Hi everyone, Today's blog post is a slight reworking of a review I wrote in 2019 on a different platform - I'm going to be looking at the Blacksmith's Workshop which is produced and sold by Mighty Lancer Games. It is part of a range of 3D printed terrain they're creating, designed by Dark Realms Forge. For the avoidance of any doubt, I paid for this piece and am reviewing it as a customer. I provide links here which are part of their affiliate program, but this review was written before that existed, so it in no way affected my findings :) The building comes in a 9 piece set and costs £14.99. You can find the Blacksmith's Workshop here, and the full range here. The pieces feel lighter than you might expect an equivalent piece which had been cast to be, but they felt high quality, and I didn't have any issues with bending, breaking or chipping pieces. Overall they have a good quality feel to them. The printing was high quality, and the only real issue I had with the pieces was in terms of the flashing. It wasn't just the amount, but there were a few areas where excess plastic was filling in the detail. This picture might give you an idea. This was a bit annoying, and took a while to sort out, but it's not the end of the world. It took me about an hour with a craft knife and file to clean the whole model - with 3D printed minis you want to make sure you remove all the thin strands or filaments, or they'll really get in the way when it comes to the detail work. Once that was complete, I have to say I was very impressed with the level of detail on this. Both the wood and stone have a nice finish to them, and I was very pleased that there was even some detail inside. My only slight concern with the detail and texture was with the slate tiles. Here there was fairly pronounced layering from the 3D printing process. I was concerned that this would show through on the final piece and this was partially true. I had to alter my usual technique slightly as the ridges were catching the paint (so I think the roof is a little less 'worked' than I normally would) but I'm pretty happy with the finish anyway. Beyond that I have no real complaints. The priming process was very easy - my spray primer worked with no problem, all the pieces fitted together well and the paint took to it very nicely. I won't go into the details of how I painted it here (I'll stick with the review in this post), but I'm pleased with how it turned out. ConclusionI've tried to be balanced and open about the strengths and weaknesses of this piece, so where did that land me overall? Well, I think that this is an excellent value piece of terrain, and hard to beat at the price. Yes, there are some little issues here and there as I've pointed out, but they shouldn't put you off if you're looking for something at the cheaper end of the market. Realistically, this might not be what you're looking for if you're painting to a showcase standard, but then you're going to be looking at 4 or 5 times the price. Similarly, if you'd rather pay a little more to avoid the hassle of removing the flashing then there are other, more expensive, options available. This would make an excellent addition to a D&D or pathfinder battle map or a wargame table and, at £14.99 looks pretty hard to beat. Mighty Lancer GamesMighty Lancer Games is a small, independent games shop in the UK with a very broad range of stock and excellent customer service. Selling Reaper Miniatures, Games Workshop, Mantic and many, many more, they are my 'go to' for painting and gaming supplies.
Check them out here. Goblin Squire :)
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