Almost a year ago, while participating in our local Winter Campaign of Dropzone Commander, the campaign manager came in with some nifty templates. These templates are made to act like a base for the buildings to keep them square, which is an issue because the buildings usually fold flat for storage and don’t easily spring back into shape. I was able to use them in a game and I loved them but not owning a 3D printer, I could only look on. I even tried my own hand at it with my CNC machine but it didn’t work out too well.
Thingiverse user Scooper4711 had the files up and with my friend’s 3D printer going strong, he was gracious enough to crank some out for testing.
The way Stephen set up these models were great as you could vary some of the tolerance before you printed. We went with a 2mm wide trough and a 5mm tall wall. This seemed to work well for all the buildings and the test prints came out great.
These square-shaped buildings are usually the worst offenders at coming out crooked.
You can squeeze them back to try to get them to stay square but it usually doesn’t help that much.
With them not being square, they also tend to teeter back and forth which is not the greatest thing when you have your painted infantry models balanced up top.
The other nice thing for me was my ruined buildings from Empires at War already have an extending base from the building edge so they both fit in well.
Turning the base into a sidewalk works very well to keep the piece in theme with the surroundings.
And finally, the bases printed in a grey PLA blend well enough for me that I don’t feel the need to paint them. This is nice in that they are instantly table ready from the printer bed.
A big thanks to my friend, Reese, for printing these out and to Stephen for putting the models up on Thingiverse.