Has 3d printing come of age

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**Lance845**

Elbows wrote:
God damn, it's been a while since I clicked on a Spike Bits post. Still a garbage website.

Long story short: 3D printing will not replace people buying models. It will have a nominal impact. People are already 3D printing heaps of stuff (hell, Titans). Here's the kicker...much like people who buy recast resin items, those people were likely not going to pay the money for the product anyway, so GW isn't actually losing a sale. This is not a defense of the practice, but a fact considered by manufacturers.

Better quality "lower end" printers are still only doing about 85% of the quality of normal HIPS without investing a good chunk of money in it. There are high end printers who are printing about equal with HIPS but they're still pretty expensive. That painted Sister of Battle from a few weeks ago at the GW show? 3D printed. You can see it on the model.

Everyone is using 3D printed stuff for rapid prototyping. We're not that close to picking up a super reliable $200 printer off Amazon and printing HIPS-quality items (nor in a timely fashion).

Yes, 3D printing will have a big impact on the market, but it's not going to bankrupt anybody. Loads of people won't bother. Some can't be bothered with the tech. Some don't have the time or money. Hell a lot of people don't have the space for a 3D printer, etc. Some people can't be bothered with the software, apps, updates, etc. Some won't want to spend the time doing it.

The Best Outcome

In my opinion, the best thing that can come from 3D printing is for GW and other companies who charge way more than is reasonable for their kits...to dial it back. No offense, but regardless of the quality of plastic production nowdays, a 10 man squad is not worth $60 USD. There are other GW products which are even more egregious. Hopefully 3D printed alternatives actually give them a bloody nose and they realize that their pricing models are getting pretty ridiculous (what young teenager can afford to "get into" a GW game nowdays?) People will still buy kits, 100%. It'll still be easy to disqualify armies and models from tournaments if TO's deem it necessary.

Some people will still pay the price of a small car for badly produced resin Titans, lol. It'll have an impact, but it's unlikely to bankrupt anybody. I do think - however, as printers get better the "boutique" shops like Forgeworld will disappear. Their prices make even GW's prices look reasonable. The days of huge resin models being limited or special, are gone.

I dont think the impact will be people at home printing their own stuff. I think its going to be people at home that invested in a few quality printer producing their own alternative bits/ models and selling them. There is a solid market for people who would gladly pay 15 bucks for 5 good looking models that cost some dude .50 to print instead of 40 to gw.

**The Newman**

This reminds me of Napster and Limewire. What frequently gets overlooked in the discussion of those things by the pundits and that the record industry still doesn't seem to have grasped is that those things wouldn't have existed at all if the price of a CD at the time hadn't been frankly extortionist. What killed Napster and Limewire wasn't legal action by the RIAA or changes in legislation or enforcement, it was the industry finally figuring out that it was more profitable to just sell music on-line for cheap themselves.

The video game industry went through a similar arc with download services, and also hasn't entirely learned the lesson.

Whether GW will be one of the companies that figures this out is anybody's guess, but usually it's new businesses started with the new tech in mind that get it right.

**Daedleh**

The Newman wrote:
This reminds me of Napster and Limewire. What frequently gets overlooked in the discussion of those things by the pundits and that the record industry still doesn't seem to have grasped is that those things wouldn't have existed at all if the price of a CD at the time hadn't been frankly extortionist. What killed Napster and Limewire wasn't legal action by the RIAA or changes in legislation or enforcement, it was the industry finally figuring out that it was more profitable to just sell music on-line for cheap themselves.

The video game industry went through a similar arc with download services, and also hasn't entirely learned the lesson.

Whether GW will be one of the companies that figures this out is anybody's guess, but usually it's new businesses started with the new tech in mind that get it right.

The problem with this analogy is that downloading music and games is 1) fast and 2) a perfect copy. 3D printing is not. The tech never will be fast - there is an inherent physics limitation in the current 3D printing technologies. And a perfect copy? Only if you have a resin printer. And then you lose the cost benefit of 3D printing because the resin material is hella expensive, unlike plastic SLA printing.

If there is a new type of 3D printing invented which is a) fast, b) cheap and c) produces perfect quality copies then this analogy might fit, but that technology doesn't exist (yet, at least).

**Overread**

The other thing is that something like music to hear from a CD or a download is basically identical so long as the digital quality is the same. The actual element of the product you interact with most is the same.

This is made more true when modern systems allow you to move that file around like it was a CD - playing it on the go in your phone, computer, home music player, car etc...

With games and music there are still physical copies; but for many games they are now collectors editions with extras, whilst for music they've kept vinal records.

In addition both markets still have regular physical copies and there's still a market for them. Part of that is about "ownership". Many people still prefer to "own" something and hold it in their hands. Of course the big names can keep this up, whilst smaller companies can more easily get into the market without needing the physical distribution or only doing it ad-hock or on special releases.

For models its very different because the product itself is physical right from the start. Another aspect is that its harder for a company to protect their digital assets if part of that markets retail is the sale of identical products to the same customer. You don't buy the same digital game 5 times over if its identical; but you do want 4 boxes of termaguants. etc... So whilst for music its easy to just go digital, for something like warhammer that could massivly impact their profits, esp if the tech to limit printings per purchase didn't work out so well (either in practical application or in the case of the market accepting the idea of buying a limited-use digital download - which I'm guessing they likely won't).

Suddenly GW goes from physically selling multiple products per customer to at the very best one per customer. Like I said earlier I can see new companies (one man bands) doing this, but I can't see the financial incentive for established companies doing this. I'd more expect GW to outsource production to china long before they'd abandon production. though I could see them doing it for terrain - writing the cost off basically as a marketing move to make for more cooler tables and focusing on models only for core revenue.

**Wyzilla**

I actually expect 3D printing to eventually spell the death of companies like GW in the long run. I know some guys who run a 3D Printing discord and they've already got the ability to make models peer/superior to most GW models; the only issue is one of time. But in the end you don't even need GW to make the 3D models because there's probably millions of warhammer nerds and out of that selection group you're always going to find some who mess around with CAD and are happy to upload their work for free.

And in all honesty it wouldn't be a bad thing either. The best thing that can happen to creativity is if the industry holding the IP is essentially butchered and all means to enforce IP control at all is lost. It enables greater artistic freedom of the collective fanbase.

**flandarz**

If GW can't adapt, it'll definitely die. Which is a shame, obviously. As was pointed out, the companies that have survived pirating are the ones who, instead of "fighting the inevitable", were able to change their practices. As I said above, if GW was to make a switch to producing cheap plastic minis, as well as more expensive pewter and/or wood minis, they'll probably do fine. Warhammer is a major IP, so even if they just fell back to selling rulebooks, novels, producing videogames, and the like (much as WotC has done), they'll still turn a good profit.

**Keramory**

Being respectful to other opinions, I can't help but feel most people who think 3d printing replacing GW ... don't have 3d printers themselves lol.

The average home 3d printer doesn't hold a candle to GW models. The weight and detail are different when you hold them.

Even if you owned a high end printer, they're a pain for most people to keep up with. Maintaining, misprints, leveling, etc. Then theres 3d modeling itself, which most don't know how to do at the level needed. To be fair, thingiverse makes that an almost non-issue.

To be completely honest, I only see 3d printing helping GW. People who are originally put off by their prices (me for one) will try their hands at 3d printing some of their army. Eventually they'll replace it for the real thing. That or maybe 3d print some models/parts that they hardly sell anymore or look horrible by today's standards, which will encourage GW to push out newer models quicker.

One thing I do see GW having issues with is Terrain though. That's already taken off like crazy and will continue to do so.

Disclaimer - My opinion is extremely bias to my own story. I got into this hobby ONLY because of 3d printing as I was doing that before. Wanted to sell my own terrain and what not. Got hooked lol. Originally I'd 3d print some tyranid parts to make double the models of certain kits, for example making Zoanthropes and Venomthropes from 1. Or 2 Hive tyrants from 1. But honestly even with that I stopped.

**Insectum7**

Wyzilla wrote:

And in all honesty it wouldn't be a bad thing either. The best thing that can happen to creativity is if the industry holding the IP is essentially butchered and all means to enforce IP control at all is lost. It enables greater artistic freedom of the collective fanbase.

Ehhh. . . And then community fractures because there's nothing holding it together anymore, and the game dies because there's no business propping it up.

Creative freedom is great, but it's hard to have any sort of cohesive community in without structure. The business provides the structure, and the IP allows the business to exist.

I'm not saying this is absolute, but it's definitely something to be wary of.

**Wyzilla**

Insectum7 wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:

And in all honesty it wouldn't be a bad thing either. The best thing that can happen to creativity is if the industry holding the IP is essentially butchered and all means to enforce IP control at all is lost. It enables greater artistic freedom of the collective fanbase.

Ehhh. . . And then community fractures because there's nothing holding it together anymore, and the game dies because there's no business propping it up.

Creative freedom is great, but it's hard to have any sort of cohesive community in without structure. The business provides the structure, and the IP allows the business to exist.

I'm not saying this is absolute, but it's definitely something to be wary of.

The breakdown is what's good. Instead of having one game system lording over all everybody splits off into their regional group, likely developing their own stuff and messing around with older editions instead of religiously following anything GW puts up. My main critique of the hobby overall is how everybody ultimately just devours whatever crap GW throws out with each edition instead of taking it as inspiration to develop their own ruleset and experiment with improvements. And every edition is readily devoured without protest or boycott even those same people spend years complaining about GW's poor rules.

If there's ever going to be an improvement, the current system of how the community works needs to end.

**Lance845**

Daedleh wrote:
The Newman wrote:
This reminds me of Napster and Limewire. What frequently gets overlooked in the discussion of those things by the pundits and that the record industry still doesn't seem to have grasped is that those things wouldn't have existed at all if the price of a CD at the time hadn't been frankly extortionist. What killed Napster and Limewire wasn't legal action by the RIAA or changes in legislation or enforcement, it was the industry finally figuring out that it was more profitable to just sell music on-line for cheap themselves.

The video game industry went through a similar arc with download services, and also hasn't entirely learned the lesson.

Whether GW will be one of the companies that figures this out is anybody's guess, but usually it's new businesses started with the new tech in mind that get it right.

The problem with this analogy is that downloading music and games is 1) fast and 2) a perfect copy. 3D printing is not. The tech never will be fast - there is an inherent physics limitation in the current 3D printing technologies. And a perfect copy? Only if you have a resin printer. And then you lose the cost benefit of 3D printing because the resin material is hella expensive, unlike plastic SLA printing.

If there is a new type of 3D printing invented which is a) fast, b) cheap and c) produces perfect quality copies then this analogy might fit, but that technology doesn't exist (yet, at least).

I disagree with this entirely. The fact is the vast majority of the people who play this game are not going to tournaments or official events and don't get their models checked to see if they are official. They are just some people playing a game and all they care about is having good looking things to play the game with at a cost they can feel comfortable paying.

In that respect, 1) it doesn't matter if it's perfect. 2) The time it takes to print is irrelevant to the person who is buying the models.

The only things relevant to a purchaser about a store selling 3d printed models is 1) does it look good and 2) cost.

In that respect the impact of limewire and napster are very relevant to the conversation. GWs prices are high and 3d printing can make stores with custom models/bits cheap. As long as GW is selling their models "20 dollars for a cd with only 1 or 2 song that you have heard out of 7-9 songs total", but this guy over here is selling a perfectly serviceable, good looking stand in at ".99 per song" then GW is going to be impacted. 3d printing is not limewire and napster for the masses. It's limeiwre and napster for independent store fronts.

**Grey Templar**

loki old fart wrote:
Quality as good as injection molded.

lol whut?

That thing is nowhere near the quality of the GW one.

Now its not terrible, but you can definitely tell that there is a significant difference in the fine details. I don't have an issue with people having knockoff models, I have a few myself. But most of the time you get what you pay for.

3D printing still has at least a decade before it can compete with regular cast models for detail, and probably even longer for it to compete on volume. 3D printing is slow as molasses.

**Mike712**

Without 3d printing my quad cyclic ion blaster commanders would have been an economically non-viable option.

It really is about time GW started offering upgrade sprues to better cater for all the available equipment options for units.

It seriously is ass backwards thinking, when they expect you to buy 4+ boxes of something to get one single optimised squad/unit.

**Wyzilla**

Spoiler:

For an example of what I mean by 3D printing already having coming a long, long way.

**Lance845**

Yeah. 3d printing is fully capable of making injection molded quality models if you get the right machines.

**p5freak**

Wyzilla wrote:

Spoiler:

For an example of what I mean by 3D printing already having coming a long, long way.

What printer was used for those models ?

**Grey Templar**

Lance845 wrote:
Yeah. 3d printing is fully capable of making injection molded quality models if you get the right machines.

Machines which are prohibitively expensive and take a long time to finish the models in question. You'd never be able to mass produce those models in a cost effective manner. Nor would it be justified for the typical gamer to have a 3D printer for that purpose.

Its nice if you've also made 3D printing a hobby, or maybe are selling a few models on the side. but you wouldn't be able to run a real business off it.

**Wyzilla**

p5freak wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:

Spoiler:

For an example of what I mean by 3D printing already having coming a long, long way.

What printer was used for those models ?

Higher end. Don't know the specific model but it's a home printer made by a fellow on a discord server who designs and prints all of his stuff. But it's not an industrial grade model.

**StormX**

GW will make models out of materials, and use some sort of sysem to verify that there models are legitimate GW plastic. People will rather buy that then fake i think.
Like, there will be some thing you scan with your phone or some thing to confirm its legitimate.

**flandarz**

Yeah, they could probably put some sort of chip (like Amiibos have) into their models, but honestly that would only affect the tournament scene. The vast majority of players aren't gonna hafta worry about the GW police kicking down their door to check the legitimacy of their models.

**Lance845**

Stormatious wrote:
GW will make models out of materials, and use some sort of sysem to verify that there models are legitimate GW plastic. People will rather buy that then fake i think.
Like, there will be some thing you scan with your phone or some thing to confirm its legitimate.

1) no they wont. Gw will not invent a technology that does not exist or embed a rfid chip into every bit they produce.

2) no people wont. People will buy the most convenient for cost thing in the easiest way possible of the thing they want. The ebay market is thriving for 40k because many find the discount worth the wait of it being shipped. Gw has no inherent value to the vast majority of their customer base.

**StormX**

Lance845 wrote:
Stormatious wrote:
GW will make models out of materials, and use some sort of sysem to verify that there models are legitimate GW plastic. People will rather buy that then fake i think.
Like, there will be some thing you scan with your phone or some thing to confirm its legitimate.

1) no they wont. Gw will not invent a technology that does not exist or embed a rfid chip into every bit they produce.

2) no people wont. People will buy the most convenient for cost thing in the easiest way possible of the thing they want. The ebay market is thriving for 40k because many find the discount worth the wait of it being shipped. Gw has no inherent value to the vast majority of their customer base.

Fair enough,

Thanks.

**Grey Templar**

GW hasn’t had control over the tournament scene in any meaningful way for at least a decade. Nobody is going to enforce any rule they might make.

**Yodhrin**

Grey Templar wrote:
Lance845 wrote:
Yeah. 3d printing is fully capable of making injection molded quality models if you get the right machines.

Machines which are prohibitively expensive and take a long time to finish the models in question. You'd never be able to mass produce those models in a cost effective manner. Nor would it be justified for the typical gamer to have a 3D printer for that purpose.

Its nice if you've also made 3D printing a hobby, or maybe are selling a few models on the side. but you wouldn't be able to run a real business off it.

Those were printed on an Anycubic Photon, routinely on sale for ~350 USD. Each model costs around a dollar to print(including wear & tear on the machine), less if you buy your resin in bulk when it goes on sale. It will typically finish a job in 2-5 hours. Postcuring and cleanup is a couple of minutes of effort.

Producing cost effectively? For a small miniatures company, running a print farm of Photons now makes more financial sense IMO than resin casting. For a start, as a DLP type machine it cures the entire layer at once by projecting UV light through a masking image created by the LCD screen under the vat, meaning that you can add anywhere up to a full squad of 28-32mm infantry and it will print them just as quickly as a single miniature, so producing multiples of the same thing is actually very efficient. Secondly, the level of knowledge required to operate them successfully is much lower - you can become familiar with a resin printer in an afternoon, it can take months of practice to get good at making production molds for resin casting. Thirdly, the equipment isn't actually any more expensive - you don't do production resin casting without vacuum chambers to degas your mold rubber and pressure chambers to cast the resin inside, and all in(pumps & compressors, hoses, fittings, the actual chambers) even just one of each can cost twice as much as a Photon. On top of that, printers don't require you to store molds, your entire catalogue can be digital and stock produced on-demand.

As for a typical gamer, that depends what you mean by typical. Little Timmy? No. The type of folks who buy everything in a GW store and use Official GW Clippers because Peachy & Duncan say to do that in their videos? No. The moment you start talking about people who's selection of hobby-related tools goes beyond a few brushes though, I'd say it's absolutely justified.

**Daedleh**

Lance845 wrote:
Daedleh wrote:
The Newman wrote:
This reminds me of Napster and Limewire. What frequently gets overlooked in the discussion of those things by the pundits and that the record industry still doesn't seem to have grasped is that those things wouldn't have existed at all if the price of a CD at the time hadn't been frankly extortionist. What killed Napster and Limewire wasn't legal action by the RIAA or changes in legislation or enforcement, it was the industry finally figuring out that it was more profitable to just sell music on-line for cheap themselves.

The video game industry went through a similar arc with download services, and also hasn't entirely learned the lesson.

Whether GW will be one of the companies that figures this out is anybody's guess, but usually it's new businesses started with the new tech in mind that get it right.

The problem with this analogy is that downloading music and games is 1) fast and 2) a perfect copy. 3D printing is not. The tech never will be fast - there is an inherent physics limitation in the current 3D printing technologies. And a perfect copy? Only if you have a resin printer. And then you lose the cost benefit of 3D printing because the resin material is hella expensive, unlike plastic SLA printing.

If there is a new type of 3D printing invented which is a) fast, b) cheap and c) produces perfect quality copies then this analogy might fit, but that technology doesn't exist (yet, at least).

I disagree with this entirely. The fact is the vast majority of the people who play this game are not going to tournaments or official events and don't get their models checked to see if they are official. They are just some people playing a game and all they care about is having good looking things to play the game with at a cost they can feel comfortable paying.

In that respect, 1) it doesn't matter if it's perfect. 2) The time it takes to print is irrelevant to the person who is buying the models.

The only things relevant to a purchaser about a store selling 3d printed models is 1) does it look good and 2) cost.

In that respect the impact of limewire and napster are very relevant to the conversation. GWs prices are high and 3d printing can make stores with custom models/bits cheap. As long as GW is selling their models "20 dollars for a cd with only 1 or 2 song that you have heard out of 7-9 songs total", but this guy over here is selling a perfectly serviceable, good looking stand in at ".99 per song" then GW is going to be impacted. 3d printing is not limewire and napster for the masses. It's limeiwre and napster for independent store fronts.

I think you misunderstand me.

I was talking about the overall quality of the miniature, not whether it's a carbon copy of an existing GW miniature or making them official. The overall quality of a miniature DOES matter. Some people are fine with playing with awful minis saddled with print artefacts, but I bet the vast majority aren't.

You can't dismiss time as a factor. There's only so much that someone printing minis can do and that's limited by the inherent speed limits of the technology. Yes, you can leave things printing overnight (and over several nights), of course you can. But you can still only print a certain amount per week. It's not a Star Trek replicator. If your FLGS switched over to providing 3D printed models, they wouldn't be able to satisfy customer demand even with a massive bank of a dozen or more 3D printers.

**Overread**

Plus GW is all about cheap entry point at present. Right now you can get into 40K for the cost of one box of marines and a hobby starting box (paints, clippers, brush etc). Playing at the club or local store in killteam - you don't even need your own book as others will teach you and let you borrow theirs; but even so the book is pretty cheap too.

Now flip that around and tell parents that they've got to get their kid this 3D printers that costs £100s (which is likely more than the "house hold" one that they use to print free cups and plates if 3D printers become a "household item"). And then they've got to buy the resins and set the thing up to a high standard all before they can print off the models.

Sure it might be cheaper in the long run, but the initial outlay requires a competent skill level and high investment. In fact for the same cost as one machine you can buy a good 2K+ points for a single army. So that's already a good number of months of collecting building and painting in one big cost.

**Lance845**

Daedleh wrote:
Lance845 wrote:
Daedleh wrote:
The Newman wrote:
This reminds me of Napster and Limewire. What frequently gets overlooked in the discussion of those things by the pundits and that the record industry still doesn't seem to have grasped is that those things wouldn't have existed at all if the price of a CD at the time hadn't been frankly extortionist. What killed Napster and Limewire wasn't legal action by the RIAA or changes in legislation or enforcement, it was the industry finally figuring out that it was more profitable to just sell music on-line for cheap themselves.

The video game industry went through a similar arc with download services, and also hasn't entirely learned the lesson.

Whether GW will be one of the companies that figures this out is anybody's guess, but usually it's new businesses started with the new tech in mind that get it right.

The problem with this analogy is that downloading music and games is 1) fast and 2) a perfect copy. 3D printing is not. The tech never will be fast - there is an inherent physics limitation in the current 3D printing technologies. And a perfect copy? Only if you have a resin printer. And then you lose the cost benefit of 3D printing because the resin material is hella expensive, unlike plastic SLA printing.

If there is a new type of 3D printing invented which is a) fast, b) cheap and c) produces perfect quality copies then this analogy might fit, but that technology doesn't exist (yet, at least).

I disagree with this entirely. The fact is the vast majority of the people who play this game are not going to tournaments or official events and don't get their models checked to see if they are official. They are just some people playing a game and all they care about is having good looking things to play the game with at a cost they can feel comfortable paying.

In that respect, 1) it doesn't matter if it's perfect. 2) The time it takes to print is irrelevant to the person who is buying the models.

The only things relevant to a purchaser about a store selling 3d printed models is 1) does it look good and 2) cost.

In that respect the impact of limewire and napster are very relevant to the conversation. GWs prices are high and 3d printing can make stores with custom models/bits cheap. As long as GW is selling their models "20 dollars for a cd with only 1 or 2 song that you have heard out of 7-9 songs total", but this guy over here is selling a perfectly serviceable, good looking stand in at ".99 per song" then GW is going to be impacted. 3d printing is not limewire and napster for the masses. It's limeiwre and napster for independent store fronts.

I think you misunderstand me.

I was talking about the overall quality of the miniature, not whether it's a carbon copy of an existing GW miniature or making them official. The overall quality of a miniature DOES matter. Some people are fine with playing with awful minis saddled with print artefacts, but I bet the vast majority aren't.

You can't dismiss time as a factor. There's only so much that someone printing minis can do and that's limited by the inherent speed limits of the technology. Yes, you can leave things printing overnight (and over several nights), of course you can. But you can still only print a certain amount per week. It's not a Star Trek replicator. If your FLGS switched over to providing 3D printed models, they wouldn't be able to satisfy customer demand even with a massive bank of a dozen or more 3D printers.

Heres the thing. Right now if I go to ebay and order a box of whatever I ill get that box in the mail in like... 3 to 7 days? Especially with the aforementioned resin printer that takes the same time to produce 1 model as it does to make 5, can I make the models faster or the same speed as the shipping wait times?

If yes, or even if no but it's only a little more time, then it's still a pretty solid deal.

4 hours to produce an entire unit per machine isn't bad.

**Overread**

Lance845 wrote:
Daedleh wrote:
Lance845 wrote:
Daedleh wrote:
The Newman wrote:
This reminds me of Napster and Limewire. What frequently gets overlooked in the discussion of those things by the pundits and that the record industry still doesn't seem to have grasped is that those things wouldn't have existed at all if the price of a CD at the time hadn't been frankly extortionist. What killed Napster and Limewire wasn't legal action by the RIAA or changes in legislation or enforcement, it was the industry finally figuring out that it was more profitable to just sell music on-line for cheap themselves.

The video game industry went through a similar arc with download services, and also hasn't entirely learned the lesson.

Whether GW will be one of the companies that figures this out is anybody's guess, but usually it's new businesses started with the new tech in mind that get it right.

The problem with this analogy is that downloading music and games is 1) fast and 2) a perfect copy. 3D printing is not. The tech never will be fast - there is an inherent physics limitation in the current 3D printing technologies. And a perfect copy? Only if you have a resin printer. And then you lose the cost benefit of 3D printing because the resin material is hella expensive, unlike plastic SLA printing.

If there is a new type of 3D printing invented which is a) fast, b) cheap and c) produces perfect quality copies then this analogy might fit, but that technology doesn't exist (yet, at least).

I disagree with this entirely. The fact is the vast majority of the people who play this game are not going to tournaments or official events and don't get their models checked to see if they are official. They are just some people playing a game and all they care about is having good looking things to play the game with at a cost they can feel comfortable paying.

In that respect, 1) it doesn't matter if it's perfect. 2) The time it takes to print is irrelevant to the person who is buying the models.

The only things relevant to a purchaser about a store selling 3d printed models is 1) does it look good and 2) cost.

In that respect the impact of limewire and napster are very relevant to the conversation. GWs prices are high and 3d printing can make stores with custom models/bits cheap. As long as GW is selling their models "20 dollars for a cd with only 1 or 2 song that you have heard out of 7-9 songs total", but this guy over here is selling a perfectly serviceable, good looking stand in at ".99 per song" then GW is going to be impacted. 3d printing is not limewire and napster for the masses. It's limeiwre and napster for independent store fronts.

I think you misunderstand me.

I was talking about the overall quality of the miniature, not whether it's a carbon copy of an existing GW miniature or making them official. The overall quality of a miniature DOES matter. Some people are fine with playing with awful minis saddled with print artefacts, but I bet the vast majority aren't.

You can't dismiss time as a factor. There's only so much that someone printing minis can do and that's limited by the inherent speed limits of the technology. Yes, you can leave things printing overnight (and over several nights), of course you can. But you can still only print a certain amount per week. It's not a Star Trek replicator. If your FLGS switched over to providing 3D printed models, they wouldn't be able to satisfy customer demand even with a massive bank of a dozen or more 3D printers.

Heres the thing. Right now if I go to ebay and order a box of whatever I ill get that box in the mail in like... 3 to 7 days? Especially with the aforementioned resin printer that takes the same time to produce 1 model as it does to make 5, can I make the models faster or the same speed as the shipping wait times?

If yes, or even if no but it's only a little more time, then it's still a pretty solid deal.

4 hours to produce an entire unit per machine isn't bad.

Or you can drive off and buy them in a local store today and have them home. Which is probably the angle GW would look at it. Plus don't forget there's always going to be avolume you can buy "more of" in a box than you can make at home in the same time frame. Of course both reach a point beyond your ability to "keep up" in terms of building; but one certainly scratches that "spend money" itch faster.

**p5freak**

Overread wrote:

Sure it might be cheaper in the long run, but the initial outlay requires a competent skill level and high investment. In fact for the same cost as one machine you can buy a good 2K+ points for a single army.

What ? For $400, you can get an entire 2k army ? Not really. A 2k ultramarine army with calgar, tigurius, 3x10 intercessors, 10 hellblasters, 2 contemptors, 2 repulsors is $595. Thats an elite army, those are cheaper. Now, lets see how orks do. 10 ork boyz are $29. You need at least 90, so thats already $261, more than half the cost of a printer. 90 boyz are only ~630 pts.

**Stux**

p5freak wrote:
Overread wrote:

Sure it might be cheaper in the long run, but the initial outlay requires a competent skill level and high investment. In fact for the same cost as one machine you can buy a good 2K+ points for a single army.

What ? For $400, you can get an entire 2k army ? Not really. A 2k ultramarine army with calgar, tigurius, 3x10 intercessors, 10 hellblasters, 2 contemptors, 2 repulsors is $595. Thats an elite army, those are cheaper. Now, lets see how orks do. 10 ork boyz are $29. You need at least 90, so thats already $261, more than half the cost of a printer. 90 boyz are only ~630 pts.

That's not how most people collect 40k though. A $400 lump sum is not feasible for most people.

Normally you'd have a modest monthly hobby budget, build up your army slowly and paint as you go.

Needing to put it all down as a lump sum will be a big problem for many, and put them off getting involved at all.

**ERJAK**

Wyzilla wrote:
I actually expect 3D printing to eventually spell the death of companies like GW in the long run. I know some guys who run a 3D Printing discord and they've already got the ability to make models peer/superior to most GW models; the only issue is one of time. But in the end you don't even need GW to make the 3D models because there's probably millions of warhammer nerds and out of that selection group you're always going to find some who mess around with CAD and are happy to upload their work for free.

And in all honesty it wouldn't be a bad thing either. The best thing that can happen to creativity is if the industry holding the IP is essentially butchered and all means to enforce IP control at all is lost. It enables greater artistic freedom of the collective fanbase.

Which is utterly useless to the large component of people whose primary concern is playing the game. Free models for everyone would likely see GW(and other companies) stop support for their games.

If the companies DO stop support for their games, it leads to one of two outcomes, one: People keep playing the same edition with the same rules forever OR everyone who can hold a pen makes their own homebrew edition. Either way the game at any kind of meaningful scale (read: Tournaments) dies.

At that point I personally just chuck everything. Not even worth the hassle of ebaying it off.

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Yodhrin wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
Lance845 wrote:
Yeah. 3d printing is fully capable of making injection molded quality models if you get the right machines.

Machines which are prohibitively expensive and take a long time to finish the models in question. You'd never be able to mass produce those models in a cost effective manner. Nor would it be justified for the typical gamer to have a 3D printer for that purpose.

Its nice if you've also made 3D printing a hobby, or maybe are selling a few models on the side. but you wouldn't be able to run a real business off it.

Those were printed on an Anycubic Photon, routinely on sale for ~350 USD. Each model costs around a dollar to print(including wear & tear on the machine), less if you buy your resin in bulk when it goes on sale. It will typically finish a job in 2-5 hours. Postcuring and cleanup is a couple of minutes of effort.

Producing cost effectively? For a small miniatures company, running a print farm of Photons now makes more financial sense IMO than resin casting. For a start, as a DLP type machine it cures the entire layer at once by projecting UV light through a masking image created by the LCD screen under the vat, meaning that you can add anywhere up to a full squad of 28-32mm infantry and it will print them just as quickly as a single miniature, so producing multiples of the same thing is actually very efficient. Secondly, the level of knowledge required to operate them successfully is much lower - you can become familiar with a resin printer in an afternoon, it can take months of practice to get good at making production molds for resin casting. Thirdly, the equipment isn't actually any more expensive - you don't do production resin casting without vacuum chambers to degas your mold rubber and pressure chambers to cast the resin inside, and all in(pumps & compressors, hoses, fittings, the actual chambers) even just one of each can cost twice as much as a Photon. On top of that, printers don't require you to store molds, your entire catalogue can be digital and stock produced on-demand.

As for a typical gamer, that depends what you mean by typical. Little Timmy? No. The type of folks who buy everything in a GW store and use Official GW Clippers because Peachy & Duncan say to do that in their videos? No. The moment you start talking about people who's selection of hobby-related tools goes beyond a few brushes though, I'd say it's absolutely justified.

Oh look, hobby elitism. In a thread about GW? How shocking.

We're all so deeply impressed by your ability. Truly.