The Cathedral rises

Army board time!

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to find a push cart at Home Depot to mount the board.  

This will make it a lot easier to move the display board around, and it also means I have a place to put all the miniatures, books, and other paraphernalia that I am going to need.

The top shelf was much more narrow than what I normally do for my display boards, so a lot of changes had to be made from the original plans.  On the square board, the cathedral was going to be in the corner, with the Aegis Defense Line around one edge.

As you can see, the orientation has changed, with everything lined up on center. I have also added a number of pieces to the ADL.  It will help for actual game play as well, giving me many more options.

Many things are now going in different places.  This is also dictated by the extra tanks.  My original list only had two... but that number has doubled.  Obviously, those take up quite a bit of floor space!

You can see me plotting out the first few walls, using that .25 inch pink foam that I discovered the same day as the cart.  It really is amazing stuff, giving me the opportunity to create those delicate shapes.

A side benefit of the thinned gauge foam is that more miniatures will fit in the structure.  Last year's board lost a ton of room to the thicker foam.

You can see the new pieces of ADL in place, including a few ruined bits.  More walls are created for the lowest level.  It is so much easier to cut the window shapes from this foam!!!!  There are also a number of statue pedestals scattered about...

I am really looking forward to all the rose windows!  So much light will be allowed into the cathedral, just like the real ones.  I will still be placing my LED lights inside, however.

You can see that I am trying to form the 'T' shape in order to create a knave.  It will have to be more "column and pillar free" than the original plan, but that's how there things go.  Sometimes you have to adjust on the fly.

Using a little painter's tape to hold things in place, I started to work up to the next level.

After getting the 'mid level' in place, I started to cut out the shapes for the all important upper level.  This one is very important, since I think it is the best chance to see the stained glass effect from both inside and out.

Yes, you heard that right... stained glass!  More on that in the next post.

A view of the interior.  I am not sure if the big statue will be there or not in the end, but it would be fun to include it.  In any case, it will be removable.

To paint this, I am trying to keep things in pieces during this construction phase.  It will be a lot easier to get everything painted that way than trying to reach into dark crevices with a brush!  I tried this out to a much simpler degree on last year's board, and that was a huge help.

To try and make things more stable, I have been adding the extra ribs, being careful not to glue things together that will need to be taken apart later!

You can see that I have worked up more levels with the ribbing.  I have spent many hours adding these to the interior and exterior.  This is helping to hold things in place as I create decorative elements as well.