Bren Gunner and Friend, from RKX's 'Operation Plunder: Pt. 1' Kickstarter

Hello everyone and welcome to another review /r/PrintedWWII review. As I dive into 3D printing, the lack of extensive documentation and reviews of what is good, what is bad, and what works with care, has been vexing to me, so my hope is to provide a little bit of what I wish was readily available for me when I started!

Today's focus is on the Kickstarter campaign "Operation Plunder: Part 1 - 28mm, 3D Printable Wargaming Miniatures, focused on the Canadian Army of 1945", which was run by RKX Miniatures last fall. I've been putting off on doing a write-up of this since I have reviewed their previous Hurtgen Forest campaign, but as they recently launched "Operation Plunder: Part 2", focused on late-war Fallschirmjäger, it seemed this was as good a time as any. The Kickstarter is concluded, but RKX has their own storefront site and operates on Wargaming3D where they can still be found, and also as an Add-On pack to their current campaign.

Piat team

For the purpose of this review, I backed the Kickstarter campaign, and was not provided with any review models.

Printing

Several single-pose figures from the campaign

I printed all of the models in resin using an Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultra. Models were sliced in Chitubox. Infantry were printed in Elegoo ABS-like 2.0 resin, with the recommended settings by Elegoo, and vehicles were printed in Phrozen 4k resin. Most models were printed at between 93% and 95% due to the recommendation of the designers. I also printed one test figure at 1:100 scale. During printing, I had no issues which I would directly attribute to the design of the models themselves, although that has one caveat I'll return to briefly.

Light mortar team

Models are all provided with pre-supported and unsupported options. The bulkier vehicles also have a pre-hollowed option. In terms of ease of removal and processing, the supports are well thought out and all came off very easily with minimal complications. But I nevertheless ran into two issues that relate to the supports. The first is quite straight forward, as I found that the angling of the vehicle I test printed resulted in some unevenness on one of the running boards which are definitely from the supports. A light file and some gentle sanding should solve the problem, but I would suspect a different print angle, or slightly lighter supports, would prevent it in the first place.

Pre-supported Sexton prints with this edge facing down, and gets these ridge points from the supports.

The second issue is harder to definitely ascribe to the supports, but I did end up with several prints where there was some flattening in the print, usually on the feet (thankfully easy to hide with basing so didn't need to toss those models). It is entirely possible that this was an issue with the printer settings, but doing second prints of a few which had that error but doing my own supports with the same settings didn't replicate the error, and having run both a Cones of Calibration and a Validation Matrix with satisfactory results, it remains hard to pinpoint. My best guess is that because the models are slightly oversized and need to scale down to fit with other 28mm lines, the scaling down of the pre-supported models might be screwing with the supports. For future prints I'll likely just stick with my own support work to be safe.

Figure on the right was pre-supported, figure on the left was my own supports. Was happier with the print that was my own support work.

The Models

Close up of a full-pose figure. Contrast is turned up to better show off the details.

Much of what I have to say here would, inevitably, be a bit of a retread from previous reviews, but nevertheless it can once again be said that these are some really nice looking infantry sculpts. RKX works with Propylene Foliescu, the designer behind 'Just Some Miniatures', for their infantry models, and he has always been a reliable go-to for gorgeous looking sculpts. His models have excellent detail work on them, and are posed very naturally, with good flow to the figures that looks excellent whether up close or at table distance.

HQ figures

Some of my favorite past units I've printed have been his designs, and these to continue to hold up on that front, exemplifying a wonderfully balanced style that walks the line to fit in with other minis you might have whether 'heroic' scale or leaning towards 'true scale'. As in the past though, these models are designed slightly larger than standard 28mm, and as such scaling in printing is required for a perfect match. I've played around with the scaling and find between 93% and 95% to usually be best. For those doing smaller scales, I did one test at 1:100 scale, and thought that result came out nicely

RKX infantry printed at 93% for scale comparison to: Warlord Plastic, Warlord Metal, Warlord Plastic, Great Escape metal.

Figure printed for 1:100 scale came out pretty nicely. Details still show up well.

That said, the infantry continue to suffer from Propylene's one enduring Achilles Heel. For the single pose figures, that are absolutely impeccable. But for the modular sets, as I've just come to accept at this point, they don't fit together cleanly. Heads usually fit fine on the bodies, but basically any set of arms which is both of them holding a weapon is going to be janky looking when you put it on a torso. Sanding and scraping can help a bit, but it just never will be a good fit. Thankfully, in the end it amounts to a small, if annoying, blemish on otherwise great designs since, in my experience with past examples, the gaps can be effectively filled in with silicone putty or 'green stuff' and once painted up, isn't noticeable unless you're looking closely. All the same though, I fail to understand why this problem continues to persist given there are a number of other designers who make modular prints that fit together just fine.

Rear view of several modular figures showing the gaps where the arms meet the torso. They clean up nicely with some putty though.

The vehicles and weaponry are also generally solid designs, courtesy of designer Matthew Webb. I printed out several examples and was very happy with all of them. For the vehicles, they break down into a small number of parts for ease of printing, and assemble very easily I found. There is also a notable improvement from one of the few gripes I had with their last campaign, as for some of the vehicles the treads no longer seem to be designed with the hull wall included, but instead are fully separate from the hull (this was done for the Sexton, but not for the T-16).

Sexton print. Notice clean edge on this side of the print, as well as the barrel pivoted down compared to the previous picture.

In the case of the Sexton, I also was interested to notice that the gun is designed to 'snap in' and be secured without glue, allowing it to pivot up and down, which was a nice little flourish. For the T-16 Carrier I printed, I was also pleased to see just how many little extras and doo-hickies were included, which gives quite a lot of ways to customize the look and tweak the armaments.

T-16 Carrier broken into its printed parts and with some of the accessories arrayed as well.

For the artillery I printed, they also came out looking nicely and examples like the 6-pdr break down for printing with easy assembly after the fact using a simple peg-and-hole system. The Land Mattress I perhaps wish was broken down into more parts as I anticipate it might have some annoying crevices when it comes to painting, but I know at the end of the day much of the 'how many parts should a model break down into' comes down to personal preference so not something I particularly hold against, the most important thing being it printed out nicely and looks great!

Land Mattress with crew-members

Selection

Canadian sniper. The sharp-eyes no doubt recognize the photo it is based off of.

The overall offerings from the campaign are nicely varied, and taken on the whole, the Operation Plunder campaign is more than enough to assemble a very nice army of Canadians, or British if you prefer. The core files included two 10 man infantry squads, an HQ, some support teams, and an LVT-4, but the success of the campaign saw nearly 20 stretch-goals unlocked, bringing in a much wider variety including several more vehicles, a modular infantry squad which opens up a lot more versatility, and other things such as sappers, artillery, and a sniper.

Figures from the modular commando add-on set, placed on some of the cobblestone bases add-on. Gaps are less noticeable at the front, usually.

The campaign also included several add-ons. One is might not be flashy, but the urban bases add-on nevertheless looks very nice! They are some very well sculpted urban streets with a mix of cobblestone, manhole covers, and streetcar tracks. The big one though is the Commandos, which includes a base set of modular figures, and thanks to the social media stretch goals, added on a number more full-figures, including some basic soldiers, as well as an MG team and a mortar team.

6-pdr anti-tank gun and crew. Gun and chassis print separate as two parts.

Conclusions

Flamethrower team

The 'Operation Plunder: Part 1' campaign lives up to the standards set by RKX's earlier efforts, continuing to deliver great looking designs and models. In some cases, there is even improvements from the few issues I had with their previous campaign (the vehicle treads), although some small issues, remain, most notably being the continued fit issues with the modular kits. I would also flag the issues I ran into with some supports, although stress that despite by calibration tests and second prints, the finnicky nature of resin printing shouldn't make that too definitive an issue. And at the worst, printed using my own support placement continued to result in the great looking models I was expecting from RKX.

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For Previous Reviews and other 3D printing topics related to WWII gaming, head over to r/PrintedWWII

Also be sure to check out:

• The Printed Vehicles Reference Guide
• The Printed Infantry Reference Guide