Whether you need an old mysterious abandoned fortress to use as a smugglers hideout, or a prison for your fantasy games, or a headquarters building on a primitive sci-fi world, we have something that you should take a look at. This 3d printed terrain piece by Caledonia Miniatures is very versatile. I just scooped it off the printer bed and quickly slapped a couple colors on it, and it is already looking great. I’ll go back and do a little sanding plus add some filler where needed in a few spots when I have some spare time. Honestly, it is good enough for me for game use, but I do want to get a better photo to share. This test print was run very fast and at 78% of full size. As most of you know, I prefer to game with Old School minis which tend to be True25mm. 78% size will work well for 20mm, 1/72, or True25.
When I say a couple colors, I mean it. It is printed in black PLA so I didn’t even prime it. Just using inexpensive craft acrylic paints (I used both some FolkArt and DecoArt Americana because I had them on hand from another project), I did a quick drybrushing of everything. First a dark gray over all the stone parts followed by tan. Then over all the wood parts, I did dark brown followed by coffee. Then with a smaller brush, all the metal bits were painted in a metallic paint called Espresso. A couple hours while in front of the TV last night, and here it is. I’m sure all of you can do much better! I just wanted to show how fast and easy it is to get some really decent results on this piece, even if you are not a professional level painter with premium supplies.
The main tower is 4 floors plus the roof. The two small towers are the the base plus the top. The tower sections are easily removed to reveal playable interiors. The doors are loose pieces so you can indicate if the door is open/closed. They can also easily be affixed in place if you don’t want to fiddle with them. If you are leaving them loose, try gluing them to some thin cardstock bases. The multiple individual pieces also make it easy to pack for transport/storage. The tower sections are indexed so they stay in place, but they can also each be rotated 180° which allows you to vary the appearance somewhat. I prefer it laid out as shown above and below. I’ll show the artist’s layout later.
We are offering the base fortress without the ladder and jail bars shown above, being that a good number of people will likely not need or want them. Besides, from “Things I’ll do if I ever become an Evil Overlord” rule #231: Do not leave ladders randomly leaning up again the watchtowers for the enemy to use to sneak in. Sorry, I just made that one up but it should be on the list if it isn’t already. Well, maybe they are the assault ladder that the attackers have brought. For the folks that want these extra pieces, it will be simple to add them on to any order. Also, the interior set of stairs shown below are offered separately. I’ll list the 4 reasons that I don’t like them and you can decide if you want them or not.
The first reason is that they are not needed. No other floor has stairs and the curve of them only fits this floor (so you cannot simply print out 3 more sets). It implies that there are loose ladders present, or built into the walls, that are not shown.
Second is that they take up a lot of floor space. This first floor is the largest of all of them, but the stairs take up the space that 4 or maybe 5 minis could occupy. And yes, while battling on the stairs is great fun, these steps are too small to hold a miniature except for the very top step pad (which brings up the next issue).
Third is that the roof plus each floor other than the first, each have a trap door. The trap door is the exact same size (or near enough) as the top stair pad. And the top stair pad is only (as you can see by the Death Raider standing on it in the above photo) about knee high to the floor level. If you don’t have good visual spatial relations, imagine this. You are on the second floor and open the trap door. Immediately below that opening is the top pad of the set of stairs. There is no way to move yourself to the next step down (or any other step) because the floor is in the way as you try to move sideways. Unless, of course, you are able to transform into a puddle like Odo in Star Trek to slip through the small knee high spot between the floor and step.
Before I talk about the fourth reason, we need to review the layout that Caledonia Miniatures uses. In all their images, they use the configuration shown below. It seems like another evil overlord rule should be that flanking towers should always protect the only ground level door from attack. But as they say, your mileage may vary. This orientation of the second floor (which has the doors to the walkways) must be as shown below in order to use the set of stairs. Well, that’s a bit extreme… It has to be if you want the stairs to line up with the trap door. There are not any stair and trap door police that will raid your game if they do not line up. And as mentioned for #3 above, you could not actually use the trap door anyway even if they were lined up, so maybe it does not matter to you. I like to think my orientation is better. The trap door is right above the main entrance door. Not a good place to set up a loose ladder in case the door opens abruptly, but I can certainly imagine a ladder built into the back of that door.
I guess to sum up, if you get one of these sets, you have some flexibility as to how to set it up. And as long as you are happy with how it looks, and it works for you, then you did it right. As for mine, I’m going to cut up those ladders and glue them to the interior walls and not use the set of stairs. It will be a typical stronghold for the Sitan Humanoids when playing Fictioneers: Legacy, and will be any number of different warlords’ fortresses for fantasy gaming.
We are selling these (under license from Caledonia Miniatures) in our shop here. We print these in Black PLA. PLA, or polylactic acid, is a thermoplastic monomer derived from renewable, organic sources. It is lightweight and pretty durable. A drawback is that it melts at a fairly low temperature, so for example, you would not want to leave these pieces in your car on a hot day or they might warp. Our default size for these prints will be at 78% of full size as it shown below. That will have it stand around 12″ / 30cm wide and 9″ / 22cm tall. If you want one printed at a different size, please use the contact form to get a quote from us.
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