Flame model from 'WW2 Destruction Bundle' Kickstarter campaign

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 "WW2 Destruction Bundle" Kickstarter campaign by Akamaru 3D Workshop. The campaign is something of a hodgepodge, focused on scenery and accessories for wargaming with a World War II focus. Although the campaign recently concluded, but they also operate their own storefront where the files are still available.

A stone wall segment. Note that the wall, like othe rmodular pieces, does not have connectors so they are placed 'loose'

I was given reviewer access to the Kickstarter files without compensation, and without promises beyond my honest opinion.

Printing

A bomb crater terrain piece

Most models were printed on a Prusa Mk3S FDM machine, using Prusa Slicer to prepare the models. A .4mm nozzle was used for all prints at a layer height of .2mm, using Hatchbox PLA. Resin tests were done with an Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultra, sliced in Chitubox using default settings, and printed with Phrozen 4k resin.

A small explosion piece printed in PLA. The contact level on the base plate is small so make sure to pay attention to that first layer, but print comes out nicely.

Most models are provided with unsupported and pre-supported versions, the latter for resin printing. For the PLA prints, I found the printing to be mostly fairly smooth, but did run into a few small issues worth flagging, although I wouldn't ascribe most of them to the designs.

A large and small bomb both printed in PLA.

The main one is that while most of the models are clearly intended to be FDM friendly, that doesn't mean they are all designed to minimize or simply not need supports. With good support work, I don't anticipate that anyone should run into any particular issues with printing these models but some care does need to be taken to avoid issues. The first is that some overhangs end up being rather low so unless you are sharp-eyed, they can be easy to miss, which occurred for me with one clump of rubble in a ruined building print. The second is the orientation definitely matters for some prints. The bombs in particular I tried multiple ways before finding the best option to be using organic supports with the bomb facing straight down.

Lack of supports under these bits of rubble was an oversight on my part, but can be easy to miss when slicing. Make sure to give a close look to overhangs when doing supports.

The only design issue I encountered was with a few models with had small bumps on the bottom preventing a flat seat on the baseplate, but when I reached out to the designer about it, they were very responsive, with a fix done to those models, and a repack sent out to all the backers in less than 24 hours. Given that expecting 100 percent perfection is a bit much, I'd generally call it a positive to see such responsive post-campaign support work being done.

For the resin tests I did, I didn't encounter any issues, and the pre-supports seemed to be done well, and I encountered no printing issues there.

Muzzle burst accessories printed on resin. The small size of these just makes them much easier to print there than FDM, although it should still be doable.

Models

A rubble pile print. Some supports are definitely needed for the overhangs, but placement is easy for removal (do make sure you use organic supports though!)

Given the sheer variety of what is available in the Kickstarter package there isn't really any one thread to follow in discussing the quality of the designs, although I would say on the whole I found them to be generally solid.

Building prints into two pieces with a removable roof

The center pieces of the campaign I would judge to be the buildings, which are modeled nicely, and break down into several parts, at the least with a removable roof, which is always nice for gaming. They also follow the trend of having a destroyed and intact version which is always appreciated by me.

Ruined building and its more pristine looking counterpart

A lot of the terrain though is of the 'scatter' variety, so smaller things like craters, hedgehogs, or dragon's teeth. I found these to all be nicely modeled, even if it can of course be said that they are items that are conceptually on the 'simple' side. A few pieces, like the rubble piles, I wouldn't have minded seeing a bit more detail on, but painted up and with some dirt no the surfacing, I think that they still form a solid base piece. As with the buildings, there are usually 'intact' and 'damaged' versions of almost everything, which helps to add extra variety by, say, intermixing some pristine looking sandbags along side some which are very shot up.

Dragon's teeth with both damaged and undamaged options

One of my favorite pieces would have to be the barbed-wire roadblock, which I found to be a particularly nice looking piece, although it also ought to be said that it is by far the most frustrating piece to print. It is the only thing that I didn't even think about printing on the FDM machine, as it simply needs to be done in resin given how intricate the wire coils are. It requires a lot of supports, and the post-processing of those supports probably took longer than everything else I printed combined, but felt worth it in the end.

Barbed wire roadblock printed in resin. Clearing the supports is a real hassle, but perhaps that was why it ended up feeling like a particularly rewarding print.

Another cluster of offerings are the flames and explosions, which are all quite solidly made. The larger ones are all very FDM friendly prints, and I didn't even need supports for them, although the small muzzle flash prints I would suggest approaching as resin prints.

Muzzle flash prints placed next to the barrel of a Warlord Plastic anti-tank rifle to provide scale

The only real issue with the designs that I ran into was that a few pieces feel very delicate. The most obvious example I ran into was with the destroyed walls. One always wants blown up things to look cool but for a printed piece it does need to be cohesive still, and I found that some blocks from the strewn destruction are attached by a thread. They print fine, but I feel a bit apprehensive that some pieces might be easily broken off when you jumble them up in the storage box.

Close up detail of the destroyed wall. Note with the large piece in the middle at the far left how small the connection point is to the rest of the model, making it feel unfortunately flimsy there.

The other issue is one that comes down much more to personal preference on the design choice than an actual issue, since with things like walls or roads, I prefer to have modular pieces that use connectors rather than just placed loose end-to-end. It does mean that pieces need to be a bit bulkier for the connection system, and I know plenty of people would rather the more svelte aesthetic, so it isn't at all a knock on the designs, just a note on which preference direction those items go.

A simple brick road segment. Note that the modular pieces like this do not use any sort of connector to assemble into a larger joined road.

Selection

Sandbag emplacements in both a damaged and undamaged configuration.

It is hard to properly characterize this campaign simply due to the variety of what there is, ranging from the buildings, through the scatter terrain, all the way to accessories like dice. It really has a little bit of everything, and this was the first time I've had to really think about which photos I took but didn't include due to the 20 image limit. The scatter terrain I find to fill a bunch of the most common themes for the table so in particular brings a lot of options for the table in terms of versatility so I suspect will be the most appealing models available.

One of the themed six-sided die, this one with the Soviet logo.

The explosions fit a rather interesting niche since they definitely are useful, but I think fall into a preference 'bucket'. I know for me, they are one of the less useful items here since while I like to show those kinds of things on the table, I have a nice collection of wool balls in various colors to show when a tank is on fire or when a smoke barrage has gone into effect, but I certainly can see them being of use for a lot of people who would like the more 'cinematic' look you get from a painted print of the licking flames or a small mushroom cloud.

Several examples of explosions/smoke/flame pieces

In the end, there certainly is something for everyone in this collection, but while on the one hand that is a strength, it also is a bit of a weakness, since I think everyone will like somethings but not everything will be useful for everyone. And while the collection is available for sale after the campaign, at this time as far as I can tell it still is only available as a bundle. And while reasonably priced given how many items are included, the lack of a la carte options means it is all or nothing. Breaking out the campaign into a few smaller bundles so that someone can just buy, for instance, the explosions and flames, would add some welcome flexibility for folks looking for only some of these kinds of items.

A pair of Czech Hedgehogs in damaged and undamaged configuration. Most terrain pieces have the double pairs like this.

Conclusions

An unexploded or dud bomb in a crater.

The WW2 Destruction Bundle is a very nifty collection of an absolute hodgepodge of items. Overall, I like a lot of what is in here, and will definitely be using quite a bit of the scatter terrain in particular on my own boards. While there are some small issues with a few pieces, like the destroyed wall, the designs are on the whole well thought out and have a nice aesthetic to them. The modular pieces don't fit into my own preferences, lacking built in connectors, but I would reiterate that that is indeed just preference and not a knock on it. The biggest downside to me ends up being that because the content is so widely varied, the lack of individual items or smaller packs likely undercuts a fair bit of interest and utility from what is offered, since in the end the content fills so many different niches which just can't guarantee to overlap. But all the same, for anyone who wants it all, they are nicely designed pieces, which anyone should be able to get good use out of, and if what you see included suits your needs, definitely is worth giving a look to.

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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