Download and 3D Print Maori Pa wargaming scenery

It goes without saying that table-top games require a lot of imagination, but nothing can soften the thrill of the two striking armies confronting, except for the generic houses, hills and maybe cardboard pieces to fight over. Luckily table-top games enthusiasts have significantly relied on 3D printing to produce unique exciting parts of scenery to pit some life into their gaming time. All over the Internet you can find various examples of such scenery, whereas the New Zealand Printable Scenery have become undoubtedly successful at producing 3D printed scenery. One of their latest creations is a Maori village, which gamers can use for colonial wargaming.

Probably you remember the guys from Printable Scenery, who in the past produced some really impressive medieval-style and even futuristic pieces of scenery – 3D printed high-rise. It was great for a common Warhammer and 40K settings, but still historical wargaming enthusiasts want something different. Roly Hermans – war-gamer from New Zealand – loves New Zealand Wars a lot (the game produced by Empress Miniatures that specializes mainly in historical war-games), but it was difficult for him to find the suitable scenery to fight over. He experimented with the wood pieces, but they never gave the required result. But then he came across Printable Scenery.

Hermans talked to Matt Barker from Printable scenery about what model pa to use to work with war-gaming. The company itself is great to work with. When Hermans sent them the pictures and drawings, they began to show him 3D prototypes almost the next day. As the result, they created a 3D printed Maori settlement for him, with defensive terraces and palisades.

It is good for colonial war-games, but can adapt to other situations. As it has more than 30 buildings and fences, all of which are available now, they can be adapted to any other kind of village, not only Maori. You may even consider the same forts for pulp fiction and fantasy games. And if you reverse the fences so that the posts go on the inside, they may turn into generic North-European stockade.

They also explained that Matt and his team had come up with a perfect 3D printing creation process for the scenery. First they sketched the components with paper and pen, and then drafted them in 3DMax, where they checked the support tolerances and overhangs for printing. The mesh was sent to Z-Brush for detailing and then was reduced to create workable files of high resolution. Afterwards each part was sent to Makerbot 3D printer. Each part took about an hour to print.

Such a technique means that each part of the scenery can easily be scaled and modified to suit the gamers’ requirements – statues, huts, entrance ways and even palisades. In the trial version there are three layers of palisading that surround a small hill, which was shaped into defensive constructions. The huts and the meeting house are in the center. The outside circle has an embellished carved gateway. You can freely modify the nature to suit your personal requirements.

Empress Miniatures created 28mm figures that populate the pa. You can even see a British attack on the side, so the pa depicts New Zealand wars of the 1840s. The buildings and palisades of the pa were painted with dry-bushing technique. It means that a flat brush was dipped into acrylic paint and most of the paint was wiped off on the tissue. Then almost dry the brush was swept back and forth all over the model picking up the raised areas. These scenery is now available on the Printable Scenery website, and you are also welcome to contact Matt and his team for individual projects.