Container City
A Modular, Support-Free 3D Printable Terrain Project
Images coming soon
Project Overview
Container City is a modular 3D printable terrain project built around repurposed shipping containers. Designed as a flexible STL-based system for tabletop gaming, the project focuses on dense, vertical environments created from stackable container structures, converted dwellings, and improvised industrial elements.
The project is planned to launch as a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, allowing the terrain set to grow organically through stretch goals and community feedback. From the outset, Container City has been designed as a complete environment rather than a collection of isolated terrain pieces, giving players the tools to build cohesive settlements, outposts, and shanty towns directly on the tabletop.
A City Built from Containers
At the heart of Container City are modular shipping container files, designed to stack, combine, and interlock in a variety of ways. These include both solid containers for fast table coverage and more detailed variants with interiors and configurable doors, allowing for more involved narrative and skirmish play.
Rather than treating containers as simple obstacles, the project reimagines them as the foundations of an entire settlement. Containers become homes, businesses, storage units, and defensive positions. Over time, these structures grow upward and outward, connected by makeshift walkways, ladders, and scaffolding, forming cramped streets and layered firing positions.
Lived-In Spaces and Makeshift Buildings
A core focus of the project is transforming industrial containers into believable living and working spaces. Container City includes a wide range of converted container buildings, from simple dwellings to more characterful interiors such as bars, shops, and workshops. Some buildings feature full interiors for close-quarters encounters and narrative scenarios, while others use simplified or solid designs to balance print time and table density.
These elements are intended to support the creation of entire container-based settlements, allowing players to print everything needed for a shanty town that feels occupied rather than abandoned.
Verticality, Connections, and Detail
To support vertical gameplay and dense layouts, Container City includes a broad selection of connecting structures and industrial add-ons. Walkways, bridges, ladders, and scaffolding allow players to link buildings together, create elevated firing positions, and shape complex movement routes across the board.
The environment is further brought to life through barricades, fences, improvised walls, and scatter terrain. These details help break up open spaces, provide meaningful cover, and reinforce the improvised nature of the setting.
Designed for 3D Printing
Container City has been designed from the ground up specifically for home 3D printing. Every piece is built with real-world printers in mind, focusing on reliability, efficient print times, and ease of assembly. The aim is to remove common pain points and make it as straightforward as possible to build large, coherent tables over time.
Key design principles include:
- Support-free printing wherever possible, reducing failed prints, clean-up time, and material waste
- FDM-friendly geometry, with sensible overhangs and solid contact points
- Modular components that can be mixed, matched, and re-used across different builds
- Efficient print layouts, allowing pieces to be printed in manageable batches
- Scalable designs, suitable for common skirmish scales without loss of detail
Every file is designed to be practical to print and easy to integrate, letting you expand your terrain collection steadily while maintaining consistent scale and visual style across your tables.
Built for Skirmish Gaming
What to Expect
Container City is intended to be a flexible, expandable terrain system that grows alongside the tables it is used on. The Kickstarter campaign will expand the set through additional buildings, variants, and detail pieces, while maintaining a consistent visual language and modular structure throughout.
The end result is a terrain project designed to create crowded, vertical, and tactically rich environments that feel genuinely inhabited, perfect for close-quarter skirmishes and narrative play.