Davale Games, 3D Printed Miniatures - Review
3D printed miniatures are becoming more and more popular, with painters and gamers alike looking for cheaper miniatures. Some companies sell full miniatures, while others sell upgrades or alternative parts. Today I’ll be looking at a range of 3D printed miniatures by Davale Games. You can buy the files or pre-made miniatures. You can also find them on Patreon or Etsy.
Davale Games sell a mixture of fantasy and historical miniatures, as well as several different scenery kits. As I don’t have a 3D printer, I made my purchase on Etsy through Hammer Line Minis, buying pre-supported miniatures. You can see my previous review of 3D printed miniatures from Epic Miniatures here.
Silver Goat Dwarves with spears, hammers, and crossbows.
Assembly 9/10:
Assembly is straightforward for these miniatures. The dwarfs with hammers and crossbows are all single piece miniatures, and those with spears require the shields and spears to be glued on. The heroes and banner bearer need to be glued to a decorative rock, which is then glued to the base, with the mounted heroes also requiring their weapon arms to be attached. The Bloody Elves Demon Slaughter was slightly more complicated, with a few more pieces required to be glued, but still went together very easily.
Clean-up 9/10
There’s very little clean up to do with these miniatures; in a few places there was a little bit of the support left attach to the model, but these came off very easily, either with a hobby knife or in the water. Otherwise, there were no mould lines to speak. I gave my figures a quick wash in warm, soapy water (I use a bit of fairy liquid), just to make sure there was no residue left from the printing process.
Silver Goat Dwarf Heroes and banner bearer.
Details 10/10
The details on these miniatures are incredible. Considering the size of the miniatures, the details on the dwarves, such as their armour and beards, is amazing, and is a great opportunity for painters. This said, these miniatures are also great for people who prefer washes or inks, as there are plenty of recesses for these paints to flow into.
Pricing 9/10
Overall, I felt the pricing was very good. The Silver Goats Dwarf Army pack is around £45-50, with 28 miniatures. This gives you a good starting point for a larger army, or enough miniatures for small skirmishes. It also gives you enough for use in RPGs, such as D&D, providing you with a mix of units and a few more notable characters. Alternatively, you can get the pieces separately, with the heroes (foot and mounted) costing between £10-15, and the infantry costing between £18-25 for 12. This is comparable to a lot of other 3D miniatures, although buying the STL files is going to be significantly cheaper, if you can afford the 3D printer.
Final Thoughts
I was very pleased with these models, they have clean, crisp details, are a very good scale – they fit perfectly into Middle Earth and D&D alike – and assembly is very simple; for the most part, all you need to do is glue the model to the base! There’s very little clean up required, and no obvious mould lines to remove, which can be one of the time-consuming parts of assembling plastic miniatures. Overall, I’m very happy with my purchase, and would happily buy more of these miniatures!
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Thanks for reading!
Chris