Thursday 23 June 2011

Apocalypse Terrain: Gothic Catherdral

I LOVE Apocalypse, and would play it every weekend if i had the opportunity! This expansion rarely gets the praise that (i think) it deserves, for one reason or another. I really enjoy busting out my big Super-Heavies, wiping out whole units with one shot from my Reaver Titan, and chucking all the Kriegsmen i can find into the meat-grinder.....and not give a dam! Now this wonderful game is the focus of a new terrain project that I'm starting, an Apocalypse scale Gothic Cathedral!

So what is Apocalypse scale? In my mind its something that's too big to practically fit onto a standard 40K board, but big enough to be a centrepiece for an Apocalypse battle! And that's exactly what i'm aiming to create!

Voila! (sorry, the pics are a bit poor)




This bit of MDF is 4ft long and 2ft wide - big enough for Apoc' i feel! I would have liked to have found a 3ft wide piece, but this was the best i could do. I wanted to keep the base board solid, as its going to be supporting an awful lot of resin and plastic by the time its finished!

The building panels that you can see are from the Pegasus Gothic Building range, and one of the best terrain kits that you can buy! This Cathedral will be made up entirely of their building range, aside from the front door, which will be a Shrine of the Aquila eagle. There are very few parameters for this project. It just had to be BIG, and it had to be playable. By that i mean its not too full of rubble, details and whatever, that you can't place a model in or around it!

So at this stage I'm planing out the footprint of the Cathedral. The panels that you can see in these pictures are just blu-tac'ed together for the moment until I'm happy with the shape (which i think i am). The side walls will be 3 panels high, and the 2 towers at the front of the building will be 5 panels high! I wanted it big enough to hide a Reaver behind! I'll be contructing a pitched roof to cover the bulk of the Cathedral at some stage. You can also see a large courtyard at the front which will have a few statues and things leading up to the front door of the Cathedral.

So for the foreseeable future I'll be assembling building kits and raising mighty edifices to the Emperor! I'm not sure how long this projects going to take, but I'm thinking along the lines of 2 months from now, which i hope is an over-estimate. I already have another 2 Apocalypse Terrain ideas ready to go: a giant promethium refinery (which will take up a whole Apoc' board!) and a replica of Forgeworlds Imperial Fortress walls! Things are going to start getting BIG around here!
The GunGrave

11 comments:

  1. Those wall sections look great! I'm excited to see this project moving forward. That is going to take a lot of wall panels. Good luck and keep the updates coming!

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  2. Good Luck!

    If you are looking for any information on Gothic then you can head over to my terrain blog - I've recently posted about Gothic details. Also, if you have any direct questions that I have not got to covering yet (if you are interested in accuracy) then you can always drop me an e-mail at oinked@hotmail.com and I'll be happy to help make sense of things that you might not be sure of!

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  3. Cheers Oink, thanks for the offer!

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  4. I look forward to seeing how this progresses. Although you say 4'x2' is too large for a standard 40K game, I think this could be brilliant as the entire table for a game of Kill Team (or equivalent). Either way, seeing as you're happy to give it some serious scale, see if you can't get some vertical play space in - if nothing else, interior balconies are good for a cathedral, not to mention towers (though they are rather enclosed).

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  5. Looking forward to seeing this complete! Definitely agree with Januarius, big piece of terrain like this are equally as sweet for smaller skirmish games as well.

    Cheers,
    Jason

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  6. That looks amazing! Im looking at getting some building kits and I'm currently trying to find the Pegasus kits, where do you get them from?

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  7. Concur with everyone elses thoughts mate - looks like it should be a fun build and cool to play across.

    If you put a roof on though how will you game through the terrain? Will the roof come off?

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  8. Hey guys, some good points there!
     
    I do plan to put some interior detail in, but only once the walls are up and i know how much space i'll have to play with. I was thinking along the lines of 2 galleries running the length of the Catherdral supported by pillars with a large balcony above the front door. Access will be via 2 spiral staircases.
     
    Further details include seating (pues) and an alter of some form as well! As for the roof; it will be removable to keep it playable! I think it'll look a bit unfinished if it didnt have one at all. All these ideas are really going to be constrained by the space in the assembled building, but im confident that it'll all get in there!
     
    @ Mighty Simo - I think Pegasus are an American company, and their website can be found via google. These particular kits came off eBay though, which is usually a safe bet for getting hold of them!

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  9. Hola, just spotted your project on the Cathedral. I got a Cathedral built out of the three Pegaus kits that is borderline size wise for my table. But Sabol Studios still has some images up of their work (and I got some on my blog that might pique your interest as well).

    http://www.sabolstudios.com/sci-fi-terrain/best-team-display-adepticon-2010

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  10. Or just go look here:

    http://youaintseensquat.blogspot.com/2011/06/links-and-bits-galore.html

    It has the pictures I mentioned, and the webstore Drum and Flag sells the Pegasus kits. I will totally stay tuned. ;)

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  11. Great commitment! I helped out at my local GW to build something similar for their terrain collection, took us about 6 months of 1 evening a week to get the main structure built (in a modular fashion for gaming and storage purposes), and the painting happened in a couple of days.

    You've got your work cut out for you, but you've already made a great start and I can't wait to see how you progress and how the Pegasus kits work out.

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