proxymtg@protonmail.com TLDR Using PLA at $20 per kilogram, a useful planning range looks something like this: Dungeon Size Example Filament Example Print Time Filament + Electricity* Small encounter set 1.5 kg 75 hr About $32 Full modular dungeon 3 kg 150 hr About $63 Large campaign set 5 kg 250 hr About $106 *Examples assume a … Read more
TLDR A spool of filament can turn into a surprising amount of tabletop. That is one of the things that makes 3D printed terrain so appealing. You are not limited to the walls, buildings, ruins, or dungeon tiles that happen to come in a box. Once you have a printer and a good set of … Read more
TLDR For most FDM tabletop terrain, a strong starting profile is: Setting Starting Point Nozzle 0.4 mm Layer height 0.20 mm Walls/perimeters 3 Infill 10–15% Supports Off unless needed Filament PLA First layer Use your printer’s proven default Print speed Start with the established filament/printer profile These are starting points, not universal rules. A giant … Read more
TLDR A dungeon tile looks simple until you try to design a complete dungeon around it. The floor is the easy part. The difficult questions start at the edges. Where does the wall go? Does it consume part of the playable square? How do two floors connect? What happens at a corner? Can the same … Read more
TLDR Terrain doesn’t ask much from filament in the traditional engineering sense. A dungeon wall doesn’t need to hold up an engine. A stone floor doesn’t need to survive outdoors for ten years. What terrain does need is good detail, reliable printing, reasonable durability, and a material cheap enough that printing an entire dungeon doesn’t … Read more
TLDR It’s easy to assume that smaller layers always make better terrain. Technically, finer layers can improve surface quality. But if you print an entire dungeon at 0.08 or 0.12 mm when the pieces look nearly identical at 0.20 mm from across the gaming table, you may be spending a lot of extra printer time … Read more
TLDR A 3D printed tavern can look perfectly reasonable on your computer and completely wrong once a miniature walks through the door. That is the problem with 3D printed terrain scale. There are several measurements in play at the same time. A file might be described as 28mm terrain, 32mm terrain, 1:56 scale, or compatible … Read more
TLDR A dragon miniature and a twelve-inch castle wall may both be STL files, but they ask very different things from a 3D printer. That is the most important point in the FDM vs resin for 3D printed terrain debate. Resin has a deserved reputation for incredible detail. But terrain is usually much larger than … Read more
TLDR One of the pleasant surprises of owning a 3D printer is discovering how little plastic is actually inside many large terrain pieces. A castle wall can look substantial while still being mostly hollow inside. A dungeon tile may use only a small amount of PLA. And even a large building doesn’t necessarily require anything … Read more