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I'm interested in 3D printing but have never had anything to do with the process, so I tried modelling this in Blender as a proof of concept to see if I'm on the right track.

If you have experience with 3D printing I'd appreciate it if you took a look at the zipped STL file and told me if it's 3D printable, and what I've done wrong if it's not. Or if you want to use it for your army, go ahead: I'd be interested in seeing it in the flesh.

Any more general criticisms are welcome too.

As far as being used as a base for minis, you should have no issues at all in either FDM or LCD printing. I did not look at the stl file, but the pic shows the details fairly well-defined, and that is what will make or break most items - the lack of or too small details just get lost.

Not sure you need it as thick (tall), so might check the height to see if that is truly what you are looking to do.

Nice work!!

Thanks for your input. I modelled the detail on top of the base 3.25mm height, so I could make it shallower either by insetting it into the base or just by reducing the height of the tiles.

Sure - just scale it down on the z axis and re-slice, if you want.

Looks like it should print just fine. The fine cracks on the top might get lost, but if it's printed at a 45 degree angle (which would increase print time and materials on raft and supports) then then should be visible.

If you prepared the file as mesh (i.e. Blender, 3dsmax, etc) it shouldn't have much issue with toolpathing (aka 'watertight').

NURBS models tend to be more problematic during conversion to mesh (for poorly prepared 3d models), creating non-manifold surfaces & non-closed polysurfaces that will confuse your slicing software defining the boundaries.

Even then, most of the slicing softwares can patch up minor holes for you - you just have to make sure it's not eating into a particular detail you're trying to preserve.

If you have a slicing program, what you can do is check layer by layer to make sure there isn't anything funky going on.