Running Head: LASER ENGRAVING AND 3D PRINTING

Laser Engraving Acrylic and 3D Printed Terrain: How can this technology improve the wargaming hobby in the 21st century? Jason Morosky Central Connecticut State University

Author Note This paper was prepared for TE 498, Senior Design Project taught by Dr. Sianez. My online portfolio can be found at http:/www.jmseniordesign.weebly.com.

LASER ENGRAVING AND 3D PRINTING Abstract Wargaming as a hobby has been around for many years, dating back as far as the late

1700s. Even the game of Chess can be considered a wargame, given the nature of the two sides playing against one another. However, as technology improves over time, like anything else the manufacturing process improves and ideas flourish. There are more kinds of wargames available now than there ever have been, and this leads to more innovation and competition in all aspects of the hobby. Things like the website Kickstarter and a wider availability of commercial laser engraving and 3D printers have led to an unprecedented ability for hobbyists to generate items for games, whether they be objective markers, item counters, or even terrain. Internet sites like Thingiverse can let users upload their creations files to be downloaded by other users all over the world for free, which lead to more crowdsourcing, innovation, and open source ideas.

LASER ENGRAVING AND 3D PRINTING Laser Engraving Acrylic and 3D Printed Terrain: How can this technology improve the Wargaming hobby in the 21st century?

The hobby of tabletop wargaming, a recreational hobby where players simulate a battle, which is played out using small figurines to represent the land, sea and/or air units involved (Wikimedia 2013), is one that many people have enjoyed for years. Often people start out with the Games Workshop game Warhammer 40000, a popular sci-fi tabletop game, using only the rulebook and pieces of paper with unit names. Along with these budget armies, tabletop terrain may have been of similar constraint. It often consisted of books stacked to make hills, cardboard boxes for buildings, and larger, colored pieces of paper meant for water features and forests. Later on as someone got more serious into the hobby they would expanded their armies into the actual models, but the terrain may have stayed the same. It was practical and functional, but it never really added to the experience, having your army battle over the cardboard tower or hill of random books. If only there were something that new hobbyists could use to create terrain that would suit their armys looks and needs, without a large monetary need as buying some terrain from the game company itself or making it out of foam from scratch (and hours of labor to boot). While often gaming companies have terrain that suits the generic landscape of the world their games are set in, often times these terrain sets are just that generic, and expensive at that (See Figure 1 and 2). With the advent of laser engraving and the universal 3D printer, terrain and items that help improve the gameplay can be created for significantly less than it would be to buy such items, and in many cases the items dont exist at all in an official capacity. This leaves the hobbyists to their own devices, which often leads to great creations, and provides an outlet for creativity that is often the whole point behind the hobby of miniature wargaming. This paper will examine the options that are now available to hobbyists which were not even a thought 10 years

LASER ENGRAVING AND 3D PRINTING ago, including efforts to create items for two different games: Malifaux, a

steamvictoriohorrorwestpunk (Caroland, 2013) game set in an alternate history wild west made by Wyrd Miniatures, and Warhammer 40000, a sci-fi miniatures game that takes place in the 41st millennium, created by Games Workshop.

Figure 1: An example of some model buildings created for the Warhammer 40000 universe (Games Workshop, 2013).

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Figure 2: An example of some model barricades and bastions created for the Warhammer 40000 universe. (Games Workshop, 2013) What options are available for the new hobbyist that werent available years ago? With the advent of crowdsourcing, the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers (Merriam-Webster, 2013), there are a number of hobbyists out there that create content and put them up on websites such as Thingiverse or Kickstarter. In the case of Thingiverse they are open source files available for free, and in the

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case of Kickstarter, a product idea that needs a funding source. A very recent and great example of the latter idea is the Tablescapes Kickstarter, by Secret Weapon Miniatures (2013, see Figure 3).

Figure 3: An example of the Tablescapes product (Secret Weapon, 2013). Tablescapes is set to be a terrain system for a variety of wargames, with a wide selection of battlefield and terrain choices, such as the Scrap Yard seen in Figure 3 or Urban Streets, which is currently the next terrain board in line to be produced. As of this writing, the project has

LASER ENGRAVING AND 3D PRINTING been funded nearly twice over, and still has 22 days left to get any extra funding, which often leads to faster creation times and more content for those involved. A quick search on Thingiverse for the term warhammer reveals 30+ things, be them

models for sci-fi weapons, bases for the models, and various terrain pieces people have modeled for wargaming use (see Figure 4, 5, 6 and 7).

Figure 4: An example of bases created for Warhammer. (MakerBot, 2013)

Figure 5: An example of a piece of terrain created for the purpose of wargaming. (MakerBot, 2013)

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Figure 6: A second example, this time of a multi-part, modular terrain piece for the purposes of wargaming. (MakerBot, 2013)

Figure 7: An example of a model sci-fi weapon created with Warhammer 40000 in mind. (MakerBot, 2013) As more and more people gain access to 3D printing technology and as solid modeling grows as a medium for creation Thingiverse and companies like MakerBot will only grow larger and will be a repository for all sorts of things. Wargaming tends to be a very specific niche hobby, much like model trains in that regard. A search on Thingiverse for the term iphone reveals a staggering 1,577 things (see figure 8). These things range from phone cases to tripod mounts to car stands. Obviously, an iPhone is not a niche item and has many more results and many more things associated with it, but the results prove the point. Right now the technology just isnt widespread enough to really take advantage of the community. However, the

LASER ENGRAVING AND 3D PRINTING community is there and it is thriving and that is usually the best option available for eventual widespread use. Someday one would hope that Thingiverse and Kickstarter become household names. It seems like every day one cannot go a few pages into the internet without hearing or seeing an advertisement for a new Kickstarter campaign for a new tabletop game or product.

This can only mean good things for the future, and many have said that the future is now. We do live in an era of pocket computers, after all.

Figure 8: A search result on Thingiverse for the term "iphone" (MakerBot, 2013). Malifaux, a game set in an alternate history wild west. Warhammer 40000, a sci-fi game set in the grim darkness of the far future. Each of these games offers its own aesthetic and gameplay options. For the game Malifaux, my own experiences helped draw inspiration for tools to make the gameplay easier to keep track of. Thankfully some helpful hobbyists had similarly been inspired, which gave my own attempts some direction (see figures 9 and 10). The first choice was what to make. It had been decided already that some terrain would be created for use in

LASER ENGRAVING AND 3D PRINTING Warhammer 40k, but that same terrain would not work for the wild west setting of Malifaux. Instead, due to the fact that Malifaux is a very story driven, objective based game, an attempt would be made at creating a set of objective and effect markers. The game uses a variety of objectives in its encounters, from dynamite to a wall of ice or flame, to a supply wagon or

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documented evidence that might need to be obtained from the enemy. These objectives or effects range in size, but according to the rules must be either 30mm or 50mm in diameter. Thus, the plan was to create a set of markers for use in the game. Due to the variety of the objectives many of these could not do double duty, so there were many different unique markers that needed to be designed.

Figure 9: One example of the wood "Victorian Horror" game tokens available online.

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Figure 10: An example of the acrylic "Victorian Horror" game tokens available online. The next decision to make was what medium would be used for the tokens. There were versions of markers put out by other hobbyists (again, see figures 9 and 10) which were done in both an acrylic and a wood. While the wood certainly fit the theme of the game better, it was a medium that I was comfortable with. Acrylic was the next logical choice, and came in a large variety of colors. An orange was eventually settled on for this batch of tokens. There is an intention to do more in other colors if these work well. In Figure 11, you will see the first token that was produced as a test and to get familiar with the laser engraving interface. Functionally the result was exactly what was expected, as were the aesthetic results. Unfortunately as of this writing the laser engraver has been knocked out of focus and the tool is on order, so until that

LASER ENGRAVING AND 3D PRINTING situation has been rectified all there is to show for my efforts is the one test token and the files that will be used to create them (see figure 12).

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Figure 11: The test "Scrap" counter created. However, the tokens are certainly not the only portion of this project. Earlier we discussed the ability of a 3D printer and the options it provides hobbyists in the realm of terrain and model creation. In figures 13 and 14 you can see the two pieces of terrain that were modeled for Warhammer 40000. Figure 13 is a barricade, used to hide infantry behind. Figure 14 is a sensor tower, used for both terrain to hide behind and has in-game rules that confer a bonus to an army if they opt to include one for a specific cost.

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These models were much harder to create than initially expected, especially in the area of material used and time to print. Granted some of this can be attributed to the lack of familiarity regarding the medium, while some of it can be regarded to the technology at hand. While many of us would like to see items like these printed in what is considered a normal timeframe, i.e. instant. And someday the technology will get to that point. But it is not there yet.

Figure 12: The final layout for the 24" x 12" acrylic sheets. Most of the problems noticed during the printing of these items stemmed from the inexperience of the user. When exporting my .ipt to a .stl file, the scales of the measurements were increased. Due to the inexperience, this was not noticed until half the objects were printed. While this was not an issue from a gameplay perspective regarding Warhammer 40000, it was an issue regarding the use of materials. Next time the scale issues will be rectified, as weve discovered the correct scale at which to print the .stl file: .391 percent, so essentially the .stl file makes the drawing 60 percent larger than originally drawn. While you could correct for this in the original drawing, the software used for the printing can scale this down and is much easier to do from there. Doing this also does not skew the blueprints made from the original drawing,

LASER ENGRAVING AND 3D PRINTING which you can also see in figures 13 and 14. In figure 15, you can see a picture of the (mostly) finished products, next to game pieces. The printing was stopped after concerns grew over the

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amount of material being used. That said, although their sizes are not what they were originally meant to be, it does not affect their use in the gameplay. If anything, it only makes them more useful pieces of terrain. As the sensor tower models were never completed, there are currently plans to turn them into weapon platforms instead; using spare bits acquired from Games Workshop kits to complete the model.

Figure 13: A Tau barricade, modeled after the similar barricade found in Figure 2. To conclude, there was much learned throughout this process, specifically in the way of machine maintenance and planning. Although we do not know what occurred with the laser engraving machine, we know that it is out of focus, and it is imperative to have basic maintenance tools for equipment on hand or you end up getting stuck in limbo as my laser

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engraving project has. There is also the factor of creating a model that is to be printed using a 3D medium to use the least amount of material possible. Were I to attempt printing the sensor tower again, I will be cutting the tower into two equal halves, and then putting them together after printing. This should allow them to be printed using far fewer quantities of both structural material and support material. The barricades printed fine, though were a mass batch of them to be done I would suggest printing them in a vertical orientation in order to put more on a plate.

Figure 14: The Tau Sensor Tower for the game Warhammer 40k.

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Figure 15: Completed Barricade models.

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References Advanced Deployment. (2012). Advanced Deployment [Gothic Victorian Horror: Generic Token Set]. Retrieved from http://store.advanceddeployment.com/product/gothic-victorian-horrorgeneric-token-set Advanced Deployment. (2012). Advanced Deployment [Victorian Horror Token Set]. Retrieved from http://store.advanceddeployment.com/product/victorian-horror-token-set Caroland, N. (2013). Nathan Caroland Someone in the know ... Wyrd Miniatures. Retrieved from http://www.wyrd-games.net/member.php?1-Nathan-Caroland Games Workshop [Imperial Sector]. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.gamesworkshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440312a&prodId=prod1095509 Games Workshop [Imperial Strongpoint]. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.gamesworkshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440312a MakerBot. (2013). Search Thingiverse - Thingiverse. Search Thingiverse - Thingiverse. Retrieved from http://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=warhammer Merriam-Webster. (2013). CrowdsourcingAbout Our Definitions: All forms of a word (noun, verb, etc.) are now displayed on one page. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved from http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/crowdsourcing Secret Weapon. (2013, April 4). Tablescapes - by Secret Weapon Miniatures. Kickstarter. Retrieved from http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1084069684/tablescapes-by-secret-weaponminiatures/posts Wikimedia. (2013, April 13). Miniature wargaming. Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_wargaming