Train Tuesday P31: Tanker Time!

Let’s get our Industrial boots on as we explore an upcoming Hovertrain Freight Tanker car release by Aether Studios! Besides moving passengers from Point A to Point B, The Forgotten Rails also wants to move large quantities of goods throughout the Sword Coast. It’s big business and big payouts. All aboard!

Today, we’ll tug on your childhood heartstrings as we showcase Aether Studios‘ Small Tanker Car. Alas, this particular 3D print and corresponding Hovertrain set aren’t available quite yet, but trust us when we say you’ll want to download it as soon as you can.

This cool car comes from the recently released Orc City Express set! It’s a snap to 3D-print and assemble overall. Besides the usual undercarriage (two pieces), you’ll slice two of the Tanker Bed ends, two Tanker Bed Sides, and then the Tanker piece itself. So easy.

You end up with a majestic industrial Hovertrain car with a ton of TTRPG replayability. The classic engine and tanker harmoniously complement each other. We absolutely love how this turned out! Now, let’s break it down a little further.

Your initial Hovertrain Tanker Car assembly initially starts with this piece. We’re often pinged on our process, and the steps are pretty straightforward:

• Slice the files with Adaptive Layering.
• Print all pieces in FDM.
• Glue and clamp together as one entire piece.
• Prime & Slap Chop.
• Follow the usual paint scheme (coming soon).

You certainly can clip them together with Dragonbite clips (which gives you more modularity), but we prefer to have a Hovertrain Car fully assembled before we color it up.

The two end pieces snugly hold your Small Tanker piece in place, and if anything, the separate Tanker fits a little too tight for our liking. However, we don’t expect to take the tank out very often, so it’s probably best that it fits firmly in place.

Here’s the Small Tanker resting on the smaller Industrial Hovertrain car. Our image doesn’t do this piece justice, as it looks so darn good on the game table. We naturally went with a classic black (thanks to Citadel Contrast Paint) and just did the very top in a steel color.

Now your players will be extremely curious about what’s inside that big ol’ tank and have all sorts of questions.

• What’s actually inside the tanker?
• Where is it going?
• Is the liquid dangerous?
• Why is it on the move?
• Are there any noticeable odors?
• Do they see any markings on the tank’s exterior?

So, as you build one-shot encounters for this particular Hovertrain car, these are the content elements you want to consider and be prepared to incorporate into your DM prep.

Regarding the specific tanker’s contents, we asked veteran gamers on Discord what comes to mind when they initially see this new Hovertrain Small Tanker car on the gameboard!

Here are some fun possibilities (just to name a few).

• Type of Fuel (like a crude oil)
• Critical Spell Component
• Type of ingredient for mining blasts
• A Popular Dwarven Ale (to restock local taverns)
• Type of Grease (for the gnome tinkerers)
• Water
• Human Waste (blech)
• Toxic Chemicals
• Large Monster/Beast Secretions
• Lamp Oil (to keep those lights on)

Special thanks to several gamers here, including Amber, Darque, JKL on the Milestone Heroes, and Aether Studios Discords. We also found this amazing List of a 1,000 Liquids on Reddit, which was especially inspirational and deserves a definite bookmark.

Pretty darn fun, right? Next week Tuesday, we’ll show off yet another car as our Hovertrain just continues to grow and grow!