Think one thing to remember is the advances in 3D printing are probably driven for things outside of the wargaming hobby. Not sure what the “original” market for 3D printers was for (was it more for engineering, prototyping etc). I suppose we need to look for the forces that drive overall 3D printer sales to try and anticipate where the advances will come from (and be), and “if” they are going to be useful for Wargamers printing out minis/terrain.

I know 4Ground had major issues when they tried to mass produce 3D printed minis, the advances they were looking for was more to do with size of the bed and distortion when yo reach the edges when printing (or trying to print) a full bed of minis.

Alas the experiment doesn’t seem to have worked out for them (and we wouldn’t know this if they hadn’t tried), major issues were the cost of the resin (and problems with the resin going “off” in the bottles before it was used (they were using a bespoke resin, so I’d imagine they were having to order short (and more expensive) runs each time (rather than paying for a bulk order), and “time” (although they were running seven printers alongside each other, with the operator jumping between each machine (so they were fully employed operating the machines)).

Although there’s a lot of “hate” seemingly going on about the failed kickstarter (I was a backer, but was fully aware that these things can fail, while others seem to think of it as a pre-order store), I’d absolutely LOVE to see an article from Ben and Cad about the hurdles and lessons learned (although I’d imagine it might work against and consultancy work they may have advising others about trying to produce 3D printed minis on a mass scale).

But if Ben and Cad couldn’t make it work, then I don’t think anyone else could either at this time. So it’s probably going to take a few technological advances before it might become possible that we will be able to print out entire armies (rather than a half dozen minis), at an affordable price and within a reasonable timescale.