The Temple of Love: Building a Sisters of Battle Cathedral pt 3 - WIP Facades

Two of the most important parts of the cathedral are the facades - the grand frontispieces of the building at (what would be in a Catholic cathedral) the east and west ends. Looking down on the building, these would be the horizontal bars at the top and bottom of the ][ shaped building. While they aren't completed yet, I've done a fair bit of work on them and have some WIP pictures!

The Aquila Facade

The first course laid down.

The facade lying on its back, with the "Shrine of the Aquila" pieces in place.

Expanded PVC sheet is used to make more steps and lift the Aquila pieces so they
line up with the Pegasus pieces better.

Seen from a "model's eye-view"!

The floor is made of expanded PVC sheet

The first of belltowers starts work.

The front facade of the cathedral - the bottom of the ][ - uses the Shrine of the Aquila combined with Pegasus sections. I used some expanded PVC sheet to make floors as well as shim up the Aquila sections so they would line up better with the top of the third course of Pegasus pieces. On the top of those are two towers - these will house bells and be topped with some kind of pitched roof.

The Rear Facade

The upper section of the rear facade

The lower section of the rear facade

Using the two ruined panels from the Aquila kit, I constructed a whole, narrower window

The window in place

Both parts of the facade glued together

The repaired window propped in place

The whole facade with the repaired window propped in place

The rear facade is of a different design to the front; the pitched roof that I plan to have run through the "nave" of the cathedral runs to the facade itself. The two corner towers have flying buttresses (cast in resin from half an arch piece). I used solid pieces rather than window pieces for this facade, not only to save sufficient window pieces for elsewhere, but also so I can build a sort of "high altar" against the real wall.

Rather than use Pegasus pieces to make the central section, I used the two ruined panels from the Shrine of the Aquila to assemble into a whole, although narrower, window panel.

There is obviously a lot of work left to do on these facades, particularly the rear one, but I hope you have enjoyed these work in progress pictures. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Danforth Laertes =][=

The Temple of Love: Building a Sisters of Battle Cathedral pt 2 - cutting up Pegasus kits

Two posts in one day? Must be the end times! Or maybe I just didn't want to make the first post a huge long one and so I am breaking it up (also, full disclosure; I am off work today and so have plenty of time!)

Assembling the Pegasus Hobbies "Gothic" kits is very simple; they fit together well and would hold even without glue (I am gluing, of course - I have discovered that the Oatey All-Purpose Cement, while gloopy, can be applied with a little brush and allows one to assemble the larger sections without a problem. I've used it to glue the columns together, reserving regular plastic cement for more delicate things). There are a few issues I have discovered, however.

That is a picture of the front section of the building - the space between the two U-shaped sections will be filled by the Shrine of the Aquila as a facade, and the rear space will butt up against the body of the cathedral. Astute observers will notice each of the U-shaped sections has three panels but four columns. Even-more-astute observers will have noticed that the Pegasus sections are a panel and column joined together. There are no separate panels or columns.

This has been noticed in some reviews of the product, so I was ready for it. I found it easy to remedy this and, with a bit of thought, I was able to produce these U-shaped sections very easily and with minimal glue seams. Here is how I did it;

I took advantage of the double-wide sections Pegasus provides. For each level of each U-shaped piece, I used two double-wide sections and cut them so I had the red-shaded pieces above. Cutting them was easy; all I did was use a razor saw to cut through the thicker plastic at the top and bottom (shown below as a RED line) and then scored with a sharp Stanley knife (shown below as a BLUE line). The thinner plastic of the central panel was cut all the way through and it was easy to turn the piece over and score the rest of the line so it would break easily. A little bit of cleaning up and the job's a good 'un!

The spare panels and column do not go to waste - I need panels without columns for the central circle and elsewhere, and I need columns without panels for some of the planned flying buttresses.

With these cuts, I'd created two new pieces - one "reversed" section (I couldn't just mount a normal section the other way around, because the designs on the two sides are different) and one "two column" section. I was able to easily glue these together with a normal section to make the U-shaped sections.

The column rears aren't glued in place here - this is just a demo fit for the photo

So that is how I have been hacking up the Pegasus kits. The glue seems to hold them together well, although I suspect it will take some time for it to fully cure.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Danforth Laertes =][=

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 =][=

The Crystal Lady herself - Verity the Six-Winged Seraph!

Recently - to the sound of much wailing and gnashing of teeth as she went from direct-sale-only to last-change-to-buy to permanently-out-of-stock-you're-out-of-luck-matey - I purchased Celestine the Living Saint.

That's my girl...

She arrived on Friday and, on Saturday, I gathered together various bits and pieces I'd been collecting over the previous few weeks...

Celestine, Stormcast Prosecutor wings, Necron Wraith tail, some pieces from
the Tech-Priest Dominus, Anvil Industry's mechanical arms, Secret Weapon's base,
and (finally) a Canoness arm

...and started work on building my custom Living Saint; Verity the Seraph!

As I am going to detail in The Tale of Verity, she was originally a humble Tech-Priestess who accompanied the Emperor. Exactly what happened to her during the Great Crusade is shrouded in mystery (not least because I haven't finished writing the background!) but what the Crystal Lady is today is a psycho-mechanical construct reflecting aspects of the Necrons, the Mechanicum and the Imperial Creed. She is a champion of humanity, imbued by the Emperor himself with power, but so much of that humanity has been sacrificed for the sake of survival and victory. I wanted to reflect all of this in the model.

Inspired by Biblical Saraph / Seraphim imagery (six-winged angels, whose name means "serpent") and other "winged serpents" from around the world, I'd imagined Verity as a six-winged serpent with a human torso. Following von Clauzewitz, I first made the base secure. I fixed the Necron tail to the resin base and then attached the torso of Celestine to that. I trimmed away her legs carefully to preserve the waist armor and also removed the left arm below the elbow. She was secured in place with a pin and glue, and gaps filled with greenstuff.

I also trimmed off the protruding hemispheres from the Necron tail and drilled fairly large holes where they had been. These were for the Anvil Industry mechanical arms, which attach with a ball-and-socket joint. They had the balls (oo-er!) but I needed to create new sockets. Then, I started work on the wings, which I wanted to be arranged in a formation inspired by classical images of angelic Seraphim.

Seraphim have three pairs of wings - one covers their "feet" (which is a euphemism for genitals - they use them as clothes, essentially), one veils their eyes and they use the final pair to fly. This exact arrangement wouldn't work (it would hide so much of the model!) but I really liked the look of the crossed wings acting almost as a halo. Taking the three pairs of Stormcast wings, I cut and repositioned them until I had something I liked.

A simple pin and a bit of greenstuff attached the wings to the torso, and Verity was ready for the the artsy "descending-from-on-high" shot!

The light is the glory of the Emperor, and totally not a desk lamp.

After that, it was a pretty simple process to give her arms (holding Tech-Priest's axe and a large wrench) and attach various mechanical arms to her serpent tail.

All in all, not a difficult conversion once I'd got the parts together. I think it worked very well; it hits all the notes I wanted it to. The wings are weird and alien, dramatic and even impractical. They frame the human torso, which is small and insignificant compared to the rest of the model. The Mechnicum parts hint at her origin, while the number of them show her physical form is a fusion of not just her body but those of the Seraph's other victims. Finally, the Necron tail is subtle enough to not be immediately obvious, but very visually distinctive.

Anywhere - there she is! This is what becomes of our heroine Verity ... or, at least, this is what currently bears her name and leads the Order of Our Crystal Lady. Where "she" might lead them during the Time of Ending is anyone's guess ...

On Hyper-Femininity, Sexism, Objectification and the Sisters of Battle

This article has been republished on / moved to my World Anvil page here.

Habits, Uniforms, Principes, Corpora, and the Palatines of the Order of Our Crystal Lady

This article has been expanded on and moved to my World Anvil page here.

Recasting and why it disproportionately hurts Sisters players

This might be controversial. Buckle and brace, hippies - I'm going in hot.

I think we can all agree that commercial recasting and sale on sites like eBay is "a thing". It exists, and exists at a relatively sophisticated and perhaps even industrialized level. There are factories or workshops in countries with lax IP (intellectual property) laws - frequently China - where molds are taken from GW originals and copies cast. These are sophisticated operations - not a guy in his basement mixing up silicone and resin on his workbench. These are organized companies producing products which - while clearly distinguishable from the original - have (and let's be honest) good fidelity to the original. They are made available at a lower price than the official model is.

We all know this happens. Some of us might have purchased a rescast (knowingly or unknowingly). I know for a fact it is very tempting - I was looking for a particular model for a conversion (I'm going to be vague here because I don't want people finding the recaster on eBay). I found what was clearly a recast - sold by someone selling more of what were clearly recasts. The original is FineCast - with all the feared problems that might have - and the recast version was not only less than half the price, but also looked to be a very nice cast. The seller had great feedback.

I didn't buy it. But I was tempted.

I was tempted because, well . . . what difference does it make, really? One model? And the original is expensive - would I have bought it at the full price anyway? And it was FineCast - do I really want to pay twice as much for something that might have problems? And, come on! GW stuff is expensive - if China can sell it for half the price, shouldn't they be allowed to? Capitalism, baby!

Yes, it's just one model - but no waterdrop thinks its responsible for the flood. GW - any owner - has a right to sell at a price they deem fair; we would object if we were forced to work for a price we did not determine. We cannot demand someone employ us, but we can refuse to take a job at a price we consider less than we are worth.

And the reason Chinese knock-offs are cheaper is because they are not paying for advertising, promotion, development, R&D etc. A recast ForgeWorld Titan represents just that - the recasting. It is a matter of making the mold and pouring the resin. They have to do literally nothing - but ForgeWorld had to design it, make the master, advertise it. We only know to search eBay for "Warhound Titan" because GW has made us aware of it - and that cost money.

A study of fixed vs variable costs is essential here. All products (from toothbrushes to bridges) have to bear the costs of R&D spread over the number of units they are going to sell. The cost of a product is made up of the individual unit cost for materials & manufacture, plus the total R&D (and advertising, legal, corporate etc.) budget divided by the number of units sold.

What does this have to do with recasting hurting Sisters players more than others?

Chinaforge makes the Adepta Sororitas cry

With slight variations, most GW models are similarly priced. A tactical Space Marine is $4, a Cadian is $2.90, a Skitarii is $3.90, an Eldar Guardian is $3.63. A Genestealer Neophyte is $4. All plastic models, all around the same price. If you compare similar models - vehicles of the same size and complexity - they are about the same price.

That makes sense - models of similar size and complexity should be the same price, right?

Not according to the laws of supply-and-demand and fixed-vs-variable costs.

Economagus Hayek is here to educate you

Let's take two hypothetical examples - two boxes of models. Each is a basic infantry squad for a different army. Each consists of 100 components that make 10 models. They are the same level of complexity - each required the same amount of R&D time to develop. Material & manufacture costs for each are the same. Let us give a nominal cost of 10000 SpaceBucks (SB) for R&D for each of them, and a nominal cost of 5 SB for materials & manufacture for each unit.

The only difference is in popularity; one is for a highly popular army - each GW store will sell 100 units a month. The other is less popular - each GW store will sell 10 units a month.

Let's crunch the numbers. Let's say GW wants to make its money back within a year. They will sell 1200 of the popular and 120 of the less popular. The materials and manufacture cost of the more popular one is 6000 SB. For the less popular, M&M is only 600 SB.

Once we add in R&D costs, the total cost for the units GW will sell in a year is 16000 SB for the more popular and 10600 for the less popular.

Now; how much do they need to sell each one for in order to break even? It's simple math - divide the total cost by the number of units sold. So, the more popular breaks even if sold at 13.33.. SB / unit. The less popular breaks even at 88.33.. SB / unit.

Now, those are hypothetical numbers - I don't know how much these things really cost, nor comparative popularity. But it is clear to see that a less-popular product should cost more. It should cost more because the fixed costs of R&D are spread over a smaller number of units.

But it doesn't. GW is going to sell fewer Genestealers than Space Marines - but they are priced about the same. GW prices models this way in order to encourage sales and avoid the appearance of unfairness (among customers who don't understand economics). They manage this by absorbing some of the costs for less-popular lines on more-popular ones, or accepting lower-profit margins for less-popular lines.

Counterfeits impact GW's bottom line - how much is open to debate, but they do impact it. If a company sees a lowering of income, they will cut costs - that is inevitable. But what GW is not going to do is cut R&D on Space Marines - they are their major line. They are going to play it safe.

And playing it safe means not producing boutique lines of miniatures. Playing it safe means concentrating on things you know will sell, things you are assured of a large-enough return on to absorb the cost of counterfeiting. For GW specifically, it means sticking with Space Marines not only because they are popular, but because the R&D burden for them is lower due to so much work already done being applicable to a new project (everyone looks similar in power armor...)

And that is why recasting impacts us disproportionately. I am not saying the reason we haven't see Sisters for years is because of recasting, but the same economic pressures - of the smaller profit-margins on boutique lines because of fewer units-sold to spread fixed costs over - are at play. And now we are likely to see plastic Sisters, we need to understand that buying recasts is not only illegal, unfair, unethical and just-not-cricket, but that it hurts us more than it hurts other players.

I didn't buy the recast. Instead, I wrote to infringements@gwplc.com with details and links. If you see recasts for sale, I urge you to do the same.