A small Russian Orthodox Church by Deweycat Productions

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 review is on the 'Eastern Front Terrain .stl Packs' Kickstarter recently run by Deweycat Productions. Deweycat is of course one of the longest running staples when it comes to 3d printing designs for World War II and I've previously done a general review of his stuff, but this is his first foray into a large, crowdfunding bundle, and based on comments in the Kickstarter there will be some future ones on the horizon. For those who missed the Kickstarter, Deweycat has a storefront on Wargaming3D where the content can be found.

Printing

Small shed printed in PLA

Most models were done on a Prusa Mk3S FDM machine, using Prusa Slicer to prepare the models. A .4mm nozzle was used for all prints, with a mix of .2mm and .1mm layer heights, and the models were printed using eSun PLA filament or Hatchbox PLA.

Additionally I printed one model in resin with an Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultra, sliced in Chitubox using default settings, and printed with Phrozen 4k resin.

Two road sections joined together, printed in PLA.

I ran into no issues with the printing. Deweycat has always been one of the most FDM-friendly designers for both his terrain and vehicles, and this continues to hold true here. While a few cases did require some minor supports added, it was indeed minor and it never felt like there was some sort of hidden overhand I wasn't going to catch. A quick visual assessment is more than enough. Models are all broken out into pieces which are very smartly optimized for printing on an FDM machine.

A small grouping of hay bales, printed in PLA. A very easy print.

In the case of the more finely detailed models, in particular the horse cart, there are both FDM and resin optimized versions, with the resin including pre-supports. They seem to be well placed, and didn't cause any issues. Removing them was a breeze. I wouldn't say there was a meaningful difference between ones I did myself, but there should be no concerns using them.

Horse and cart printed in resin

Models

Typical breakdown for a building with base, structure, and roof, plus the door which can be positioned opened or closed.

The models included in the pack bring with them the quality one should expect from Deweycat. They are all solid, durable creations, and clearly designed for the gaming table. With the primary aim of the designs, especially the buildings, being for FDM printing, they might lack some of the finer level detailing found with other designers, but this is never done in a way that feels bare or otherwise detracting from the designs. They all look really nice, and based on past experience, paint up great too.

Just the base of the Church. It allows for customized bases for different scenarios, as well as creation of ruined buildings on the same footprint.

The buildings are all designed in several parts for easy use on the gaming table. One particularly interesting aspect is that they are all designed with bases. They can work fine both with or without them, but using them adds a bit of a foundation, and a small ring of ground around the building. This is particularly useful for making 'weather' themed tables, since multiple bases for one building - a summer and a winter version for example - can add some extra versatility to the models, as well as placement of the included ruined sections.

Church placed on the building base. Note that the entire roof is a solid piece with no concave interior. I recommend adding negative space modifiers to save some filament when printing.

I did have two small gripes with the building I chose for the test print though. In the first, I found the pegs that the roof fits into to be a slightly awkward fit. The untapered-triangle shape of them means you really need to position it perfectly, as opposed to something that tapers slightly allowing the roof to settle on easier. Additionally, the roof is one solid piece. While I get that makes for an easier print, it means a much longer print time and use of a lot more material than would be the case with some empty space on the interior. I 'solved' this by simply adding a negative space to it myself in the slicer. As long as you keep a good angle, it still requires no supports to print.

Two road sections. The curved ends interlock to help provide more stability to the pieces on the table.

There are also a few modular pieces, including a fence set and a dirt road set. Both of them lack a proper locking system which is something I personally prefer, but I know that not everyone does. In the case of the road system though, Deweycat does a sort of 'split the difference' approach, and the models do have a less 'proper' interlocking system. They aren't fully connected so can pull apart if bumped the wrong way, but they way that the pieces are designed to sit next to each other is intended to help mitigate this and allow each piece to help keep its neighbor in place. The fences unfortunately don't have any sort of half-locking system like this though.

Example of a fence section. Note there is no connecting pieces to string multiples together, so they only can be placed 'loose'.

Selection

The Kickstarter came in two versions, a core one with just the five buildings and an 'all-in' version with an extra buildings, the roads, fences, and a variety of scatter terrain. In both cases, the packs are very reasonably priced, and collectively are more than enough to put together a full terrain board for some small Slavic village about to be torn asunder.

A small stack of wood logs, one of the small scatter terrain pieces included.

Technically speaking the campaign included no stretch-goals, but Dewey is a cool cat, and several unofficial stretch goals nevertheless came to fruition based on early backer feedback, which resulted in some cool extras. The houses now have multiple roofing options with the addition of corrugated roofs to complement the thatched versions, and while there aren't fully 1:1 destroyed buildings, a number of destroyed building sections were included which can be added to the building foundation bases, not only thus allowing destroyed versions of the buildings, but a pretty large variety of destroyed buildings assembled from the parts.

Ruined sections placed on the building base.

Conclusions

Sometimes in the midst of battle, you just really gotta' go.

This is a solid first jump into crowdfunding from Deweycat. It brings with it a nicely sized, and excellently priced, bundle of his designs. It is an Eastern Front battlefield in a box in a zip file, with designs that are easy prints for even the most novice of beginners, but still solid models that an experienced veteran can appreciate as well. For those who missed it, definitely stayed tuned for future ones dropping that were hinted at, as I would have no reason to doubt they will be a similar solid deal.

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If you like these reviews and want to help me keep doing them, you can toss a buck via Ko-Fi page and a Buymecoffee page. I promise to waste it either on stls, or my crippling drug addiction, and nothing else. And a big thanks to a few folks who already have, and helped make this review possible!

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