Intended for 3d print.

Chess set based on units from the Castle and Necropolis faction in Heroes of Might & Magic 3. The units are intended to correlate to chess pieces, in the following order:

CASTLE SIDE

Halberdier - Pawn

Champion - Knight

Crusader - Bishop

Zealot - Rook

Archangel - Queen

Warrior Hero - King

NECROPOLIS SIDE

Skeleton Warrior - Pawn

Dread Knight - Knight

Vampire Lord - Bishop

Power Lich - Rook

Ghost Dragon - Queen

Wizard Hero - King

See image gallery for renders of each model.

The model pack also includes chess piece platforms to place the units on. The platforms vary in height depending on the value of the unit placed on it. The lowest platform is used for the pawns, the middle height platform is used for knights, bishops and rooks, and the tallest platform is used for the queen and king. There are two types of platforms, one for the Castle side and one for the Necropolis side. You can also print the platforms with or without nametags. Again, see the image gallery for renders of the nametags.

There are also a couple of alternative versions of the units. There's an unmounted version of the Castle side Warrior Hero, alternative poses for the Vampire Lord, et cetera. See image gallery for renders of all alternative versions.

Printing instructions

Print one platform, and one model, to create a complete chess piece. There are quite a few models included in the set, including a number of alternative versions of the official, recommended lineup of units. For the sake of providing some guidance, all alternative models are named OPTIONAL. If you want to print the recommended official lineup of units, only print models without the OPTIONAL suffix. Note that this only applies to actual units - you still need to select which platforms to print and use for yourself. Also note that all models will need to have their size adjusted in order to fit onto the platforms. Always load both a unit and a platform into the slicer in order to calibrate model sizes and make sure that one is not too large/small for the other. You can then remove either before printing.

Designer's notes

The following section is information about the design process, what the idea behind the models were and why they turned out the way they did, et cetera. It is not strictly speaking something you as a customer need to know, but you may find it interesting.

This chess set was originally commissioned by a customer, before being released to the public in its current form. It developed in iterations, and many models were altered or discarded as the customer decided on how to proceed forward. Some of the discarded previous iterations have been included in this model pack as a sort of bonus. You are free to use them as alternative units for the chess set, or as standalone models. Most of the units are clearly based on Homm3 units. The main exeption is the hero/king units. As per the commissioner's instructions, the Castle hero/king is based on artwork from Heroes 6, while the Necropolis hero/king is loosely based on the hero Sandro from the Homm series. Many of the units included in this set have also been released as separate products, so if you come across models that look similar to the ones included in this chess set, you are indeed correct.

Note that there is a "deluxe" edition of this chess set that is available on a couple of other 3d-printable model retail sites. The deluxe edition contains many more of the discarded models, including a number of HoMM3 buildings that were originally intended to be used as decoration for the chess piece platforms. The version on Creality Cloud however, is NOT the deluxe edition. Due to file size restrictions, I had to severely winnow the model pack and only include the recommended units plus a couple of the more attractive alternatives. The bad news is that you'll miss out on a lot of HoMM3-related goodies. The good news is that the Creality Cloud version is significantly cheaper, as well a easier to navigate - the deluxe edition contains nearly 160 different models, and even working out which models in the deluxe edition you are supposed to print can be slightly confusing.

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Chess Set