3D printed building from 'Greendale & Grimdale' Kickstarter by 3DLayeredScenery

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 "Greendale & Grimdale A 3D Printable Town Project", a Kickstarter campaign that from earlier this year by 3DLayeredScenery. The campaign concluded but the pieces are available still through their storefront site as well as on MMF (and by weird coincidence, I started printing and prepping for this review only for them to launch Part II a few days after, which is ongoing on Kickstarter).

For purposes of the review, I backed the Kickstarter campaign back in February.

Printing

Printing as all done on a Prusa Mk3S FDM machine. Models were sliced with Prusa Slicer, and printed in Hatchbox PLA with a .4mm nozzle and either .2 or .1mm layers, depending.

Ruined building

Generally speaking the printing was fine, but I did encounter a few problems which I would ascribe to the models. Several points had very ambitious bridging or overhangs, and despite having a printer which I would like to think is very well calibrated, the result was some minor points on the models where specific pieces failed to print properly. No models entirely fell apart, and even where I had the issues they cleaned up nicely enough and are easy to hide to keep the model quite useable, but it is a design error in my estimation.

Some trees. Notice that several branches just didn't print nicely, and would have benefited from supports. Easy to cover up with foliage though.

To be sure, the addition of supports ought to fix the problem but the clear implication for most of the pieces is that supports are not necessary and that the pieces are designed to print 'as is'. This is particularly emphasized by the fact that models which do have particularly severe overhangs, or islands, have 'pre-supported' versions with small, easily detachable additions placed to provide the supported needed for those parts. In all cases where provided, I used the presupported version (and one support had some issues, but printed sufficiently to do its job).

Close up of a pre-support under the overhang. At the end of the day, it did its job, but seems a close-run thing.

In short, while you can risk it and maybe get away with it, printing without adding additional supports probably is not suggested, and I'd strongly suggest that you do a close assessment for placement of a few extra supports in long bridges or steep overhangs.

Models

📷

Building exterior, with a good look at the detailing. Many models also have the little bits on the outside which add additional character.

Visually, the Greendale & Grimdale campaign is a really nice looking set of buildings. They show a ton of detail are uniformly well done. Compared to some other designers, there is a certain delicateness to them, but I would stress that I mean that more in terms of aesthetic than actually feeling delicate. They come off as about as sturdy or durable as more other buildings I'd printed in PLA, but rather the style that the designers were going for has a lighter feel to it, compared to some designers who go for a slightly heavier feel. It definitely isn't anything that detracts, and one of those things that everyone is going to have their own preference for, sort of the buildings equivalent of leaning towards 'Heroic' or 'Real' Scale, these feeling a bit towards the latter.

Modular breakdown of a ruined and a complete building.

Models are all provided in a multi-piece form. Roofs are all removable where appropriate, and most doors are also independent and can be mounted with a small extra piece of PLA to allow the doors to swing open and closed. In the case of the particularly large buildings, they come in a few different versions to accommodate different printer sizes which might not be able to handle the whole, complete building. The test print I did of one such building fit together nicely with a well done 'split' job.

Breakdown of a large building in two pieces. Note some minor bridging issues but easily hidden when cleaned up.

The only real issue I have is that the models often can feel too busy. This is fine on the outside where little details like a stack of wood in the side shed, or some barrels next to the door, add a nice little touch, but it can be a bit more of a problem on the inside, and especially with the ruined buildings. While it looks nice, the large volume of rubble on the interior makes it a bit more frustrating to place models inside. While I definitely wouldn't want there to be none, I do feel that there would be a bit better of a balance, even just with the piles being a bit flatter. As it is, I can already see many a model precariously balancing as you try to place it just short of the 'tipping' point.

Top down view of a ruined interior. There is a lot of rubble on the inside which can cause some problems when placing models inside.

Selection

Greendale & Grimdale is what I perhaps would refer to as 'timeless European'. Its suitable basically for any time period from the late medieval through the 20th century as long as you are setting it in Europe (or some totally not Europe fantasy setting), and especially the more modern you get, the more rural you go. These will work just fine if you want a meeting engagement over a crossroads inn in some French backwater, or perhaps an assault on a quaint little German village nestled at the foot of the Alps, but for World War II that is pretty strictly what you got! These aren't working for North Africa, the Pacific, or even for Eastern Europe. They are versatile but only in that one certain way.

Pretty much everything looks like this. The look real nice, but only one style.

It is important to also add though that the central 'conceit' of the campaign is that the two 'parts' are the same buildings but one version is the regular building and the other is a ruined version. Backing the campaign you could opt for just one, or the other, or both, and the 'both', to me, had some very obvious appeal given the opportunities this trend offers. Aside just from the general versatility offered by having both a complete and ruined version of a building setting up a table, it also allows a much nicer level of destruction during a game if you are blowing up buildings, and if you are planning customized campaigns, it creates some really nice opportunities for evolution of the board over time.

Complete and ruined version of the same building.

One additional note also to be made as the optional add-on for the campaign was perhaps the most specifically appropriate, being a modular trench system, which looked very nice, although I in the end didn't opt to get it since its one draw back is that it is specifically designed for placement in a custom-made board with polystyrene or similar, so while modular in that sense, it also does require building it into one permanent setup (and one with a bit of a hefty storage requirement!). One day I might nab it, but just outside the current bandwidth...

A large complex model of a ruined inn, includes multistory main building and two outbuildings.

Conclusions

Greendale & Grimdale is pretty good. It has its obvious limitations for the WWII focused gamer, but as long as the board(s) you are wanting to put together roughly fits within a rural, European theme, the campaign offers a ton of nice looking buildings, sufficient to put together quite a nice town with a lot of variety, both in terms of the buildings themselves, and the level of destruction. The models are all sculpted with a ton of obvious care to their detailing, and a nice looking aesthetic. Not without its problems, some of the models are a bit ambitious, but with a few extra, judiciously applied supports I don't think anyone should expect to run into any meaningful issues for printing.

-------

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