Fully FDM 3D Printable Game

Battlefront Valkyrie is a fully 3D printable tabletop starship game created by Tom Tullis over at Fat Dragon Games.

Finally!

I’ve been looking for a 3D-printable game that I could print the models on my Bambu Labs A1 FDM printer. I bought Full Spectrum Dominance, but my resin printer kept giving me trouble (and, honestly, I hate dealing with resin). I stumbled upon Battlefront Valkyrie when I was looking through the games over on Drivethru RPG. I went ahead and bought the bundle to save some dough on the expansions.

I immediately downloaded the rulebook and the starter kit and started printing the ships, some counters, and tokens. I’m currently printing some asteroids. The detail on these minis is fantastic, even for an FDM printer. I had no idea that this level of detail was possible with an FDM printer. I bought a .2mm nozzle and bought the Fat Dragon Games Bambu Labs profile. Before the nozzle arrived, I printed four ships using the built-in high resolution profile from Bambu Studio. Once I got the nozzle in the mail, I printed out two ships with it. Honestly, there’s very little difference in quality between the .4mm nozzle running the highest resolution profile in Bambu Studios and the FDG Custom .2mm profile. There are differences, but not enough to warrant the extra two hours of print time it takes to use the .2mm nozzle. So, I just reinstalled the .4mm nozzle and I’m using it to print the asteroids and some missile tokens. I just printed out six of the simple counters (2 each of #1, #2, and #3).

I played a test game against myself to learn how to play the game before I sit down with my wife and play. I missed a few of the repair stages, because I wasn’t following the turn guide as closely as I should have. In my test game, I played scouts and heavy cruisers for both the Terrans and the Kurguns. It was a 420 point game. While I was playing, I printed two more ships (the Kurgun and Terran Destroyers). Between turns, I went outside and spray painted primer and Mod Podge acrylic sealant on the ships to get them ready for painting. I decided to use a brown wash over the Terran ships to pull out the detail and give them an aged desert look. I was really impressed with the quality, because the brown wash did not seep into the layer lines to expose them. I’m guessing I had enough detail and paint on there to prevent the highlighting of the layer lines.

I can already tell we’re going to enjoy this game. I recently gave my X-Wing miniature game to Goodwill, because it just seemed too complicated. Battlefront Valkyrie scratches that itch, but without the complicated rules. I really like this game. I’ll definitely buy more expansions in the near future.

The bundle that I bought came with the first four expansions. I can’t wait to print the space station models and play that scenario. Though, I think we’ll need to play one or two games first before introducing the complexities of a new scenario. All-in-all, I’m very pleased with my purchase.

My space station still has an hour left to print, but my filament is running low…

I printed the large space station. Upon reflection, I really wish I had printed it at a higher resolution. I’ll probably print another one (or at least parts of it) at a higher resolution. About 2/3 of the way through, I ran out of blue filament and had to pause the job and change to a red filament. I think the result looks neat, but I’m probably just going to paint over it.

I decided to use a silver dry brush technique of the matte black primer. Here are the large and small space station wreckage terrain.

I ordered a new “cordless” airbrush. I ruined the one that I had before that was just like it. It should arrive soon. Then, I’ll start painting the two new ships that I printed (the destroyers).

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