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Science Fiction Tabletop Gaming - Scenery & 3D Printing
Brief History of Sci-Fi Tabletop Gaming
Tabletop wargaming games have been with us for around 200 years in a form recognisable today but science fiction wargaming was something that has its genesis much closer to modern day.
Warhammer 40K is one of the earliest large scale sci-fi wargames to hit the tables, beginning its life as a re-skin of Warhammer fantasy and taking the early name of rogue trader it spawned a new mythos borrowing from many of the biggest sci-fi movies and stories of the time.
Rogue trader grew in popularity and scope and then spawned Space Hulk, Warhammer 40K, Space Crusade, Necromunda and Gorka Morka to name just a few, the lore and stories based in the imperium of man and its grim dark gothic aesthetic have become a massive part of modern culture and a core of any tabletop gamers knowledge.
From there many other companies investigated bringing other Sci-fi IP's and original works to the tabletop. Many have come and go over the years and many have gone into the mists of time.
There was an attempt to bring Starship Troopers to the tabletop and a fantastic range of marines and arachnids were created but its short-lived run still holds a cult following.
Warlords produced the futuristic Gates of Antares and the Weird War 2, Konflikt '47. Antres is a real Sci-fi tabletop wargame set in the future with armour suits, laser guns, mechs and spaceships. Konflikt '47 is more of an alternate history Sci-fi setting, set in the past just after WW2 warp rifts open on earth and cause new technology and mutations to develop in the population.
Osprey publishing also brings us rules for various war games using a model agnostic basis, meaning that they don't produce or restrict the games to their own models. Osprey have published rules to Stargrave and Xenos Rampant which are sci-fi Skirmish games and then Gaslands which is a post-apocalyptic racing game.
What Tabletop Games Are There In The Sci-fi Genre
There is a vast array of Wargames in the sci-fi genre from sprawling planet wide battles to small skirmishes and then in space you have massive fleet actions all the way down to small squadron battles.
Starting off with the sprawling planet battles you have Epic 40K which is a 6mm Tabletop game played on a 6-8 foot x 4 foot table and shows entire legions of troops vehicles and titans in the field. This scale allows for some truly awesome spectacles and massive numbers of troops to be pushed around at your command.
Sticking with epic scale you have BattleTech which is a 6mm scale giant robot battle game. Set 1000 years in the future in a time of war against sprawling intergalactic empires. You command titanic war machines as they clash over territory and honour.
Then in space you have a range of games still in a minute scale such as Battlefleet Gothic. This is a game where you take control of a fleet of giant interstellar ships that are fighting it out in the void for supremacy. Set in the WH40K universe it includes all the races in massive fleets.
Sticking to the void but switching universes there is Star Wars Armada which again is a fleet scale battle system that allows you to field star destroyers and corvettes from the entire saga.
Scaling it up a bit we get to X-wing miniatures game which is a squadron level space combat game that takes place in about 1/270 scale.
Getting those out of the way we get into the 28mm tabletop games, starting with Warhammer 40k which is large wargame with many squads, vehicles and units waging bloody war over a 6-foot by 4-foot tabletop.
Then you have skirmish games, these usually require 5-20 models and are more of a squad level combat. Games such as Necromunda which take place on a multi-level tabletop that is about 4-foot by 4-foot, representing the forgotten underhive or massive hive cities. Game like these allow for a much more personal game, these sorts of games also often come with campaign rules where your characters will level up and become true warriors forged in the fires of battle.
Stargrave is another of these skirmish games, based in no particular part of space your crew of space adventurers land, explore and fight it out for objectives resources or glory on different planets.
Xenos Rampant is a large skirmish game in 28mm. The rules for which can be applied in many ways to scale your battles and play narrative campaigns and allow you to pass through genre settings like post-apocalyptic, weird war and near future.
Judge Dredd is another small skirmish game based in Mega City one from the 2000 AD comics and features all the main characters including the judges and you fight for justice or chaos whichever you faction is up for. Also based on the same universe and mostly same gaming system is Strontium Dog.
Warhammer 40K Suitable Terrain
While we try to create our own unique style, we have to be open to the fact that our terrain needs to be used by people for all sorts of different games and thus we have also developed many bits of 3D Printable terrain and models that suit dedicated games as well.
So, while we have not copied Games Workshop in their designs we have tried to add elements to some of our models or ranges that make them fit in with the Grim Dark aspect of the Warhammer 40K universe.
Below you will see some examples of 3D designs we have considered suitable for their universe.
The Proxigenator's Death Cathedral
Tarantula Sentry Guns - Lost Bio-Lab
Mindpool Cybernetic Servitors
Bio-Horror Dice Tower
Necromunda Under-Hive Suitable Tabletop Scenery
The under-hive is a sprawling and towering place made of halls, floors, sumps and more. This Grim Dark world exists at the bottom of towering hive cities, housing billions of people reaching miles into the sky. In these hive cities people in the underhive are a forgotten part of the machine, entire families living and dying without ever seeing the light of the nearest star.
Necromunda is played in the under-hive of one of these hive cities, brutal gangs fight it out for dominance and control of strategic resources and territory. A Dark and grim, industrial and gritty 3D wargaming terrain set is perfect, tall multi-level terrain as well, lots of line of sight blocking and bridges as well.
We have a bunch of 3D Print Terrain that is suitable for Necromunda and you can see a sample of it below.
Click-Lock City - Mega Modular Construction Set Kickstarter Bundle
Pipes and girders
Stargrave and Xenos Rampant Sci-fi Skirmish Gaming Scenery
Stargrave is an expansive narrative Sci-fi space adventure. Bordering on an RPG this skirmish game lets you craft a crew of space adventurers, create names, backstories, and reasons to exist. You craft the miniatures and land them on mysterious alien worlds always in search of something. You never know what to expect apart from one assured thing, there will be conflict.
Your intrepid crew is crafted from 10-12 miniatures, and they arrive on a planet in your own named spaceship ready to explore the new world you have just discovered. Set in a ravaged galaxy where war has destroyed civilizations and left planets and cities in ruin. nomadic people inhabit planets and the stars, fighting over the remains of civilization, technology, and resources.
Create a crew of rogues that go around seeking opportunity, a crew of technocrats surviving from the findings of lost machines or a group of bounty hunters dispensing their own form of justice wherever they go.
Xenos Rampant is a more scalable skirmish game with many of the same qualities of Stargrave however Xenos Rampant is also agnostic to setting allowing you to base your narratives in any setting.
These games are miniatures agnostic wargames that give you a ruleset and allow you to use your own creativity to create your own game and campaign.
To that point we went through the Stargrave Bestiary and created miniatures for all of the separate alien monsters and creatures in the main rule sets.
Because Stargrave and Xenos Rampant have no specific settings your imagination is the limit. One landing zone can be a city or a disused spaceport, the next could be a jungle world full of terrifying flora and then you could end up on a volcanic hellscape.
The Menagerie: Stargrave Bestiary - Kickstarter Bundle
Force Walls - Stargrave
Techno Peasants - Stargrave Crew
Click-Lock City - Mega Modular Construction Set Kickstarter Bundle
Mindpool Cybernetic Servitors
Thunderpork Gunship
Judge Dredd Tabletop Miniatures Game Terrain
This Skirmish game is a small gang points-based skirmish game that has gangs of 1 (in the case of some of the judges) to 20+ depending on skills, buffs, and points values.
The game takes place in the universe of 2000 AD. A Sci-fi post-apocalyptic dystopia where humans survive in an irradiated wasted world all huddles together in areas called mega cities. these mega cities are full of crime and people living on top of each other in giant 'blocks'. The Judges are the only form of law and order that exist, and they ARE the law.
The type of scenery that fits this is a more urban, quirky, satirical, and fun. Judge Dredd was one of the first games we designed 3D wargaming terrain for as it fits with our sense of humour and artistic styling, plus we were playing it a bit back then as well. Cash 4 Organs, the pleasure pods and Limbs 'n' Things were made for this game.
Cash For Organs
Limbs 'n' Things Diner
Corpse Grinding Resyk Machine
Omni-truck public service vehicle MK1
Hover Pimp-mobile
Deathworld Jungle Flora and Fauna
Across all Sci-fi settings there is always the alien and the unknown and a big part of that is the flora and fauna of far-off worlds and to represent this we have created a range of 3D models that come from the depths of imagination, some will seem familiar and others less so. But all of them are dangerous foreboding and most importantly, Alien!
These Alien plant models are 3D printables suitable for creating the death worlds in WH40k such as the Catachan jungles or even for making strange alien landscapes for Stargrave and other sci-fi adventures, RPG's and Skirmish games.
Here are some of us out of this world 3D designs for plants and creatures that you can 3D print for your far off planetary settings.
Space Hulk 3D Gaming Board
Spilling out of rifts in the warp giant hulks formed of lost ships from the history of the imperium of man translate and drift back into real space. Crushed, mauled, and melded into unrecognisable 'Hulks' these giant metal amalgamations contain ghosts of the warp, xenos species like Tyranids and Orks among other unknown hazards.
Teams of Space marine terminators are tasked to infiltrate, explore, and recover artifacts from these Space Hulks while purifying them with the emperor’s light.
Space Hulk is a tabletop board game played out on tiles that form the twisted corridors and rooms of the space hulk your terminators are boarding. It is a tense thrilling test of nerve as you work your way through the corridors terminating waves upon waves of Tyranid genestealers.
We have created a completely 3D Space Hulk Board. Using the OpenLock tile system we have crafted a unique and highly detailed 3D printable Space Hulk Terrain set that includes metal, more traditional, spaceship corridors and rooms. Then we also have a series of tiles that represent an infected or xenos occupied area that resembles a Tyrranid bio-ship or the effects of alien inhabitation. We have even developed a range of tiles that cover the transition between technological and biological.
Not only did we create a 3D wargaming board for Space Hulk, but we also created the required extras for playing the game and some of its expansions, this includes the internal organs from tyranid attack and then we have included an alien brood egg room and a predator style trophy room.