Here a Rope, There a Rope

Today we’ve got some simple yet essential scatter terrain and a mech miniature worthy of your 3D printer. It’s time to dust off your Bowline and Clove Hitch knots, sailor man!

Sometimes the best 3D-printed scatter terrain is the best scatter terrain. Keeping it simple and dropping some subtle pieces here and there can liven up any DnD gameboard.

Aether Studios, the creator of our beloved Hovertrains, knows exactly what we speak here, and they’ve answered the call with this fun Sailor Scatter set. Besides these nifty rope STLs, there are other detailed accent pieces like nautical tables, potato buckets, various naval crates, and even a rope line ratchet piece.

DM Ben grabbed a brush to color up these nautical accessories and kept the rope coloring process super basic.

• Prime Black
• Apply slapchop base
• Basecoat with P3 Menoth White
• Cover in a Brown Wash
• Finish with a blotted Black Wash

Now our ropes look all worn and used (and heavy). Even better, they can complement a traditional pirate ship, an airship, and even The Forgotten Rails’ Hovertrains. Also, how often does an adventurer’s rope item come into play? Now you have an easy marker on the gameboard to keep track of it! #winning

In our ongoing DnD campaigns, The Forgotten Rails has ushered in a new era of mechanization. New service and industrial Construct prototypes are becoming more and more prevalent out in the wild, and Waterdeep’s citizens are both nervous and in awe of their raw power.

We’ve been fortunate that EC3D Designs, as they have a growing series of affordable sets that give us a slew of supportless STLs to fit this dawn of machines narrative, including:

• Bolts & Brimstone
• Ghost City
• Novus Landing
• Beyond the Badlands
• The Ignis Quadrant

You really can’t go wrong with any of these sets, and their supportless STLs print like a champ.

Hence, we wanted to showcase this cool Clockwork Oxen by EC3D Designs. This mighty mechanical beast is from their Bolts and Brimstone Kickstarter. Heavy metal at its best, right?!

This powerful Construct’s job is to pull things…really, really heavy things. The trade-off is that this initial version doesn’t move very fast (yet). However, it can work 24/7, so there’s a nice productivity trade-off. This particular model is also known to break down more often than not, while also requiring a lot of different parts…growing pains, right?

DM Ben has been pressed into brush duty since our resident painters are currently flooded with larger projects. So, he kept this print very simple color-wise: Army Painter Speedpaint Enchanted Steel and Army Painter Fanatic True Copper for the accents. The blue eyes (Army Painter Warpaints Elven Armour) always represent the “power on” signal.

Now, if only we had some ropes we could tie to these large crates so our new Clockwork Oxen could move that oversized Hovertrain cargo into the warehouse… #WinkWink

Until next time!