Train Tuesday Part 93: A Five-gun Salute!

As we continue to build out our Hovertrain pirate-plundering crew, we suddenly realized that we forgot to give them some classic weapons that go boom in the moonlight, so…let’s go!

DM Ben isn’t too keen about going overboard with Sci-fi weaponry for our Hovertrains campaign setting. Gameplay would get too complicated and bogged down. Besides, that’s part of the running gag, right? They can create floating trains, but they still use primitive cannons for big blasts?! Why yes…yes they do.

If there’s one thing the 3D printing community isn’t short on, it’s the number of different pirate-esque cannons available for purchase or free download. Like, our powder-puffed steel shooters are everywhere. We’ve even featured a few of our favs in a previous swashbuckling post. So, we’ll certainly use different 3D prints depending on our Dungeon Master’s mood or cooked-up scenario. Variety is the spice of life here.

DM Ben insisted that our cannon STLs be versatile enough to use in a variety of game situations. By land or by sea, he wanted these Ironside 3D prints to be standalone in nature and small enough to fit into other tight terrain spaces. Meaning, ensuring the cannon itself is not attached to a particular terrain type, as we also plan to use the majority of our pirate builds for both water and land environments. One encounter, the cannon could be sitting on a Hovertrain flatcar one minute or resting below deck the next.

EC3D Designs has several ships in its Depths of the Savage Atoll Kickstarter, including the Devil’s Scorn, the Maiden’s Gambit, and the Undead Galleon, which are all at various sizes. You’re starting ship needs are definitely covered in this sea-worthy set. Yet, we’ll focus on these smaller cannons that come in two pieces and just need a little Loctite Super Glue Gel to come together.

We’ve featured this maker many times here on 3DRPGPrints.com, and 95% of the time, it’s supportless printing. Alas, this marvelous maker just felt it was easier to do this boom box as two pieces. We have a single STL for the end barrel and another one for the cannon’s body. Normally, we can’t stand assembly 3D prints, but we also understand that sometimes, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Plus, these were super simple to glue.

We actually 3D-printed six cannons in total, so we had enough firepower to use them in all sorts of DnD one-shots, but we inadvertently left one in the display case during their photo shoot. Whoops. Oh well, you get the idea here. Now, these smaller artillery pieces aren’t meant to knock down a huge castle wall. Instead, these field guns are primarily designed to disable targets, whether moving or stationary. 😉

As we mentioned above, we also want to place them on Hovertrains. Meaning, they could be facing out a window or a side door. Or, even better, they are sitting on a flat car or two. Pretty frickin’ cool, right?! Mini and scatter terrain spatial placements will often be at a premium, so we gotta be smart with our picks.

Best of all, these portable powder kegs will also naturally fit well in outdoor settings, like storming a fort or a protected compound. And of course, our new iron tinderboxes will fit nicely on our Aether Studios pirate ship that we’re looking forward to sharing in a future post.

Until next time!