Interview with RM Printable Terrain - Stormguard Undone

A week of Interviews – Check out all the Interviews from this week: Starship IV Chimera | The War of Pain | 2′ Tower + Free Siege Tower | Stormguard Undone

Stormguard Undone Interview with RM Printable Terrain

This is a piece I printed, not nearly as pretty as the fully painted stuff Marc has to display.

This is RM Printable Terrain’s sophomore Kickstarter. Their first Kickstarter was a wild success and this latest one looks to be following in the same footsteps. The first effort, Stormguard, was a wartorn city in ruins. This had a very Tolkienesque / Fantasy feel to it. This latest effort takes it to a whole new level. This Stormguard Undone Interview should let you learn more about the reason this Kickstarter came into being. With pieces that fit perfectly for a dark wizard or cult’s place of power or even a Sith Lord’s domicile. Other pieces that would fit into a dank swamp or a Necromancer’s domain. Finally, the last piece is all about natural looking trees and streams. This brings even more options to the game table as you can show the edge of the lush forest as it opens to the dominion of the evil of the land.

What miniatures games do you play?
Honestly, not a whole lot since last we spoke, my focus has been terrain, and trying to get out to events. Since the launch of our first campaign, we’ve sponsored local events, local game nights, gaming venues, Facebook groups, international tournaments, and even large gaming expos. The largest we attended we were able to bring 5 complete tables of terrain for gaming on. The games I’ve played this year are Age of Sigmar, and Lord of the rings, lord of the rings I even entered a tournament recently and placed 6th! (my 5-9th games playing in the new edition respectively)
How long have you owned a 3D Printer and been printing terrain?
This is a question that brings with it some sadness. The first 3D printer I purchased was about 2 years ago, and it was the reason I went into creating terrain, the terrain I wanted just didn’t exist or wasn’t designed for tabletop wargaming, it just wasn’t fictional from some of the big players. The reason it is a sad question, is because just last week she caught on fire inside the control box and she had to retire… did I mention the next week my studio also flooded?
What printers do you use to print terrain?
A lot of people now are using Ender 3s or Ender 3 pros, as they’re a very decent price, and they’ve got a decent print volume. All of our terrain is actually printed on 2nd hand Ender 3s or Ender 3 pros… because that is what the majority of our customers do or can afford to do. That being said, a lot of our followers have nicer printers as well, so our pieces look great on them as well.
What did you learn in the Stormguard that you are bringing to Stormguard Undone?
I thought I learned that people wanted something unique, and something that worked for a bunch of different games. I thought people wanted a highly detailed and great product that looked special on the table top!
How long have you been working on Stormguard Undone?
Stormguard Undone was initially drafted right before Stormguard ended, we wanted to create a Kickstarter that was different from everything that was out there at the time,
no more cities, no more walls to hide behind, and no more just “normal” terrain.
Tell us about the vision this Kickstarter? How did you come up with this idea?
The vision behind this was that I wanted terrain for gamers to fill the gap where there was none. There were zero creators creating something like sith temples, or like the nephalim that are so often featured in games or lore, there really isn’t very much “evil” terrain either, everything is always so clean cut and typical, we wanted something different, that was not just walls and roofs. We wanted terrain with specific things that would be memorable, or that would at least function better than previous files we had purchased before, like river sections that were 6-8 inches in length from our campaign, not just 2-3. Even large winding curves just didn’t exist done well.
Who are your partners getting this Kickstarter going?
This time we reached out to an amazing artist to get the sketches looking more like sketches that showed the terrain… Olie Boldador really captured what I could not draw very well. He is a commission artist that was a pleasure to work with. And of course, our non-partner, working his digital magic, Iain Lovecraft. This guy… I tell ya… he absolutely banged it out of the park with Stormguard, each piece so characterful and yet so linked together like a true city, based off of historical references, but combined so seamlessly it looked like its own city. We reached out to him again, and he is the lead sculptor on Stormguard Undone, a lot of the bigger pieces and stretch goals could only have been created without supports by a true artist in 3D sculpting, so we only had one choice and that was to go with Iain again.
What is your workflow for coming up with these creative pieces?
A lot of the times, I look at my armies on the shelf, (there’s 10 on the shelves in line of sight) and I think well what would I want to see on a table to compliment these armies. I also go to a lot of different types of events, and just talk to people playing games, or people running clubs. We’ve supported numerous tournaments and events, and shops, and they all have great feedback about what they need, and we try to take that feedback and make it into set pieces. You’d be shocked how many people just wanted a hill that’s flat enough for models to sit on… that’s not to tall, and not to steep in the slopes as models just fall down. A simple request, and it transports easily, doesn’t flake into pink Styrofoam, fills up table space, so it was one of the first pieces we created, and updated.
You have some amazing paint jobs on your pieces. Do you paint these yourself?
I paint everything with craft paint, and some big paint brushes. Same as the printers, I try to think what the “average” person would want to do, and how fast they might want to get it out, and what it would look like. I’m proud to say I don’t clean up anything you see in the pictures, and I used craft paints that are $1.25 Canadian, and homemade washes using ink/flowmedium/tapwater/and floorwax. The desert board that we just featured in a quick game, I painted in 2 evenings, quick, easy, cheap paints, painting and washing and drybrushing, that’s it.
What I love about your stuff, is that it seems to fit in to so many games. It’s generic in the sense that it crosses so many bounds, but it looks anything but generic. Need a Sith Temple? Grab one of the Quivira Battlemage pieces. Need a deep forest abode for your characters to meet in? Uffmoor has you covered. Need some awesome terrain for your fantasy battle over some undead graveyard? Bust out the Biringan Necromancer pieces. Honestly, all of these works for RPG as well as Tabletop wargames. Were there any specific games you were thinking about when you were creating this terrain?
I’d have to say honestly, I was thinking about the two games that I’ve been playing lately, Age of Sigmar, Lord of the Rings, and one I’ve been seeing on Facebook lately, Kings of War. Kings of war is getting a bigger following out in the Hamilton/Niagara region, and I sat down and talked with a few of the players about what they need for their games, and what would be durable to travel around. Some of the items weren’t game inspired at all as well, they were just pieces I thought would mesh well with a certain paint job, and then would link into the next planned set of terrain, but we need to get the word out about Stormguard Undone, there are so many stretch goals not unlocked, and honestly it’s a bigger campaign then the original, by almost 50%! Thanks for taking the time to ask some great questions, was a pleasure!

First of all, I’d like to thank Marc for his time answering these questions. I hope you enjoyed learning more about this terrific Kickstarter. It really brings a ton of options to the gaming table. It comes together with the previous Kickstarter with a land at war, and fits along with a number of other wargame terrain pieces out there. I hope you stop by and check out this awesome looking Kickstarter. Don’t forget, you can check out all the current Kickstarters on my Kickstarter Page.