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A Vast Underestimation

11.30.2025

I previously mentioned that I started (3D) printing the Heroboard modular board for Heroquest. It's also been the project to help dial-in the new printer. As such, it's not 100% optimum printing and cranking through everything. Additionally, I don't really know what the minimum I need to print for the game is, as I've yet to actually play it. I do have a "this should cover everything" list to print, which is what I'm working off.

Within that list, I'm working in phases. The first are the under-tiles, the bases that magnetically lock everything together. Effectively, the foundation. After that are the side-walls for those tiles, to cosmetically cover the magnets that aren't being used. Next up is "hallway" floor tiles. These I'm printing as individual floor tiles as the rooms are pre-joined with however many spaces a room takes up. These phases are done! I've got stacks with 502 under-tiles, 103 side-walls to cover the exterior of those under-tiles, and 168 hallway floor tiles. This took the better part of 2 months, to include bad prints as I needed some settings tweak, usually due to garage temperature and/or humidity.

Remaining are 22 room floor tiles, pre-configured based on the original game board. All of this will need walls and doors/doorways, which make up the next two phases. Here is where it makes a difference in not knowing exactly what I'll need, but instead making sure I have a worse-case usage covered. With my current high-quality print settings that use a 0.2mm nozzle, to print the remaining floors, doors, and walls will take just under 94 days if the printer runs 24/7 with no hiccups.

That's a lot of printing. Realistically, that's closer to 6 months than 3. Plus, there's other things I want to print & play around with.

While painting the Heroquest minis was my 2025 project, I thought that was originally going to include printing out the board, too. Now, at the end of November, I think I will claim my 2026 hobby project to be having the board ready for Xmas 2026. There will likely be uninteresting pics along the journey just because pics make these posts more interesting.

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