3D Printing Bases, Movement Trays, Counters and Accessories

Most of our focus so far on Wargaming3D.com has been around printing large items like WW2 AFVs and terrain, but what are some other things you should consider 3D printing for miniature wargaming, regardless of the scale?

One thing I’ve found myself printing a lot of recently is accessories and “greebles” on both my FDM and resin printers lately, and heres what I think you should consider.

Textured Bases and Base Details:

If you are looking for standard bases suitable for wargames that use rounded bases, then I suggest this set from BREXIT of The Makers Cult Patreon available here. It contains all the standard base sizes that you might find for a game like Warhammer 40,000 or the Age of Sigmar.

However I’m not personally a fan of printing the bases themselves, as in my view its often cheaper and faster to get them from china such as Wargame Bases World via Aliexpress. In my view my printer is better spending its time printing tanks and terrain than a standard base.

Where things really start to get interesting is textured bases for your characters and heroes. There is a wide variety of bases suitable for fantasy, historical and science fiction available for free download on thingiverse.

Base Converters:

Recently I’ve picked up a lot of classic Space Marines and Orks for the Games Workshop game Warhammer 40,000 dating all the way back to the Rogue Trader Era. In the latest edition base sizes have changed to better reflect the size and the status of these miniatures, with the vast majority of standard Orks and Space Marines moving from a 25mm base to the larger 32mm base.

Now I’m not a fan of having to rebase all of them, not to mention that many of the older metal miniatures have a tab that fits into the old style “slottabases” that they fit into. I’m not planning on cutting up 30 year old classic miniatures just to rebase them. The simplest solution however is a base converter. These are two pieces that glue to the rim of the base allowing it to expand to the larger, regulation 32mm size, quickly and easily, any gaps in the join can be covered in filler, and the top can be covered in basing grit allowing you to quickly and easily rebase an entire army once you’ve printed the converters.

Base Adaptors:

In a similar situation to the above, when Warhammer Fantasy battle moved from massed ranks to a smaller sized game for Age of Sigmar they also moved from 20mm square bases to 28mm round and from 25mm square bases to 32mm round. Now I play a mixture of fantasy games including The 9th Age and Warlords of Erehwon, so if I was ever to consider playing Age of Sigmar (which I don’t currently), I’d want any basing change to be reversible. This is where a removable adaptor comes into play such as this set from KalFoxx on Thingiverse.

These simply clip on and are removable if you are playing multiple gaming systems and don’t want to permanently rebase your models. You will notice a small drawback to this however, in that the corners of the squared off bases do protrude from the rounds, especially the oval ones – so that is something to consider if you are going down this route, but if you want the choice between basing for rank and file AND skirmish sized games then this solution is ideal.

Movement Trays

If you play any sort of unit based game, whether its rank and file such as The 9th Age or classic Warhammer Fantasy Battle – or something that is more skirmish based such as Warhammer 40,000 or Bolt Action, you’ll want to consider movement trays for those larger units, especially if you play a horde army such as Undead, Orcs & Goblins or Russians!

There are lots of versions to choose from if you do a quick search of Thingiverse, whether you are dealing with 25mm, 32mm or 40mm rounds, or virtually any size of square base.

Counters and Accessories

Another simple thing to print that will make your wargaming experience better is counters and other accessories. Recently I’ve printed a wide range of widgets to use in my games, including a turning template for 30 and 45 degree angles for cruel seas, objective markers for flames of war, objective markers, skill bands and dug in markers for flames of war/nam. If there are counters or markers for your wargame, you can almost guarantee there will be a 3D printed equivalent.