3-D printed reinforcements

The resurection of our old 15mm figures was limited by the fact that as 70's vintage figures are out of scale with modern 15mms (which are actually 18+mm).   My discovery of wargaming3D.com has solved our dilemma.   The site has a huge range of 3-D files for miniatures of all periods & scales, available for download at reasonable cost.  A file with ACW infantry with several varieties of equipment costs U$6.  So a kepi file & a hat file provides all the infantry reinforcements we need. 

The quality of the figures produced by my low cost Ender plastic printer is as good as the old minifigs, plenty good enough for wargames figs.  The only issue is that when you print a strip of figures you get fine strings of plastic between them as the printer does the figs 1 layer at a time.  But this is easily snipped off - no more trouble than flash on old metals or easier than assembling plastics off a spru.  The scale creep issue is easily dealt with by scaling to 90%.

Chris & I turned Camp Cromwell into Harpers Ferry this afternoon as the 3-D printer whirred away making new troops while we worked on re-organising his old 15mms. 

New figures on the right (mostly still unpainted) with old minfigs on the left.

A strip of infantry as they came off the printer.  The file provides individual figs which I have assembled with a base using Tinkercad.  Printing individual figs gives better quality with no hair, but is much slower as you have to remove the previous figure & restart, then the machine takes time to re-heat before starting again. 

There also many files good for topping other periods.  On the right, bought 28mm Napoleonic Austrian gun, on the left a 3D model with so far only one crew printed.  (For less numerous items, printing one fig at a time isn't a problem).

A strip of 28mm Punic infantry next to a Warlords phalangite.  The spears are a bit thick, that makes them robust.  (You could replace them with wire).