Free Sturmriese STLs!

Want a giant spider mech for your Konflikt ’47 collection? Of course you do! Here’s Jim Butler, Head of Direct Sales & Marketing and the man of many, many armies, to tell you how you can get one!

What a time to be alive! Not only are we releasing our first 3D printable file of one of our miniatures, and not only is it the biggest model we’ve ever made, but it’s absolutely free! At the bottom of this page you’ll find a link to download the STL files for the awesome Sturmriese and a guide to printing, so we thought it would be a good idea to explain how we got to this point.

The origins of the Sturmriese go back to our plans to relaunch Konflikt ‘47 with new rules and artwork, a range of brand new miniatures and a starter set. Our intention was to unveil the new game at the UK Games Expo in May 2025 and we wanted to have an inspirational display table to showcase the new miniatures as well as the existing range, and give us an opportunity to talk about our plans for the future. We wanted something that would really show off the unique character of Konflikt ‘47 – its roots in World War Two and how the arcane technologies unleashed by the opening of the Rifts had changed the world and the armies that fought over it.

I’d only recently joined Warlord and Peter Gosling, Head of Product, was explaining this brief and how important it was to have a centrepiece for the display that was a recognisable example of Rift technology. He was thinking about including LED lights as special effects and I said “why not a plasma ball?”. I was half joking, but Peter loved the idea and briefed the studio team to create a piece of scenery that would hold the plasma ball and hide the base to make it look like arcane technology. The seeds of the Sturmriese had been planted…

Jon Heeney and Wojciech developed the idea into a plan for a huge centrepiece terrain feature. At the time they were working on designs for the Axis walkers, and naturally it occurred to them that rather than be a static piece of terrain, this could be a gigantic walker. The idea was to build a model that really demonstrated how the Green Vault were exploiting the power of the Rifts to realise their colossal ambition, something that Dan (Hewitson, Konflikt ’47 lead writer -ed.) could incorporate into the narrative.

As the Games Expo approached and plans for building the display table and transporting it to the NEC advanced the studio team worked out the best way to build the Sturmriese (which was at this point still being called the ‘giant spider mech’) was to design it in a 3D package and get it printed. Thanks to Jon we were able to get the display table ready for the event and we were blown away by the response of people who came by to check it out. What we didn’t expect was fans asking when they could buy one!

We’d never intended for the huge model to be manufactured in any quantity, but our amazing production staff here in Warlord HQ and our friends at Skytrex applied their expertise to a design for manufacture plan. After months of effort they concluded that the costs of hand making each one would mean the retail price would be much higher than we were comfortable with. This left us in a dilemma, as Dan was busy making the Sturmriesen an integral part of the story…

If you’ve got a copy of the Festung Europa book, you’ll know that the Sturmriesen are giant energy accumulators that played a key role in holding back the Allied assaults on Germany by denying them the use of air power. A bespoke scenario is included for incorporating it into your battles. The Sturmriese isn’t a model you’ll add to your army for normal games, it’s the kind of project that whole gaming groups work on as the focus for a campaign, or that organisers might want to build an event around.

With all that in mind the decision to make the STL available free of charge felt like the right thing to do – this way people can print out the model to their own specifications to suit their gaming tables. The link for the files is below, we look forward to people sharing their creations and the battles they inspire. We’ll continue to develop ideas for Konflikt ‘47 terrain to help you create evocative battlefields, as well as exploring different production methods – stay tuned!