all cases). It was all just worthless paper at the point.
This “broke the spell” for me, so to speak, and I quit playing. Soon after, I’m guessing everyone else realized this too, or, more likely, were buying the same cards at full price without realizing their provenance, and card prices tanked substantially. I also quit playing because it took up a lot of time and I rediscovered why I stopped playing Magic competitively. I’m an extremely sore loser and when I get into a hobby I play to win, to the point of obsession.
arvinsim|1 month ago
One is the strong dependence on your peers for approval. If your group is against proxies, then you are screwed.
Second is that there are now more ways to play against each other online for free. This approach is much more convenient compared to creating proxies IRL and allows you to play with other people outside your peer group.
aleph_minus_one|1 month ago
I guess there really is some kind of "hacker-type" personality who does spend a lot on some things, but these things are typically "not very proprietary", i.e. not things where the producing company enforced the copyright and trademarks heavily, and "highly modifiable". So I guess to such people the question "what was to stop me just printing or photocopying cards" is not absurd, but to fans of WH4k or MtG it is: because of their very different product tastes.
throw-12-16|1 month ago
We all have large magic collections but Wizards has shown repeatedly that they have no intention of making the game more accessible.
I have been playing magic continuously for 30 years and have not spent a dime on it since 2019.
lovich|1 month ago
> At one point, he said the phrase "you really don't want to get this on your skin" with the casual tone of someone who had definitely gotten it on his skin.
are spot on.
There are currently 10 3d printers in my household and there have been maybe 30 unique ones in total over the past 2 years but after the first 3-4 months of resin printing that was given to a friend and never revisited.
I felt like it couldn’t be done casually and even moderately safe at home but needed some sort of lab with good ventilation. We Jerry rigged a hood using a portable enclosure meant to grow weed in while routing the smell out of your dorm through a window and wore proper PPE the whole time but I still felt sketched out
wincy|1 month ago
I moved from an isopropyl alcohol wash to using acetone, which resulted in much crisper details, but that felt substantially more dangerous than the resin ever did. It’s very unpleasant to breathe in. I just put the printer in an unused room, and opened a window every once in awhile, and did my minis washing outside with a mask on.
I was in a Telegram group for awhile that shared all the sets and ended up with dozens of terabytes of extremely high quality miniatures. Often video game modelers moonlight making high quality minis that are much better looking than anything in Warhammer. Once I stopped the hobby I left as it required you to sign up for $30+ a month of subscriptions you needed to share to get access to their group.
I’ve fallen out of the hobby after my good friend passed away because him and I made a lot of minis together, but it was a lot of fun. I was primarily using it for D&D minis though, with 1 resin printer for minis and 3 FDM printers for terrain. Nobody cared at all about “authenticity” and was just wowed by the presentation.
nancyminusone|1 month ago
But it's kind of like having an open can of paint in the middle of your house, just sitting there with the lid off. Most of the time that happens only when you're painting the walls, you don't live like that.
Similar experience as to you, I found resin printing to have too crap results given the level of effort to process them.
devmor|1 month ago
They are capable of incredibly impressive detail but the labor and safety investment required just makes it too much of a pain to enjoy in the same way that I do my FDM printers.
bdcravens|1 month ago
1313ed01|1 month ago
sdenton4|1 month ago
The big difference in the historical wargame space is that there's no way to trademark Alexander the Great. Anyone can make the minis, whether it's a small-but-awesome company (Victrix! Wargames Atlantic!) or a dude with a 3d printer. As a result, there's some separation between people who write rules (which you can buy as books or PDFs) and people who make minis. The people making minis actually compete on price and quality, and we get fsck'ing awesome minis for ludicrously low prices as a result. Victrix is often $1-$2 per mini, often about a tenth of the price of GW.
I use an fdm printer for terrain, which is a complete game changer. It has none of the problems of resin, and you want big stuff for terrain and care a bit less about layer lines. It's awesome.
The only problem is that only a small corner of the miniatures wargame world plays historicals. :)
(So feel free to ping me if you're in sf/East Bay and want to roll dice sometime.)
aardvark179|1 month ago
pockybum522|1 month ago
The entire manual involvement for me from hitting go on the printer to handing out their minis to my friends, ready to be painted, I would estimate at just over five minutes per mini. This includes removing supports. This reads like it was written in 2010, not 2025.
throw-12-16|1 month ago
jacquesm|1 month ago
If you do something useless with a tool that's not on the tool, that's on you.
There's 40 of them sitting in my garage doing useful work that would have been absolutely impossible without this tech.
kergonath|1 month ago
I think GW will sell in-store printed minis before sufficiently good 3d printers are common in players’ homes. The OP makes good points about why this is impractical in some ways, but I can see this happening for special releases or some less popular minis. The other side of the impulse-buy coin is that a lot of people need minis that are not usually in stock in stores. Then, waiting 15 minutes or even an hour (say, whilst you play a game or watch one, or paint some stuff, or just chat with fellow nerds) to get your mini printed beats the current "order on the website and then wait 2 weeks" process.
throw-12-16|1 month ago
High res resin printers are more than capable of printing high quality minis.
There are hundreds of videos on youtube to back that up, squidmar in particular has done several side by side comparisons.
dcw303|1 month ago
www.reddit.com/r/FDMminiatures/ will give you an idea of the level of quality you can reach. With the smallest 0.2mm nozzle, will it reach resin levels? Close but not really. Is it good enough for me to screw around with, improve my painting skills, and play casual games? Certainly.
Also I subbed to the OnePageRules patreon, they offer alternative minis and rulebooks that are very similar to GW, with an alternate for fantasy and 40K, as well as fleet battles and other stuff.
shagie|1 month ago
Necroprinting isn't about printing necrons.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adw9953
> Here we report “3D necroprinting,” a biohybrid manufacturing technique that repurposes female mosquito proboscides as high-resolution 3D printing nozzles. The mosquito proboscis, with its unique geometry, structure, and mechanics, enables printed line widths as fine as 20 μm ...
(that's 0.02mm)
throw-12-16|1 month ago
Really fun game with none of the GW BS.
rozab|1 month ago
CompoundEyes|1 month ago
The main factor that kept me from 40k was the time commitment not the cost.
In my earlier MTG days I played many Necromunda battles. Scratched the itch in an easier onboarding form — also liked the vertical aspect.
ndr42|1 month ago
_carbyau_|1 month ago
The figurines might have to be official and "proper" for tournament play.
But terrain is more vague. Though still dimensionally specified.
And I always feel that it is a shame that so much effort is made to paint armies near perfectly and yet the terrain is flat felt green, or matte grey painted chipboard, with some stuff chucked on it...
A 3D printer can make hills, ruins, furniture, burnt out vehicles - all the other cruft of a gaming universe to give it life!
paradox460|1 month ago
bsimpson|1 month ago
3D printers are really cool, in a way that's hard to grasp until you use one. My apartment came with a single trash bin, conflicting with the CC+R requirement that you separate out your recycling. I designed and 3D printed a retrofit to hang two trash bags in a single can. Now I can separate my recycling without having it out in my living space.
I also had a kitchen island that came with a drawer that was shorter than my utensil tray, with a frustrating amount of dead space behind the drawer. I bought a dremel and some wood glue to mod the drawer to fit the utensil tray. I 3D printed the tools I needed to do it - like a jig and some vices.
I've been meaning to design and print some hangers for my plastic instruments - I still have my Rock Band kit from college.
Maybe people who play WH4K care about the OEM seal of approval. Maybe they look down at 3D printing. Surely, it still opens the hobby to people who _don't_ have thousands to invest in miniatures. I would 100% print miniatures if I was into that game.
But it feels like he's too focused on that particular micro-market. Maybe there's something in that subculture that makes them look down on 3D printers (and maybe not understanding that is a useful analogy to other "from the outside, this is dumb" situations). But there's a whole lot of utility in 3D printing that has nothing to do with wargames.
Also, my office has a makerspace. I've seen _plenty_ of people printing pieces for tabletop games. The author has his biases too.
Doortree|1 month ago
I'm seeing a lot of people in comments dismiss FMD printers for minis, and thought I'd highlight the work of a youtuber called 'Once in a six side' who did a deep-dive into FDM mini pronting and got some really impressive results with even stock settings and basic PLA filament (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8fuNDTQJCY).
Once he really explored support placement, settings and ideal configurations his best prints rivalled resin in some cases once painted. Really cool to see as someone who isn't interested in messing with resin anytime soon.
Lucasoato|1 month ago
> Another fellow dork will then play you on a game board roughly the size of a door, covered in fake terrain that someone spent 40 hours making to look like a bombed-out cathedral. You will both have rulebooks with you containing as many pages as the Bible and roughly as open to interpretation. Wars have been started over less contentious texts.
antonhand|1 month ago
FDM prints have visual artifacts you cannot escape with many shapes, and even the most flexible of the expensive resins isn't nearly as durable as a plastic model. Plus plastic models insta-bond with plastic glue making them both easier to assemble and repair (as everything will eventually get damaged through years of play).
I've been doing model work for 30 years, and while 3d print stuff has many uses within the hobby (like making epic terrain way more accessible), replacing the core figures for something like warhammer, to anyone who cares about finish quality and durability at the same time is not one of them.
Suppafly|1 month ago
RobotToaster|1 month ago
GW themselves make resin miniatures, they used to be called forgeworld.
zacharycohn|1 month ago
alexpotato|1 month ago
Somewhat off topic from the rest of the comments but:
Knew someone who was in the Jane Austen Society (New York City chapter). She told me how a member from the Melbourne (as in Australia) chapter was visiting NYC, had never been there and so reached out to the NYC chapter to see if people wanted to hang out.
After the hang out, my friend says: "OMG, she was one of the coolest and most fun people I've ever met! So much fun to take someone else from JAS around NYC for their first time"
This is one of my favorite stories about how a community can grow out of an interest in something and then span the globe. Cool to see the same thing is true of 40k
skyberrys|1 month ago
mdtrooper|1 month ago
JoeAltmaier|1 month ago
But the thing is, that was one step in a larger process.
For instance. It used to take hours to lay out your software widget controls - dialogs with checkboxes and pulldowns and whatever. They invented tools that let you do it in 10 minutes. CAD saves software!
But reality check: that part of the project was a whole six hours saved, out of a schedule stretching over months. The savings disappear into insignificance.
cultureulterior|1 month ago
jacquesm|1 month ago
https://www.mimakieurope.com/products/3d/
It is mostly a price point thing but I would expect this tech to come down in price at the same rate that other 3D printing technologies have over the coming years. We're in the 'Stratasys' era of full color high res 3D printing right now.
iLoveOncall|1 month ago
The moment you have fully non-toxic resin, it will take off.
throw-12-16|1 month ago
“The bottleneck isn't acquiring plastic. The bottleneck is everything else.”
Getting models is certainly a bottleneck if you dont have $1000 to spend on minis.
In my city you can resin print the same army for $100 at one of dozens of 3D printing shops.
Same goes for high end mtg proxies.
If you are interested in a great game with an open license that encourages printing and hacking together your own models check out Trench Crusade.
fortran77|1 month ago
unknown|1 month ago
[deleted]
Fomite|1 month ago
I posted my thoughts on this checks notes five years ago, but it's largely in the same place: https://variancehammer.com/2020/08/06/3d-printing-and-the-ho...
There are places where 3d printing has revolutionized the wargaming hobby. Terrain is one of them, and the biggest one I think. And there's games like Trench Crusade that got their launch via being 3d printable, allowing them the critical mass to get to plastic production.
But at the end of the day, if something is in plastic, I'm buying it in plastic. And I am disappointed by the amount of energy and talent not going into creating new things but...Legally Distinct Space Marines, often sculpted with no notion of actually ever being painted (way over-detailed, etc.)
0x38B|1 month ago
This is me looking at Kenshi, Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, and most recently Stationeers in my "last played" games.
elif|1 month ago
They are in some people's driveway. That's the remarkable part anyway
Mistletoe|1 month ago
ortusdux|1 month ago
arjie|1 month ago
chaostheory|1 month ago
throw-12-16|1 month ago
It frequently results in turn 1 wins before you even get to play.
Competitive 40k is even worse.
There are way better tabletop games that are actually fun.
knowitnone3|1 month ago
throw-12-16|1 month ago
aliclark|1 month ago
unknown|1 month ago
[deleted]
reactordev|1 month ago
dclowd9901|1 month ago
Someone who's already well steeped in a hobby as demanding as WH40k and who already has access to items they can purchase alternatively probably is not searching for something else they have to get their head around. And MSLA printing is not a chill hobby by any measure.
Loughla|1 month ago
protocolture|1 month ago
Look, 3d printing is almost a psychological thing. You almost nailed it but skipped right past it.
The term proxy used to delineate between wysiwyg and non-wysiwyg. "I am using this chess piece as a marine" The Deoderant Bottle Gravtank from White Dwarf - Not a proxy. They made it custom rules. It was a miniature, and it was furnished with love and care. This culture is now only found in like, airfix or custom scifi modelling.
Modern GW has waged a psychological war on these things, encouraging game stores to do the same.
Proxy is now used, as you have demonstrated, to cover anything not GW. Even if its wysiwyg, its looked down upon, otherised. GW stores have even gone as far as preventing people from playing official GW minis that are end of life in their stores. Soon these will be referred to as like "official proxies" or something.
I have 2 local non GW stores.
Store 1: Owner does not permit unofficial minis in the store at all. Will rant about this policy to anyone who listens. He says there's no way he makes money on printed minis so screw them (I was in the store to purchase paints and brushes and so on for my printed minis when I caught this rant)
Store 2: Has 3 3d printers, sells printing services, sells resin. Doesnt give a crap.
But it doesn't matter in either case, because 40k players are policing each other. GW has shifted the language to otherise armies that even have converted 3d printed bits, let alone full prints.
Not to mention: 3d print resin isnt that bad. The 3d printer business makes a lot of money selling filters and tents and housings and gloves and what not at inflated prices. Some of these things are worthy, others are not. But I was using UV resins for SFX before printers caught on, and guess what, resin fx are smellier and less able to be hidden in a dark corner of your house. Not really a huge impediment. The terror about UV resin seems to be coming both from the people slinging the extra gear, and the people concerned largely with these evil "proxies".
Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but GW mostly makes money from new players. Old grizzled angry veterans arent their bread and butter anyway.
Give it 10 years, let more stores embrace 3d printing, let some more permissive games take hold, and then you might have a chance at killing gee dubs. But they will still be selling huge expensive kits to 12 year olds using mums credit card.
nbates80|1 month ago
> For those in the 3D printing crowd who weren't big into playing, just painting, part of the point is showing off your incredible work to everyone else. Except nobody wants to see a 3D-printed forgery of an official model. It's like showing up to a car show with a kit car that looks like a Ferrari. Sure, it's impressive in its own way, but it's not really a Ferrari, and everyone knows it, and now we're all standing around pretending we don't know it, and it's uncomfortable for everyone.
> Once someone figured out one of your minis was 3D printed, shops generally wouldn't feature it in their display cases. So there was no reason for people who were going to put in 10+ hours per model to skip paying for the official real models. If you're going to invest that much time, you want the real thing. You want the little Games Workshop logo on the base. You want to be able to say "yes, I paid $60 for this single figure" with the quiet dignity of someone who has made peace with their choices
They want the “real thing”. I.e. the overpriced chunk of plastic a company managed to inflate the price of.
It is about the ritual. They want all the love, skill and time they put into this craft to be poured on this talisman. They don’t want it to be wasted on the cheap unofficial knockoffs.
It’s interesting how companies in consumerist societies manage to create artificial value by engaging communities in these type of branded religions (the article used that word, and I think is apt)
throw-12-16|1 month ago
Their entire business model is predatory, they nerf armies and then release new models all the time, the rules are monetized and outrageously expensive, and they are litigious to the point of taking down youtube channels in order to prop up their shitty streaming service.
There are so many better games that have embraced 3D printing and are actually fun to play.
lazylizard|1 month ago
i dont own a boat.
i imagine real propellers are somewhat expensive. and people often dont buy 2 to keep a spare on board. and on occasion they do fail.
why not a 3d printed backup propeller then? it only needs to last 1/2 a trip..only the way back...
cubano|1 month ago
Thanks for the laughs my friend.
euroderf|1 month ago
foobarian|1 month ago
amelius|1 month ago
There's a long way to go.
aleph_minus_one|1 month ago
All in all, 3D printing allows a lot more flexibility in designs, but if you attempt to 3D-print many items of your daily life exactly as they are, the result will often be much worse than with the production process that the object was designed for, or sometimes it is possible to come near to the original object, but producing it using 3D printing takes a lot more effort.
It is rather a consensus in the 3D printing community that people should rather make use of the opportunity to use the insanely increased flexibility that 3D printing allows to reimagine how objects in daily life look like - and thus create better versions of such objects that are (by construction) also good 3D-printable.
--
Addendum: Concerning "the transparent insert thing": as far as I am aware with resin printing, you can 3D-print transparent things very precisely, and even with FDM printing, a lot of progress has been made with respect to printing objects that are quite transparent:
> https://blog.prusa3d.com/3d-printed-lens-and-other-transpare...
WheatMillington|1 month ago
seltzered_|1 month ago
Another example is this one where the 3D print was done as a continuous printing (i.e. no slicer, or sorta like a vase mode print) to make the clear show a bit better: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sy50BrlDMo
ggm|1 month ago
Some people play warhammer for the cameraderie.
Some people play warhammer to get outreache to sell their 3D printed components, which probably started out as a "hey look at me" but like all side gigs can, has become foundational in who they are, and now occupies them more than cameraderie or winning.
taeric|1 month ago
That has to be one of the more amusing reads I've had in a while. And agreed, dealing with all of the extraneous crap that comes along with 3d printing is amazingly high on the tedious scale. Frustratingly so.
rsync|1 month ago
odie5533|1 month ago
zen928|1 month ago
It's sort of weird because the issue isn't around proxies representing a figure in another form, but about the perceived "loss" of the value of their efforts from someone popping out something identical without wastin- spending as much time. "I do it, so I value it" is an interesting life code to live by.
So, the actual answer is pride, it seems.
throw-12-16|1 month ago
ParonoidAndroid|1 month ago
[deleted]