The Temple of Love: Building a Sisters of Battle Cathedral pt 1 - introduction & plans

Well, we've all thought of doing it - getting a hold of a bunch of GW's Warhammer 40K modular "industrial gothic" scenery and / or some of the Pegasus Hobbies "gothic" sets and building some vast Imperial Cathedral for our Sisters of Battle. Most often, people build ruined structures - they are easier (the kits come with a lot of ruined sections, and you need fewer pieces) and they are more suitable for gaming on (you can reach inside to place models).

But I didn't want to do that - I wanted to build an intact Imperial Cathedral. Something like the vast structures we see in the artwork.

Of course, something that large would be impossible and impractical. But a large scenery centerpiece would be doable. And, rather than let the idea languish in my head, I resolved to put it into action! Some initial thoughts;

• The Pegasus terrain is inexpensive, sturdy and quite suitable for Warhammer 40K. I would use that for the majority of it.
• The Cathedral would be the central chapel of my Order of Sisters, the Order of Our Crystal Lady. This is a small Order (a couple of hundred Sisters) and so a smaller building (in relative terms) would be suitable.
• As Catholic Churches are cruciform, so should this have the ][ shape of the Ecclesiarchy symbol, with a circular center section topped by a skull.
• I would make the piece as modular as possible, for ease of storage and display.
• So far as possible, I would build the whole thing out of plastics that could be joined with plastic cements, rather than trying to mix materials and glues.

With all that in mind, I placed an order for a whole mess of the Pegasus kits (2 of each of the non-ruined sets) as well as the Shrine of Aquila GW piece to use for the facade. I also ordered some sheets of 3mm expanded PVC. This is a plasticard alternative, but is less expensive and easier to cut. The problems with it are that it does not glue with regular polycement and is a bit flimsier. I also ordered some length of 75mm square PVC tube, to serve as large columns.

When the Pegasus kits arrived, I was very pleased indeed with them - they are sturdy with minimal flash and fit together very well. They lack the detail of a GW piece, but for terrain this is just fine. I clipped them off their sprues (really, it is clipping small nubs of sprue off the pieces) and used regular polycement to assemble the individual sections

I took some measurements and drew out a floorplan on one of the sheets of PVC, laying some of the pieces down so I could get an idea of how it might look.

Rhino for scale.

It all seemed to fit nicely, and so I decided to go ahead and glue some stuff down to the PVC base. To glue the dissimilar plastics together, I used some special plumbing cement.

This stuff smells, gives you a headache, is gloopy as all hell and comes with a brush like a cotton ball on a stick. I wouldn't want to assemble models with it! However, for gluing the Pegasus stuff to the PVC (and gluing the large Pegasus panels together) it works like a charm.

Only the pieces at the front are glued down in this photo

As you can see, I have cut the base board up in order to make the final piece easier to store and display. Individual pieces will be able to be used as smaller buildings or display backdrops.

So, that is the initial post on this project. Future posts will focus on individual elements of the build, as well as background and design details.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Danforth Laertes =][=