At its heart, Of Oil and Iron is about commanding a squadron of hulking dieselpunk war machines - and making every choice count. Here’s how it works:

Build Your Rigs – Start by constructing your squadron. Choose from a wide variety of Rig chassis (Light, Medium, Heavy, Colossal), then customize them with weapons and equipment.

Choose Your Allegiance – Side with one of the great corporate factions for unique flavour and tactics, or create your own ragtag crew of mercenaries and Nomads. The system is freeform, so you can build the force that matches your playstyle.

Manage Your Engine Heat – Every Rig runs on roaring diesel engines (some may have Arc engines!). Push them too hard and they’ll overheat, risking malfunctions, shutdowns, or even catastrophic explosions. Balancing power and caution is key, will you throttle forward at full risk, or play it safe?

React and Counter – The game isn’t just “I go, you go.” With alternating activations and the Preparation mechanic, you can set your Rigs to lie in wait, unleashing reactive actions on your opponent’s turn. Ambushes, counter-fire, and clever feints keep the game tense and cinematic.

Choose Your Scale of Battle – Of Oil and Iron is flexible. Play a quick skirmish with as little as 2 Rigs per side, or escalate to a full-scale warfront with 8 or more Rigs clashing across the battlefield - in 15mm or 32mm scale.

The result is an exciting tactical skirmish system that rewards creative loadouts, bold manoeuvres, and calculated risk-taking. Every clash feels like a diesel-fuelled war story in the making.

The official scale is 15mm. However, STLs are also provided in 32mm scale, in case you want to use Rigs as proxies for other games, or just want to play Of Oil and Iron at a bigger scale. Simply double all distances in the rulebook!

The initial release includes six factions:

Nox Industries -  ruthless industrial titans

The Krim Corporation -  aristocratic war profiteers

Arcus Technologies -  high-tech innovators

Triton Engineering -  oceanic oil barons

Freegear Coalition -  scavengers and rebels

Nomads (Mercenaries) -  independent pilots for hire

Yes. Of Oil and Iron is designed as an expanding universe. New Rigs, equipment, weapons, and lore are already in development.

All Rig STLs come pre-supported in both 15mm and 32mm scale options. Because everyone’s 3D printing set-up is different, I tried to support the models in a way that they work for everyone. I recommend:

Use warm water or hairdryer to remove supports to prevent scarring

Layer thickness: 0.03mm

Normal exposure time: 2.5s

Bottom exposure time: 70s

Lift speed: 2mm/s

It’s probably not nice to choose a favourite child… But I’d say the Hijack light Rig, it’s the embodiment of dieselpunk mecha! And that’s why I chose it as a free sample model that you can download – just sign up to the newsletter and I’ll send it to you!