---
# ===========================================================================
# CUSTOMER STORY - Tabletop Terrain (Laramie "LJ")
# v2 rebuild to the new doctrine (.ai/testimonials/doctrine.md): interview, not
# narration. LJ's verbatim first-person quotes carry the claims; our prose is a
# thin third-person spine. Real stats from the DB (account 4501), not estimates.
# Status: DRAFT - renders on test; do NOT merge to production until LJ signs off
# on this v2. Nothing below is invented; quotes are the trimmed verbatim core.
# ===========================================================================

# Identity
title: "From a basement to a 650m2 warehouse: how Tabletop Terrain scaled to ~150 printers on SimplyPrint"
slug: tabletop-terrain-print-farm
description: "Tabletop Terrain went from ~5 printers in a basement to ~150 in a 650m2 warehouse, and one founder to 17 people - SimplyPrint scaled with them the whole way."

# Casting
customer: Tabletop Terrain
segment: print-farms
sub_persona: farm-made-to-order
angle: "SimplyPrint scales with you: from a basement and ~5 printers to a 650m2 warehouse and ~150"
hero_feature: print-queue
# Flagship: pin Tabletop as the featured farm story (top of /testimonials and the
# featured story on /features/print-queue), ahead of same-day stories like LAB3D.
priority: 10

# Snapshot box
region: United States (Laramie, Wyoming)
fleet_size: "~150 printers (Bambu Lab P1 + H2C)"
brands: "Bambu Lab P1 + H2C (started on a Prusa MK3S)"
plan: Print Farm
since: "2022 (joined and printed the same day)"
customer_url: https://tabletopterrain.com/
shop_url: https://tabletopterrain.com/
social:
  instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tabletop.terrain/

# Oversized counterfactual hero quote (the page's centerpiece)
hero_quote:
  quote: "Trying to do it now without SimplyPrint would be insane."
  attribution: "LJ, founder of Tabletop Terrain"

# Metric strip - 3 big REAL numbers (units on each)
metrics:
  - label: Printers
    before: "~5"
    after: "~150"
  - label: "Prints (since 2022)"
    value: "143,000+"
    captured: "completed, and counting"
  - label: Team
    before: "1 (a side hustle)"
    after: "17"

# Without / with table (the visceral before/after) - units on every row
before_with:
  - label: Where the plan lived
    without: "The order plan kept in his head, files moved to machines by hand"
    with: "One print queue, every job organized by order number"
  - label: Starting a batch
    without: "Send files to printers one machine at a time"
    with: "One click to start a job on any of ~150 printers"
  - label: Verifying an order shipped complete
    without: "Hope nothing was missed"
    with: "History-verified by order number before it goes to packing"
  - label: Open orders he was comfortable with
    without: "Nervous at 20 orders in progress"
    with: "Regularly sitting at 200-300 orders in progress"

# Before/after IMAGERY pair (the visual spine: basement -> warehouse)
before_after:
  before:
    src: before-basement.jpg
    caption: "From the basement - the original print farm: insulation, a water heater, and printers crammed onto a couple of racks."
  after:
    src: after-warehouse.jpg
    caption: "...to a 650m2 (about 7,000 sq ft) warehouse of orange racks, running on SimplyPrint."

# Media - newest Tabletop Terrain photos. hero_image is a REAL floor photo
# (NOT og_image, which is meta-only).
hero_image: hero-warehouse.jpg
photos:
  - src: display-order-grid.jpg
    alt: "A SimplyPrint Display order-grid screen showing job slots a1-a8 with order numbers and filenames, mounted above two Bambu Lab P1 printers with external AMS spools"
    caption: "The order grid the team reads off the wall - every slot carries an order number, so the floor and the packing slip always agree."
  - src: terrain-products.jpg
    alt: "A wire shelving unit displaying finished grey terrain and scenery miniatures, flanked by racks of Bambu Lab P1 printers"
    caption: "The craft: made-to-order tabletop terrain, staged among the racks before it ships."

# Speaker headshot - GAP: no LJ headshot in the library yet. Omitted on purpose;
# the person-card simply doesn't render. NEVER substitute stock.
headshot:
video_youtube_id:
# Website wordmark (dark ink, works on the light snapshot bg) - shown next to the
# customer name in the snapshot box.
logo: logo.png

# SEO / schema
og_image: https://cdn.simplyprint.io/i/landing/testimonials/print-farms/tabletop-terrain-print-farm/og.jpg
og_image_alt: "Tabletop Terrain's Bambu Lab P1 print farm - from a basement and ~5 printers to a 650m2 warehouse and ~150 on SimplyPrint"
og_image_no_shadow: true
schema: Article
last_modified: 2026-06-11
published: 2026-06-11

# Feature-quote cards - each pairs a live /features page with a verbatim LJ line
feature_quotes:
  - feature: PrintQueue
    quote: "I wouldn't have to keep stuff in my head anymore."
  - feature: OneClickPrint
    quote: "Now I'm babysitting people. I haven't worked on the printers in years."
  - feature: JobHistory
    quote: "I used to get nervous at 20 orders in progress. Now we regularly are sitting between like 200 and 300."

# Ambient pan clips - muted autoplay, no-loop mp4s (living photos)
ambient_clips:
  - src: pan-vertical.mp4
    caption: "A pass down a rack of P1s."
  - src: pan-down.mp4
    caption: "Down the main aisle of the warehouse."

# Web of features + conversion
related_features:
  - MainSiteApp\Controllers\Frontpage\Features\PrintQueueFeatureController
  - MainSiteApp\Controllers\Frontpage\Features\OneClickPrintFeatureController
  - MainSiteApp\Controllers\Frontpage\Features\JobHistoryFeatureController
related_testimonials:
  - lab3d-prusa-bambu-print-farm
related_articles:
  - how-to-start-a-3d-print-farm
  - staggered-start-3d-print-farm
cta_inline: { text: "Start free, no credit card", url: "/panel/signup" }
cta_final: { text: "Start free, no credit card", url: "/panel/signup" }

# AI search / GEO
tldr: |
  Tabletop Terrain prints made-to-order tabletop wargaming terrain. It grew from
  a basement and about 5 printers to roughly 150 in a 650m2 warehouse, and from
  a one-person side hustle to 17 people. It has run every order through one
  SimplyPrint print queue, by order number, since 2022 - more than 143,000
  completed prints and counting.

consent: "DRAFT - pending LJ's sign-off on v2. This rebuild follows LJ's feedback on the first version (let him speak, keep it short, correct images/angle) and removes the two off-hand asides he asked us to cut (the domain-authority remark and the grey/1-click tangent). Get the written OK on file before production merge."
---

[Tabletop Terrain](https://tabletopterrain.com/) makes the scenery that miniatures fight over: buildings, hills, bunkers, the terrain a tabletop wargame is played on. LJ started it as a side hustle, printing in a basement. Today it is 17 people fulfilling made-to-order orders out of a 650m2 (about 7,000 sq ft) warehouse, on a floor that runs roughly 150 Bambu Lab P1 and H2C printers.

The number that matters most about that growth is not the printer count. It is that the same platform ran the basement and runs the warehouse. LJ joined SimplyPrint in 2022 and printed the same day, on a single [print queue](/features/print-queue) - and that queue is still the spine of the operation at 30x the size.

## The challenge: it was all in his head

The bottleneck early on was never the printers. It was him. He was moving files to machines by hand and holding the plan for what got printed, in what order, for which customer, in his head. That works at a few orders a day. It does not work at the volume he was heading toward.

What pulled him onto SimplyPrint was one thing:

> I wouldn't have to keep stuff in my head anymore.

## The turning point: a basement farm that kept growing

The early days were the usual scrappy mess of failed orders and one machine at a time, until a glass print plate shattered in his hands and pushed him onto his first Prusa MK3S. He added another, then another, back when a new printer meant a long wait. The basement filled up. So did the next space.

He never had to swap the system to keep growing. As the floor went from a handful of printers to dozens to ~150, the queue scaled with it. Jobs that once went out one machine at a time now go out with [one click](/features/one-click-print) across the whole fleet, so he is not babysitting individual printers.

> Now I'm babysitting people. I haven't worked on the printers in years.

## Scaling: a Shopify order, start to shipped

The work runs on a rhythm now, and the queue is the spine. Orders land on the website, and a couple of times a day LJ batches them into SimplyPrint, where everything is organized by order number so a customer's order stays one trackable unit from the moment it enters the queue.

His team works off the [display screens](/print-farms) on the wall: each slot shows which order number is on which printer, so when a print finishes an operator can pull it and match it to the right packing slip. Before an order ships, someone checks the [print history](/features/print-history) by order number to confirm every part was actually made. The fleet is mixed by design, and that suits how LJ thinks about the tooling:

> They're not just building a Bambu Lab app. They're building a [printer app](/compatibility). It doesn't matter if you have a Prusa MK3, a Prusa XL, or a P1P - you can use the same system for all of it.

## The results: from 20 open orders to 300

The scale is real: ~5 printers became ~150, one person became 17 (seven of whom work in SimplyPrint every day), and the account has logged more than 143,000 completed prints since 2022. The daily load is around 40 orders, and a single recent order was 70 plates on its own.

But the line that says the most about what changed is the one about his own nerves:

> I used to get nervous at 20 orders in progress. Now we regularly are sitting between like 200 and 300.

Maintenance is somebody else's full-time role now - "Cole's full-time job is just keeping the printers running" - and most of the team has been there for years. Running the operation the old way is not something LJ will entertain. As he puts it, going back by hand is "not a printer problem, it is a time-in-the-day problem." There are not enough hours in the day to do what one queue does, which is why "trying to do it now without SimplyPrint would be insane."

## TL;DR

Tabletop Terrain scaled from a basement and ~5 printers to a 650m2 warehouse and ~150, and from one founder to 17 people, running every made-to-order order through one SimplyPrint queue since 2022 - by order number, started with one click, and verified against print history before it ships. More than 143,000 prints and counting.