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I recently bought a set of 3D printed figures from a seller on Etsy (Small Scale Prints), from the Hannibal vs Rome range designed by Warprinter from Germany. I ordered a mix of the Etruscans and Samnites, planning to use them to bulk out some of my existing Early Roman armies into other Latin states of that era - armies that I was unlikely to use all that often, but which the completist in me fancied trying anyway a couple of times.



For that sort of thing I wasn't ever going to spend a fortune on, say, Mirliton minis just to leave them in a drawer after a couple of outings, but the idea of having an excuse to take a look at what 3D printing could offer at the moment, and picking up a load of simple to paint minis (these were designed for 10mm, but the vendor scaled them up to 15mm for me) to bang out quickly was exactly what I was needed to prompt me to buy on in to some 3D prints.





Maybe the best summary is to say that "They are what they are" - simply-designed, low cost figures sculpted for 10mm and scaled up to 15mm, and on that basis I think they succeed admirably in what they set out to achieve. Yes, they do still have an air of “Lego” men about them for sure, but I think in some ways that also makes them kinda cute and gives them a real likability factor too (reminscent in some ways of the Lamming 25mm range from back in the day). Stood next to Old Glory 15mm Romans, and at wargaming distances they don't - to me - look all that out of place at all.

Perhaps the more interesting thing for me is that having these guys in-hand, I've begun to see just how easy it is soon going to be for gamers - even using fairly basic 3D design skills - to begin to start playing around in 3D, mixing and matching even simplistic "lego-style" body parts to suddenly cook up entirely new, bespoke, limited run armies and figures to add to their collections.

And, I will stress again, these guys are not trying or claiming to be anatomically accurate works of art - they are just cheap and cheerful "get em on the table" figures.

Interesting times indeed!

(more photos and detail on painting on my website at: https://madaxemandotcom.blogspot.com/2022/05/3d-printed-miniatures-future-has.html)

Very nice! I agree they are not "perfect" but early days, and good enough! The spears are the only "issue" that bugs me, and easy work arounds surely can be found.

I've been working on an entire army for Hail Caesar with these minis that a friend printed.

I'm planning on giving the army to him once I'm done, since they're not going to match most 15mm miniatures.

pinecone77 wrote:
Very nice! I agree they are not "perfect" but early days, and good enough! The spears are the only "issue" that bugs me, and easy work arounds surely can be found.

I actually think the "early days" line may be a little unfair on these guys - they are after all designed to be printed at 6mm-10mm scale, so scaling them up to 15mm is always going to make them look a little crappy - after all, imagine any commercially available 6mm or 10mm metal figures scaled up to 15mm? The thickness of the spears is also part of the same equation too

I was basically being a cheapskate here, and could have tried buying some of the far more detailed proper 15mm figures out there - but I didn't want to drop the cash on (Roman) figures that I already have in metal, so finding these "cheap but out-of-the-scale-they-were-designed-for" ones for an army I dont have seemed like the ideal way to get my hands on some resin prints - and to see if "scaling up" 10mm figures really worked, as there are a lot of them out there too.

For what they are, I think they are fine - but it'd be very unfair to judge what's possible sculpting-quality-wise on the basis of these pumped-up 6-10mm dudes

Only a matter of time till 15mm print on demand, or print at home is the new "normal".