3d-printable terrain for all your samurai wargaming needs
Okay, it's time to reveal the new BIG project for the samurai collection...... the Samurai Lord's House!!!
This is going to be of a similar size and complexity to the large Samurai Castle, but spread out on (mostly) a single level. The model will be based entirely on a real samurai lord's house in Oita prefecture, that I was lucky enough to visit recently and spend a busy few hours taking hundreds of reference photos and videos!
Let's take a look at what's going to be involved....
▲ This is the tourist map provided by the ticket office, and shows just how large this model will be - an entire battlefield in one set!
The main gate is roughly in the centre of a large an imposing outer wall, which will be a new design compatible with the stone walls! The main house is used for welcoming guests and is basically a slightly tall and very large single level, with balconies on 3 sides overlooking a garden.
A narrow corridor to the right leads to the separate residence building, where the Lord and Lady would have lived and slept. Adjacent to the Residence building is the two-storey kitchen building, with access to storehouses and a water well.
At the top left we have 2 guesthouses, which will be connected to the main house by walkways.
Phew! That's a lot of models - 8 buildings, plus extensive walls and gardens!
▲ Oh look! Street fish ponds!! What a coincidence :)
These ponds actually act as a moat for the Lord's house, and are something I just had to make in miniature too!
These outer walls are an eye-catching half-timbered design, and will be compatible with existing wall sets.
▲ The main gate is a pretty substantial structure, with a smaller pedestrian door either side of the main gate doors.
▲ Once through the main gate, this is the view ahead of the main house. It's very ornate, and rather resembles a temple building with those fancy roof lines.
▲ The main house is not actually used for 'living' in, but rather for impressing guests with its grandeur. Lots of open spaces for deadly sword duels!
▲ The main house is connected to the kitchens and Lord's residence via this long, thin corridor. There are numerous rooms and doorways branching off to the sides.
▲ The back of the main house (on the right of this picture) has a long wrap-around wood balcony on 3 sides, which offer great views of the traditional garden. The Lord's residence, where the Lord and Lady slept, is the building on the left in this photo.
▲ To the other side of the main house are two smaller guesthouses, connected via covered walkways. These will also be new building designs included in the set.
▲ Hmm, a very traditional Japanese garden, don't you think? I reckon it's about time to design some suitable trees and bushes to include in the set, too....
▲ This photo puts us back at the main gate again, but this time looking to the right, where a small path leads through an inner wall towards the servants quarters and the two-storey kitchen building. With all those inner walls, it might be a quite defensible position, don't you think?
▲ This is the outside of the Residence building where the Lord and Lady sleep, which again has wooden decks on two sides, offering good views out onto the garden.
▲ Here's the first of 3 storehouses. This is a traditional building, solidly built, and currently being used as a mini-museum.
▲ Another slightly larger storehouse, again with two levels. Similar in design to the previous one, and currently being used as a cafe.
▲ The third of the storehouses, which sits next to another inner wall and gate, and close to the kitchens.
▲ A water well is of course a useful feature of such a large house, and sits close to the kitchen, under this large tiled roof. This will be another new design included in the set.
▲ Work is already well underway on the 3D modelling, and the first job was to match the layout of the real buildings. Including the outer walls and gardens, this layout of the set should cover an area about 120cm x 120cm (4ft²)! It's massive!
Keep your eyes on our Facebook page for progress pics over the coming weeks!
Our new (pretty big!) top secret samurai project is well under way, so while you're waiting, why not take a look at the little terrain set being released today for the samurai collection... a set of street fish ponds!
▲ Old Japanese towns often have extensive water channels running alongside the streets for drainage and fire-prevention, and you can sometimes find koi carp swimming there. This set of modular water channels can add unique authentic details to your samurai board.
▲ The water channels are 25mm wide (approximately 35mm including the stone edges), and include straight sections, wider pond straight sections, and 3 sizes of corner section. 
▲ Here's a popular street scene, with some decorative fish ponds surrounding the town's temple bell.
▲ Also included in the set are small wooden bridge sections and some end stones, so the fish can travel through tunnels under roads and junctions.
▲ These street ponds are super popular with tourists in modern-day historical towns.
▲ Each section can be printed with or without the low bamboo railings.
▲ To make these water channels look realistic, I recommend continuing them from block to block via bridges and (imagined) tunnels, so the whole system looks interconnected.
▲ It really enhances the authentic feel of any town board you play over, and is a truly unique feature of Japan!
▲ Yes, children in old samurai towns would have loved them, too!
▲ The Street Fish Ponds set is available from today!
Research trips are great fun, and great sources of inspiration! I recently took a trip to a historical samurai town to take plenty of reference photos for the new [...TOP SECRET PROJECT!!...] design I'm working on, and nearby I came across a truly unique feature of old towns, and just had to try and recreate those for the tabletop!
So here's a little explanation and background....
▲ Old Japanese samurai towns quite often had narrow water channels running alongside the streets in residential areas, and these were typically used for drainage from nearby farming and also as a convenient water source in case of fires.
▲ Some of those water channels are very clean and attractive features of the towns, and some tourism boards in historical towns have recently started repopulating the channels with koi carp, as in the photo above. The channels themselves are usually quite shallow (30cm or so), but enough to support large numbers of the colourful fish so popular with tourists.
So before I cracked on with test prints for the main [TOP SECRET] project, I got a little sidetracked with designing some modular sections of these water channels....
▲ Each section features a 25mm-wide shallow water channel, with edging stones on both sides. The water channel is only about 4-5mm deep, but is ideal for a thin layer of clear resin or thick gloss varnish. To make pouring resin a little easier, each section also has a thin 3mm-high lip at each end to contain liquid.
For anybody who would prefer not to have those lips on their water channels, they can be easily removed with a couple of quick cuts and then snapped out using pliers, as in the photo above.
▲ Here's a straight section where the end wall has been removed. Nice and neat!
▲ All of the sections are included with two versions - with and without a low railing. This low bamboo railing has been carefully designed to connect up with adjoining sections, and also to print without additional slicer supports.
You can simply print the file as is, and then cut out the built-in print supports circled in red in the photo above.
▲ Here's a selection of pieces I printed out for my town board. We've got straight sections (120mm long), some other straight sections featuring wider ponds (you can mirror these for more variety!), all 3 sizes of corner section, several wooden bridge pieces, a few end stones, and plenty of fish.
In addition to the individual koi carp models, the set also includes an easy-to-print 25mm circle of fish, which is ideal for showing the fish frenzy you'll sometimes see at feeding time! I even printed some of those circle groups at 35mm size, to be used in the wider pond sections.
▲ This photo shows the sections as they could be used alongside a residential street. The water channels would connect underground between each section, with small bridges over them leading to each house. I chose to print mostly the versions with the bamboo railing, purely for aesthetic reasons.
Don't worry! This layout will make SO much more sense when you see it painted and combined with other terrain!
▲ 3 sizes of corner section are included in the set. The smallest is just a 35mm square of water channel, which can be combined with other 120mm straight or pond sections to fit the corner sections from the Castle Walls set, as shown in the photo above.
These will also fit directly up against building walls such as the 120mm-long shop buildings.
▲ The biggest corner sections of the water channel (100mm) are designed to fit the corner sections from the Stone Walls set, so they can run alongside many types of residential walls.
▲ The middle size of corner section is designed to fit the corner pieces from the canal set, as shown in the photo above. Just in case you didn't already know, these canal pieces can also be used on dry land, as low platforms to lift up buildings, gardens and walkways.
The Samurai Street Fish Ponds set is just about to hit the paint desk, and will be ready for release in a few days! Get ready to enhance your tabletops!
Today we have some awesome customer pics to show you! This wonderfully natural and overgrown board was put together by Rob Didur, and shows great use of moss and lichen on pathways and buildings, to add a real sense of age.
▲ This is an overview of the board, on a plain green battlemat.
▲ Rows of rice paddies lie alongside the mossy and overgrown path.
▲ He's used multiple stone lanterns from the zen garden set, and carefully added moss to each one.
▲ Rob has also printed and combined multiple bamboo forest bases (from the big shrine set).
▲ That big rock is from the teahouse set, and again Rob has covered it in ancient moss.
▲ The green-hued pond is a good focal point for the torii gate entrance.
▲ The wood and rock roof for this old farmhouse building also looks fabulous with plenty of moss and lichen growing there.
▲ Rob has also modelled a couple of ponds, which look suitably grimy and murky.
▲ He's added a stone lantern and this bamboo deer-scarer to his second version of the pond.
▲ This last pic shows a brilliant idea Rob has come up with. Rather than individually print and assemble 10 moss-covered stone monuments, he has first combined all the individual pieces into one long row of monuments, and printing them in one go!
An excellent idea, and very easy to do in either modelling software such as 3DBuilder, or even in slicer software such as Cura.
A big round of applause for Rob, please, for this fantastic table!
We have a new display board in the studio, featuring our dojo, sumo ring, market stalls and shops. It makes a quaint little scene, so I thought you might be interested in taking a look at some of the pics....
▲ Lots of 'life' in this board, with all the market stalls along the town's streets.
▲ A local priest practices some archery outside the dojo.
▲ Looking down the main street.
▲ A thirsty local, sneaking a little drink outside the sake shop.
▲ Spectators for the sumo wrestling.
▲ A moment of thoughtful contemplation.
Samurai Street Fish Ponds 
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12 Comments :
Terry Broomhall
2023-12-07 (Thu) 18:49PM
Waiting with baited breath, that will look amazing, Keep up the great work
2023-12-07 (Thu) 19:18PM
Thanks for the encouragement, Terry!
Rhedd
2023-12-10 (Sun) 5:07AM
Wow! This is exactly what I was hoping the "secret project" was! I really appreciate how historically accurate you are with your Japanese scenery.
Hopefully the different elements will be able to be separated, since I usually game on a 3'x3' table! :D
2023-12-10 (Sun) 7:29AM
Yes, Rhedd, only the central 3 buildings are designed to be used in a fixed layout together.... and even for those I'll try to make them separate if possible. Not sure how that'll work with the roof shapes, but I'll try!
I also usually use a 3x3 gaming table (for Test of Honour), so don't worry! :)
Persia
2023-12-11 (Mon) 10:27AM
Looks fabulous. If the residence could be able to be stand-alone, that would be great, as it could presumably be used as a Samurai residence - or do you plan to do one of those at some stage?
2023-12-11 (Mon) 19:42PM
I'm hoping the residence's roof can be detached from the adjoining buildings, so it can also be used separately! Fingers crossed!
Magnus
2023-12-17 (Sun) 2:08AM
Fantastic news!
I am extremely impressed (and thankful) for all the work you are putting in - and hereby promise to buy *everything* feudal Japanese themed that you have, and will, put out to support this.
This said, I will probably struggle to print the biggest kits (such as the castle) as I "only" have a Saturn 3 resin printer, making large prints quite expensive.
BTW: I usually build my scenery (for Necromunda, Warhammer Fantasy, 40k, etc.) on 1200x1200 mm plywood boards (mainly as they can be bought ready made at harware stores) - but have considered switching to 900x900 mm for my upcoming ToH-themed ones (with scenery from 3DAW).
Bearing this project in mind, I might rethink this.
2023-12-18 (Mon) 17:53PM
Sorry, Magnus - I think the castle would be very, very expensive to print in resin! But I bet the smaller stuff like the market stall accessories looks absolutely fabulous.
R2D2
2024-01-28 (Sun) 6:16AM
Really cool. That makes a nice complete table. Cool to see some feudal Japanese 3dprints
R2D2
2024-01-28 (Sun) 6:24AM
Don't know why my whole text wasn't sent.
Really cool. That makes a nice complete table. Cool to see some feudal Japanese 3dprints. Great job!
Is there a reason why there are no round kamon rooftiles as lowest rooftile? There were not on the house or is it hard to make?
2024-01-28 (Sun) 7:18AM
The crest on the ends of the lowest rooftile? They do look great, I agree, but they just won't print reliably at only a few millimetres. Sorry!
Brandon Helms
2024-02-01 (Thu) 21:00PM
I am loving this project, some many different parts. So many great uses. This should keeep me busy for a while
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