Reddit user VooDooMon used his Flashforge Creator X to 3D print custom parts and accessories for his Warhammer 40K models. He posted about his latest project on the Warhammer 40k subreddit and his set of VTOL wings and rotors made for an Imperial Guard Valkyrie look almost like they were part of the original kit.
Warhammer 40,000 (or 40K) is a tabletop miniature game created by Games Workshop where players assemble, paint and play with small plastic or metal figures and vehicles. The game takes place in a gritty science fiction future where genetically modified humans, aliens and religious fanatics exist in centuries of endless wars and battles. Tabletop games like 40K don’t really require you to customize your models, but a lot of players like to try and give their armies a unique feature or figure. Modellers often use “bits” to customize figures, and sometimes even mix two kits together and “kitbash” an entirely new model.
As you’d expect, fans of tabletop games are starting to get very excited about what 3D printing can do for their hobby. If you search Thingiverse for the term “40K” you’re going to get well over a hundred hits, and you get five times that number on Shapeways. Of course most tabletop minis are small enough that the average desktop 3D printer probably isn’t going to produce models as detailed as those manufactured by Games Workshop using injection molding. But that isn’t going to be the case for long, and as home 3D printing gets more accurate, companies like Games Workshop are going to find themselves in trouble. Trouble most fans won’t worry about causing them considering their history of price gouging and huge, random price increases.
VooDooMon, otherwise known as Sean Teague, has been playing Games Workshop games for over four years, got into 3D printing about two years ago and has been creating his own parts and bits almost as long. His most recent creation was a fantastically detailed set of VTOL wings for an airship kit called the Imperial Valkyrie, a model priced at $66.00.
His replacement Valkyrie wings were printed on his Flashforge Creator X dual extruder, and he has been very happy with the print quality and found the printer had very little problems with the extruder jamming or other technical problems. While 3D printing isn’t an especially cheap hobby, when compared to Games Workshop prices it really starts to make sense. Not only in the cost of the original models, but in the time and skill required to customize new figures.
“The reason I didn’t kitbash from another model is because it wouldn’t be exactly the way I like it. Sure, I could cut other things to bits and then spend hours of gluing and re-cutting and maybe even require more parts be bought in case my bash didn’t turn out well,” explained Teague to me via email. “3D printing the parts lets me create my conversion, print out the parts, find out what’s wrong with the parts, and print out new drafts for pennies rather than 10s if not 100s of dollars.”
The VTOL wings were printed in Octave brand 1.75mm filament, although Teague admits it was simply the first result on Amazon that had positive ratings for the 3D printing subreddit. He told Reddit that while he tried an acetone bath, his parts were too thin, lost too much detail and the corners became too rounded so he was going to stick to wet sanding the parts down.
His Valkyrie project is still in progress, but you can keep tabs on it by checking out this and his other 3D printing projects on his blog. He has also received such a positive reaction from the Warhammer 40k community on Reddit that he opened an Etsy store where he will start selling prints of his 3D models.
