From the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]
From the article:
Every time a new 3D printer startup graced the front page of Hacker News, this proclamation would echo from the comments section like a prophecy from a very boring oracle: "This will destroy Games Workshop." Reader, it has not destroyed Games Workshop. [...]
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Since the beginning of the game, 40k casual games have allowed proxies. Proxies are stand-ins for specific units that you need for an army but don't have. [...]
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So players had proxies. Anything from a Coke can to another unit entirely. Basically, if it had the same size base and roughly the same height, most people would consider it allowable. "This empty Red Bull can is my Dreadnought." Sure. Fine. We've all been there.
This is where I first started to see 3D-printed miniatures enter the scene.
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When I was invited to watch someone print off minis with a resin 3D printer, it reminded me a lot of the meth labs in my home state of Ohio. And I don't mean that as hyperbole. I mean there were chemicals, ventilation hoods, rubber gloves, and a general atmosphere of "if something goes wrong here, it's going to go very wrong." The guy giving me the tour had safety goggles pushed up on his forehead. He was wearing an apron. At one point, he said the phrase "you really don't want to get this on your skin" with the casual tone of someone who had definitely gotten it on his skin.
In practice, the effort to get the STL files, add supports, wash off the models with isopropyl alcohol, remove supports without snapping off tiny arms, and finally cure the mini in UV lights was exponentially more effort than I'm willing to invest. And I say this as someone who has painted individual eyeballs on figures smaller than my thumb. I have a high tolerance for tedious bullshit. This exceeded it.
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Here's the thing: getting the raw plastic minis is not the time-consuming part.
First, you need to paint them. I take about two hours to paint each model, and I'm far from the best painter out there. I'm solidly in the "looks good from three feet away" category, which is also how I'd describe my general appearance. Vehicles take longer because they're bigger—maybe 10-20 hours for one of those. We're talking somewhere in the ballpark of 150 hours to paint everything that you need to paint for a standard army.
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The printer didn't give them more time. It didn't give them more skill. It just gave them more unpainted plastic, which, brother, I have plenty of already.
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So the next time someone tells you that some new technology is going to "disrupt" something you love, ask yourself: do they actually understand why people love it? [...]
Yes and no? I have two 3d printers (technically 3, but one I need to get rid of) and have printed quite a lot of miniatures on my resin one (other two are FDM). The resin one came in clutch a...
Yes and no?
I have two 3d printers (technically 3, but one I need to get rid of) and have printed quite a lot of miniatures on my resin one (other two are FDM). The resin one came in clutch a couple of years ago, as I'd been collecting for a couple of years up to that point, a Gloomspite Gitz army for Age of Sigmar.
As the author says, it is 100% true that FOMO rules the day and Gitz were very hard to acquire. I pieced together most of an army by buying stuff second hand, off ebay or even watching GW's site for restocks. But I'd signed up for a tournament that was three months away and I didn't want to bring my Nighthaunt, as they were currently terrible (a large reason I do not play any Warhammer anymore), but I still only had most of an army.
Anyway, this coupled with being a broke father of two caused me to start cranking with my resin 3d printer. I found models I wanted, but weren't in print anymore and if you could find them on eBay, went for hundreds of dollars, unassembled, unpainted. I managed to find an STL for them and get them printed. Other models, such as Rockgut Trolls come in a kit with enough pieces to build 6 of them, but GW intentionally only puts three sets of legs in the kit, so you can build at most 3. I found an STL for the legs and then was able to build three more trolls.
I didn't want to buy two $40 boxes of Squigs, so I printed off a variety of them to fill in what I had. Ditto a $120 box set that came with one model I wanted, which GW refused (at the time) to sell separate, so I found an adequate proxy and printed that off. In total, probably 40% of what I brought to that tournament was 3d printed and I was pretty happy about that; I wasn't giving GW more money and I was able to get the models I wanted at an affordable price (or even free in some cases).
Now, all that said, would I 3d print more Warhammer? Probably not. Not only am I kind of over the "army sized" wargames, but as the author implies, it's kind of a pain in the ass. I don't go to great lengths to protect myself from my resin printer; I do have it in my utility closet, vented outside and I wear rubber gloves when I do it, but no other special protective gear. It's been fine in the many years I've been doing it. But it is kind of a pain to find the STL you want, properly support it, print it and possibly reprint many other times if it ends-up failing because your supports were wrong. Then of course, the clean-up process and it all becomes a lot more involved than the kind of meditative process of clipping a sprue and building a model slowly at your desk.
That said, I do still use my resin 3d printer when needed. Most recently, I printed off a Lance of Mechs and tanks for Battletech which CGL does not sell in any boxes. It was a pleasure to print the little guys because I really only needed less than 10 models, so it was quite easy to get things going and get myself setup for a campaign I was doing with some friends. This is where the 3d printer came in clutch again.
It also comes in clutch for another game I play called Bolt Action, a WW2 based game. Warlord games is also pretty expensive, but also doesn't necessarily sell all the weird, bespoke, experimental and different vehicles history saw during the conflict. So it's fun to go find an STL for some obscure tank and get that printed off. The majority of my tanks for my British 8th Army in North Africa were 3d printed by me, because I couldn't find an era appropriate British Sherman--most kits being late war--nor could I find weirder kits for tanks like the A9 Cruiser.
Lastly, I very much agree with the author that there is some mental roadblock in terms of having the "proper model" with GW games. Even I, as someone who doesn't play tournaments or Warhammer anymore, very much succumbs to this. I have four Warhammer armies and aside from the Gitz which are partially 3d printed, if I were to have more Necrons, Orks or Nighthaunt, I would absolutely purchase the official models. They generally look good and it just...feels appropriate in a way that I don't care about when it comes to games of Battletech and Bolt Action. Although, all that said, having the my Gitz be partially 3d printed does not bother me in the slighest; I think because they were generally so difficult to acquire in the first place and all the effort I went to to make them appear authentic is part of that. Many of the models wouldn't be obvious that they weren't official if I didn't tell you.
Edit: I should also say: 3d Printing is dirt cheap, in spite of what the author says. My resin 3d printer was free, given to me by a friend, but actually only costs about $200. Plus a wash and cure station for $100 (I actually only recently bought this to cut down on mess. Previously I used an old jar for cleaning and a cheap $10 UV light for curing) and resin is less than $20 for a kilo, generally. My newer FDM printer (which I print a lot of terrain on) was $360 out the door and two rolls of filament is about $30. Cheaper than the $30-$50 boxes of terrain I'd need otherwise. At this point I have spent money on STL's, but only about $50 and I've printed probably about $150 worth of terrain. So still not up to that original cost yet, but there will be a lot more printed and I also use the FDM to print stuff for other hobbies, as well as components for friends and such.
Not to nitpick an obviously rhetorical line, but no, they fabricated $3k worth of hard-to-get miniatures out of $5k of equipment and supplies, plus dozens of hours learning to use the thing and...
This person had basically fabricated $3,000 worth of hard-to-get miniatures out of thin air and spite.
Not to nitpick an obviously rhetorical line, but no, they fabricated $3k worth of hard-to-get miniatures out of $5k of equipment and supplies, plus dozens of hours learning to use the thing and dozens more actually printing, and hundreds of somebody's hours modeling or scanning to get actual printable models.
Mat kind of touches on this point later (e.g. resin printing is a nasty process you need a dedicated, ventilated workspace for), but it's worth repeating that 3D printing isn't free even if you don't value your own time or safety at all.
I also, unfortunately, don't think Mat's conclusion generalizes:
So the next time someone tells you that some new technology is going to "disrupt" something you love, ask yourself: …are they just looking at a spreadsheet and seeing numbers that don't make sense to them?
Because if it's the latter, you can probably ignore them. They'll be wrong. They're almost always wrong.
This is, unfortunately, only true for small niches like wargaming. If investors see a big market they think they could (typically illegally) usurp from existing players, they will absolutely go for it, and they have enough cash to force the issue regardless of what existing customers think or value.
They definitely didn’t spend $5k on equipment. Resin printers are generally cheaper than FDM printers, even. Essentially there’s just two components: a UV display, and a platform that can move up...
Not to nitpick an obviously rhetorical line, but no, they fabricated $3k worth of hard-to-get miniatures out of $5k of equipment and supplies
They definitely didn’t spend $5k on equipment. Resin printers are generally cheaper than FDM printers, even. Essentially there’s just two components: a UV display, and a platform that can move up very carefully. Way less complicated than a FDM printer with a print head that needs to move precisely in 3 axis. You have one moving component, and it moves in 1 axis.
You can get a very high quality resin printer for like $300. Not even entry level - that’s like mid-level.
The effort is certainly true. But the cost is negligible.
My Elegoo Mars 4 printer was under £200 new. Resin is maybe £10/litre if you buy in bulk and it goes a pretty long way. It took me less than an hour to set up and I've never had to touch it in the...
$3k worth of hard-to-get miniatures out of $5k of equipment and supplies, plus dozens of hours learning to use the thing and dozens more actually printing, and hundreds of somebody's hours modeling or scanning to get actual printable models.
My Elegoo Mars 4 printer was under £200 new. Resin is maybe £10/litre if you buy in bulk and it goes a pretty long way. It took me less than an hour to set up and I've never had to touch it in the months since. The learning curve if you're printing someone else's models is very shallow, literally just a few clicks and you're going. Maybe spend half an hour reading if you really want but you don't need to.
3D modelling is a whole different ballgame, I will admit. Someone does have to put those hours in, although if you have one of the miniatures on hand photogrammetry is pretty damn good these days - you can "3D scan" with a smartphone and get a decent chunk of the way there. Yes, prints take time to run but it's not lost time, you hit print and then you can do something else for however long it takes. A few minutes hands on post-processing after printing and you're ready for paint.
I don't know how big a Warhammer army is but I'd be astonished if it cost more than a few hundred $currency to print and that's including the printer! Time costs maybe more than that, but not necessarily and almost certainly not into the thousands. There's a LOT of Warhammer models out there for free already.
Also the dangers of resin printing are somewhat overblown.
It is very important and reassuring that all of the studies we found recorded average VOC levels in resin printers that were well within the official safety levels prescribed by health organisations. This is why there is generally no big health concern surrounding resin printer fumes.
This is even less of an issue if you use water-washable resins, which are less nasty. Not as strong, but you don't need strength for miniatures.
A Bambu A1-Mini costs about $250 CAD, and a 2mm print-head will run you another $20. I don't play Warhammer but I enjoy printing/sanding/painting the figurines. I was never going to spend $1000 on...
A Bambu A1-Mini costs about $250 CAD, and a 2mm print-head will run you another $20.
I don't play Warhammer but I enjoy printing/sanding/painting the figurines. I was never going to spend $1000 on official Warhammer pieces, but I really enjoy my little army for what it is.
I think that's slightly exaggerated at the end. Customers collectively do get somewhat of a say, because product launches from big companies do fail fairly often. Lots of Google's products failed...
I think that's slightly exaggerated at the end. Customers collectively do get somewhat of a say, because product launches from big companies do fail fairly often. Lots of Google's products failed to get traction (by their standards) and they eventually cancelled them.
It might not seem like it because it's about whether it's popular with other people and the company does decide whether to keep trying or pull the plug. We don't have control over this as individuals.
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Yes and no?
I have two 3d printers (technically 3, but one I need to get rid of) and have printed quite a lot of miniatures on my resin one (other two are FDM). The resin one came in clutch a couple of years ago, as I'd been collecting for a couple of years up to that point, a Gloomspite Gitz army for Age of Sigmar.
As the author says, it is 100% true that FOMO rules the day and Gitz were very hard to acquire. I pieced together most of an army by buying stuff second hand, off ebay or even watching GW's site for restocks. But I'd signed up for a tournament that was three months away and I didn't want to bring my Nighthaunt, as they were currently terrible (a large reason I do not play any Warhammer anymore), but I still only had most of an army.
Anyway, this coupled with being a broke father of two caused me to start cranking with my resin 3d printer. I found models I wanted, but weren't in print anymore and if you could find them on eBay, went for hundreds of dollars, unassembled, unpainted. I managed to find an STL for them and get them printed. Other models, such as Rockgut Trolls come in a kit with enough pieces to build 6 of them, but GW intentionally only puts three sets of legs in the kit, so you can build at most 3. I found an STL for the legs and then was able to build three more trolls.
I didn't want to buy two $40 boxes of Squigs, so I printed off a variety of them to fill in what I had. Ditto a $120 box set that came with one model I wanted, which GW refused (at the time) to sell separate, so I found an adequate proxy and printed that off. In total, probably 40% of what I brought to that tournament was 3d printed and I was pretty happy about that; I wasn't giving GW more money and I was able to get the models I wanted at an affordable price (or even free in some cases).
Now, all that said, would I 3d print more Warhammer? Probably not. Not only am I kind of over the "army sized" wargames, but as the author implies, it's kind of a pain in the ass. I don't go to great lengths to protect myself from my resin printer; I do have it in my utility closet, vented outside and I wear rubber gloves when I do it, but no other special protective gear. It's been fine in the many years I've been doing it. But it is kind of a pain to find the STL you want, properly support it, print it and possibly reprint many other times if it ends-up failing because your supports were wrong. Then of course, the clean-up process and it all becomes a lot more involved than the kind of meditative process of clipping a sprue and building a model slowly at your desk.
That said, I do still use my resin 3d printer when needed. Most recently, I printed off a Lance of Mechs and tanks for Battletech which CGL does not sell in any boxes. It was a pleasure to print the little guys because I really only needed less than 10 models, so it was quite easy to get things going and get myself setup for a campaign I was doing with some friends. This is where the 3d printer came in clutch again.
It also comes in clutch for another game I play called Bolt Action, a WW2 based game. Warlord games is also pretty expensive, but also doesn't necessarily sell all the weird, bespoke, experimental and different vehicles history saw during the conflict. So it's fun to go find an STL for some obscure tank and get that printed off. The majority of my tanks for my British 8th Army in North Africa were 3d printed by me, because I couldn't find an era appropriate British Sherman--most kits being late war--nor could I find weirder kits for tanks like the A9 Cruiser.
Lastly, I very much agree with the author that there is some mental roadblock in terms of having the "proper model" with GW games. Even I, as someone who doesn't play tournaments or Warhammer anymore, very much succumbs to this. I have four Warhammer armies and aside from the Gitz which are partially 3d printed, if I were to have more Necrons, Orks or Nighthaunt, I would absolutely purchase the official models. They generally look good and it just...feels appropriate in a way that I don't care about when it comes to games of Battletech and Bolt Action. Although, all that said, having the my Gitz be partially 3d printed does not bother me in the slighest; I think because they were generally so difficult to acquire in the first place and all the effort I went to to make them appear authentic is part of that. Many of the models wouldn't be obvious that they weren't official if I didn't tell you.
Edit: I should also say: 3d Printing is dirt cheap, in spite of what the author says. My resin 3d printer was free, given to me by a friend, but actually only costs about $200. Plus a wash and cure station for $100 (I actually only recently bought this to cut down on mess. Previously I used an old jar for cleaning and a cheap $10 UV light for curing) and resin is less than $20 for a kilo, generally. My newer FDM printer (which I print a lot of terrain on) was $360 out the door and two rolls of filament is about $30. Cheaper than the $30-$50 boxes of terrain I'd need otherwise. At this point I have spent money on STL's, but only about $50 and I've printed probably about $150 worth of terrain. So still not up to that original cost yet, but there will be a lot more printed and I also use the FDM to print stuff for other hobbies, as well as components for friends and such.
Not to nitpick an obviously rhetorical line, but no, they fabricated $3k worth of hard-to-get miniatures out of $5k of equipment and supplies, plus dozens of hours learning to use the thing and dozens more actually printing, and hundreds of somebody's hours modeling or scanning to get actual printable models.
Mat kind of touches on this point later (e.g. resin printing is a nasty process you need a dedicated, ventilated workspace for), but it's worth repeating that 3D printing isn't free even if you don't value your own time or safety at all.
I also, unfortunately, don't think Mat's conclusion generalizes:
This is, unfortunately, only true for small niches like wargaming. If investors see a big market they think they could (typically illegally) usurp from existing players, they will absolutely go for it, and they have enough cash to force the issue regardless of what existing customers think or value.
They definitely didn’t spend $5k on equipment. Resin printers are generally cheaper than FDM printers, even. Essentially there’s just two components: a UV display, and a platform that can move up very carefully. Way less complicated than a FDM printer with a print head that needs to move precisely in 3 axis. You have one moving component, and it moves in 1 axis.
You can get a very high quality resin printer for like $300. Not even entry level - that’s like mid-level.
The effort is certainly true. But the cost is negligible.
My Elegoo Mars 4 printer was under £200 new. Resin is maybe £10/litre if you buy in bulk and it goes a pretty long way. It took me less than an hour to set up and I've never had to touch it in the months since. The learning curve if you're printing someone else's models is very shallow, literally just a few clicks and you're going. Maybe spend half an hour reading if you really want but you don't need to.
3D modelling is a whole different ballgame, I will admit. Someone does have to put those hours in, although if you have one of the miniatures on hand photogrammetry is pretty damn good these days - you can "3D scan" with a smartphone and get a decent chunk of the way there. Yes, prints take time to run but it's not lost time, you hit print and then you can do something else for however long it takes. A few minutes hands on post-processing after printing and you're ready for paint.
I don't know how big a Warhammer army is but I'd be astonished if it cost more than a few hundred $currency to print and that's including the printer! Time costs maybe more than that, but not necessarily and almost certainly not into the thousands. There's a LOT of Warhammer models out there for free already.
Also the dangers of resin printing are somewhat overblown.
This is even less of an issue if you use water-washable resins, which are less nasty. Not as strong, but you don't need strength for miniatures.
A Bambu A1-Mini costs about $250 CAD, and a 2mm print-head will run you another $20.
I don't play Warhammer but I enjoy printing/sanding/painting the figurines. I was never going to spend $1000 on official Warhammer pieces, but I really enjoy my little army for what it is.
I think that's slightly exaggerated at the end. Customers collectively do get somewhat of a say, because product launches from big companies do fail fairly often. Lots of Google's products failed to get traction (by their standards) and they eventually cancelled them.
It might not seem like it because it's about whether it's popular with other people and the company does decide whether to keep trying or pull the plug. We don't have control over this as individuals.