3D Printed WW1 trenches are painted and table ready!

 I have finally finished painting up my 3d Printed trenches for my 10mm WW1 troops.  They have shown up a few times on the blog but are finally table ready!

If you are going to play WW1 Western Front at any scale, trenches are vital pieces of terrain to have in your collection. Ideally, trenches would be carved into a terrain board so that troops are truly under the level of the ground (like Sidney Roundwood's amazing terrain boards)  

But, trenches that sit on top of the ground cloth are more flexible and meet my other needs better as well. My requirements were:

1. Flexible layouts
2. The right size for my 10mm troops and handle the 40mm x 20mm bases they are on.
3. Don't stick up too high above the table.
4. Be rugged and able to stand up to abuse

Number 2 was difficult, I had previously tried Flames of War sized trenches for 15mm, but I felt my 10mm guys looked like they were in the Los Angeles River and not a trench. 

This was the perfect problem to solve with (drum roll) my 3d printer! For an inexpensive FDM printer like my Crealty Ender 3, making terrain is an ideal project.  All I did was take another guy's 28mm trenches he had designed and posted to Thingieverse and (with his permission) I remixed them and shrunk them down to the exact size I wanted and created the exact sections I wanted as well.

You can download the STL files here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4150347  

I printed a stack of these up a few months ago and have finally finished painting them, including gluing sand for texture (I do not know how to do textures in 3d design programs yet)

(Click pictures to enlarge)

Here is the VERY messy process in progress

Here is a layout to show you what types of setups I can do.

A Vickers HMG in a sap.

A British section occupying a firing bay waiting for the Hun.  All of my troops are Pendraken 10mm mounted on 3mm thick bases, to give you an idea of size. 

Here are the unique pieces.  If you click and enlarge the photo, you can see I have the ability to add dugout openings as well.

I am very pleased with how they turned out.  The next stop is to refight every Western Front scenario in the Too Fat Lardies scenario book and in their WW1 compendium, Play The Game.

Until next time, good gaming!