Recently, 3D Breed Miniatures sent me some samples of their 3D printable models for their new Kickstarter ‘March to Hell: Europe in Flames’. Their last WW2 Kickstarter focused on the Pacific and Early War but their new one is about to deliver a range of models for Late War.
First off here are the basics:
- The “Initial Pledge” is 40 Euros which gets you the German and US forces plus all the stretch goals (more on that later).
- The printable files are 15mm (Pre-supported), 28mm (Pre-supported) and 28mm (unsupported). They also provide the scale reduction to reduce your unsupported 28mm to 15mm. This helps keep the file pack a bit smaller.
- The goals will increase the US and German Forces, then move onto British, US and German Paras. After that comes German, US and British/Canadian winter troops for Battle of the Bulge and finally Russians winter troops.
At the time of writing this, they are 26hrs into the Kickstarter and over thirty times over their requirement to meet the minimum pledge amount and the Paras are also unlocked. They are certainly on track for all the stretch goals. In fact, the pledge page is already teasing that there is another ‘reinforcement’ stretch goal level. They did the same with the last Kickstarter and it included cool stuff like French Resistance forces so definitely intrigued to see what else is announced.
The Models
The samples I have painted up are some US rifleman and a Sherman M4 105mm tank. The Sherman comes with a set of stowage files which are easy to add to the hull and turret using Mesh Mixer before printing, allowing you to really customise each tank. I hope they do the same for their other vehicles as well.
The Infantry have great detail and hopefully you can see just how much comes out with the highlights. I did a lot of the model with contrast paints which seem to work really well with this style of slightly oversized pouches and straps. Basically I found all the detail very easy to pick our and paint.
The style of the infantry is something that needs to be discussed. Its certainly not a ‘real scale’ 15mm. Some people have commented that they can appear a bit ‘squat’ or ‘stumpy’ and by the pictures of the renders I think this is quite fair. 3D Breed have definitely gone for a certain style and in some ways I like that, they are setting out their stall rather than trying to replicate others. Below is a picture of a some stuff from their previous Kickstarter and I do think that once based the effect is less noticeable and actually helps the detail pop out. That said I have seen people re-scale the models by reducing the X and Y axis by 10% to make them a bit ‘thinner’, such is the advantage of 3D printing.
Final thoughts
Having printed a lot of their models from the last Kickstarter I am genuinely excited about this. It will allow me add variety to my FOW forces and the gluten for painting projects that I am, I may even do a second force with these models (I am excited to see their US paras). Of course the 28mm options are also useful for Bolt Action plus you can rescale to 20mm for Battlegroup. Honestly at 40 Euros its immense value if you have a printer and play WW2 games.
It will be interesting to see how the Kickstarter develops over the month. There are a few odd options on the stretch goals that I really hope change. For instance the Germane PZ VII ‘Lowe’ tank and Russian SU101 are very strange options given they were prototypes that didn’t see service. That said 3D Breed have told me they are looking at changing these to the far more useful Kingtiger and SU100 which is great news.
They also came back to me and confirmed that crew for vehicles would be done, although just one set (ie no para crew for jeeps, only generic US). They may add further crew options via the web store in the future.
Finally I did wonder why some of the guns were missing, and 3D Breed have clarified that they wont replicate the files from their previous Kickstarter. Instead during the campaign they are offering a 25% discount on their webstore, therefore you can pick up things like the Pak40 and 57mm/6pdr. In a nice twist all sales on their webstore will also be added to the total kickstarter pledge to help unlock stretch goals.
Again the extra types of crew for these guns (para, winter etc) are not planned in the Kickstarter but could come via the web store later. I would like to to see the iconic 17pdr for the Brit forces added though, so fingers crossed.
In conclusion if you enjoy printing and any WW2 miniatures game I really don’t think you can go wrong backing this at 40 Euros. Its a crazy amount of content which should have something for everyone. 3D Breed have a great track record of delivering their stuff on time as well (a rare thing on kickstarter!).
I have already backed and once released I will stick more examples up on our FB page.
The Sherman looks great but the Infanatry looking “bulky” and unnatural.
3D printing will have an impact on our hobby anyway in the future. But
minis (mostly Infantry) created by computer will always look diffrent to hand designed ones.
In the end it is personal opinion what you like more.
The inf are a bit bulky but as I say you can easily change that with a small rescale of the axis %.
Many of the main companies plastics are now designed in CAD rather than traditional methods.
Abiut the bulkiness, to me it looks like the renders show it up more than when they are printed and painted. And also at this scale, the heroic style of mini works best anyway when it comes to the high contrast style of painting. I think they look pretty good.
I agree, they are great when based and painted. The heroic proportions work well at such a small scale.
Again it is personal opinion. The bulkiness is one thing but the proportion and how the mianture posing, holding rifles and so on, don´t look natural to my eye. But that is problem of most CAD minatures. BF plastic infantry has the same problem.
Well designed metal infantry beats any CAD infantry in 15mm scale from my opinion.