3D Printed Terrain for Tabletop Wargames: Ruins, Bunkers and Forests

A wargame on a bare table is a maths exercise. The same game on a board full of ruined chapels, sandbagged bunkers and a forest that actually blocks line of sight is a story. 3D printed terrain is the fastest route to that second table, and this guide covers what can be printed, how it is sized to your game, and how to plan an order so the pieces work together.

Why printed terrain beats foam and cardboard

Scratch-built terrain from foam board and cereal boxes is cheap but slow, fragile and hard to repeat. Mass-produced plastic kits are consistent but limited to what the manufacturer sells. Printed terrain sits between the two:

• Any design: gothic ruins, sci-fi hab blocks, fantasy taverns, desert compounds, industrial pipework, or a building modelled on a real one.
• Consistent scale: every piece is scaled to your figures, so a doorway is a doorway and a wall blocks exactly what it should.
• Repeatable: need six identical barricades or a second set of walls for a bigger table? Print them again.
• Durable: PLA and PETG survive being knocked over, packed in a crate and driven to a club night.

Scale and footprint

Terrain is sized to the game system, not to a generic ruler. The common scales are:

Game scale	Typical figure height	Notes for terrain
28–32 mm (Warhammer 40K, Age of Sigmar, Kill Team)	28–35 mm	Floors around 40 mm apart so figures stand on each level
15 mm (Flames of War, Team Yankee)	15 mm	Buildings are small and print fast; detail is key
6–10 mm (epic, Battletech)	6–10 mm	Whole city blocks on one print bed
54 mm and skirmish	50–60 mm	Large, hollow prints to save material and weight

Footprint matters as much as height. Tournament formats often specify how much of the table should be covered and how big a "large" piece is, so pieces are designed to sit on standard footprints such as 6 x 6 or 12 x 6 inches. If you are gaming at home, tell us the size of your table and how much cover you want, and the set is planned around that.

What to print: a terrain shopping list

A balanced 4 x 4 or 6 x 4 foot table usually needs:

• Two or three large pieces that block line of sight completely: a ruined building with several floors, a bunker complex, a rocky outcrop.
• Four to six medium pieces: walls, shipping containers, statues, fallen columns, a crashed vehicle.
• Scatter: barrels, crates, sandbags, barricades, craters, tree stands. Scatter is cheap to print and transforms the look.
• Forests: a base with removable trees so figures can be placed inside the wood while it still counts as area terrain.
• Objective markers themed to the setting.

Ruins are the most popular category because they print well: open walls, broken floors and arched windows need little support material. Bunkers and containers are quick, boxy prints that can be hollow. Hills and rocks are printed with a low resolution on purpose, then textured with paint. If your table is grimdark, our Warhammer 40K book nook shows how much gothic detail a printer can hold.

Materials, finish and paint

Most terrain is printed in PLA at a 0.2 mm layer height. Layer lines are barely visible on textured surfaces like brick and rubble, and paint hides the rest. PETG is chosen for pieces that will travel a lot or be handled by kids at a club. Large hollow pieces are printed with a thin wall and a low infill to keep weight down; a two-storey ruin that weighs little is easier to store and cheaper to ship.

Fantasy Lab 3D delivers terrain in three states:

1. Raw print in a neutral grey or black, ready for you to paint.
2. Primed, so you can go straight to base colours.
3. Painted and weathered: base coat, washes, drybrushing, rust and moss effects, then a matte varnish.

Painting a whole table is a significant amount of work, so many gamers order raw prints for scatter and a painted finish for the two or three centrepiece buildings. See post-processing 101 for what each stage involves.

Modular systems and custom pieces

Modular terrain uses walls, floors and connectors that clip together, so the same set builds a small shrine one week and a fortress the next. Printed connectors are accurate enough to hold without glue. If you have a specific building in mind, from a fictional fortress to the abandoned factory at the edge of your town, it can be modelled from photos and printed at your game's scale. This is the same process we use for architectural scale models, just with more bullet holes.

Ready to order?

Tell us your game system, table size and how much of it you want covered through the contact form, and Fantasy Lab 3D will put together a terrain plan and a quote. You can also DM us on Instagram at @fantasylab3d.almaty with a photo of your current table and a note on the look you are after.