Legions Imperialis Cathedral.

 

Terrain is a massive part of not just the rules of a game, but also immersion and making a board look good.

To that end my friend Duncan, jumped on a Kickstarter for a load of urban Legions Imperialis terrain STLs to 3D print.

The collection includes a bunch of 4 inch wide terrain tiles to make a road network, a LOT of modular parts to stack to make buildings with, a set of canals and stairs/bridges.

All in all a shit load of stuff...

There are also some pre-built/supported buildings ready to print whole. 

This particular piece is one of those, and only just fit on the build plate of the Lego Saturn we were using to print with.

To start with, rather then the usual grey granite colour you normally see for urban terrain, I decided I wanted a warmer, brownstone/sandstone colour, which matches a lot of the Churches/Minsters/Cathedrals here in the UK. I began with a spray undercoat of Zandri Dust.

There is so much detail on this print, it's hard to believe that we made it at home.

So it was onto the masses of windows and supports. To give some variation, I decided to paint the large arch windows in Leadbelcher and then do the higher smaller windows with Retributor Armour for some gold gilding and to denote the richness of the church*.

At this point I wanted a different colour for the roof and having been flicking through an old "how to build terrain" blog, found a building with a darker blue roof.

Deciding to shamelessly** copy this, I went in and tidied up the roof with Zandri Dust from the pot, and then gave it a coat of Akhelian Green (which comes out in a dark turquoise colour) which is a colou: I really like.

The finials along the top were then touched up with Retributor Armour, just to give a little more baroqueness to the model.

Next, to tie the model together and make it look a bit better, I have then entire model a couple of successive drybrushes, first of Baneblade Brown and secondly, very lightly, with Flayed One Flesh.

Finally, after a discussion about the windows, I was going to leave them, Duncan suggested painting them with contrast Black Templar.

I'm glad I took the chance on his suggested, time consuming as it was, because the finished model looks so much better.

I've placed the building on a few of those terrain plates Duncan had printed previously, and a couple of his Legions Imperialis Malcador tanks for scale.

This was a nice diversion, and after visiting Fraser the other day, I returned home with his entire LI collection to build up (he has a problem with his "to-built" pile, it keeps growing).

So I am thinking of buying a bottle of resin and printing off a collection of terrain for my own games of Legions Imperialis with Fraser in the future.

Speaking of the modular nature of a lot of the STLs, I wonder if we could make an LI scale facsimile of Cologne Cathedral?

That won't be for a while though, other projects await...

Until next time, have nice day...

*Yes, I know Legions Imperialis is set in the Horus Heresy when the Imperial Church wasn't a thing, the Emperor having tried to stamp religion out for a secular scientific truth. 

But what else is this building of not a Cathedral?

Maybe it's a hold over from the previous civilization before the Imperium took over, or a former religious building turned over to the administratum for office space?

Whatever it is, it looks good.

**Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.