#grimdark terrain

[titanomancy]

While exploring some different shapes and styles for laser defense bastions, I was left with the conundrum of where to put garrisoning infantry stands when the roof is mostly laser. After noodling on it, I struck upon the notion of building plinth to provide conveniently infantry-sized platforms to represent troops occupying the structure.

The layout is taken almost entirely from the official Grimdark Terrain Dominator Prison Complex Xhi build, but I wanted to try and replicate the look of the now discontinued Imperial Bastion.

We also wound up using it as a proof of concept for pre-arranging the components in Blender and exporting to a flat .STL for printing, which worked reasonably well. Some minor artifacts due do to inadequate precision arranging the parts and I'm not sure it's actually that much of a time savings over hand assembly, but the finished product is rock solid and looks great on the tabletop.

[titanomancy]

The complex organization of the Adeptus Ministratum, or Administratum, is responsible for the administration of the whole of the Imperium; it manages over a million inhabited worlds. Planetary government buildings, records offices, taxation centers, and many more are controlled by the Administratum; they are usually distinguished by the sign of the Imperial eagle over the main door. Many bloody assaults and valiant defenses have taken place in and around urban and planetary government buildings; they are natural command posts, and the fall of the Administratum normally indicates the fall of the city. This building is often the attacker’s primary target.

[titanomancy]

After our initial success with printing pre-arranged components, it occurred to me that I could significantly speed up assembly of plastic Civitas structures by giving them prefabricated printed foundations. Regrettably, I neglected to take into account the glue clearance between the walls and floors during printing and wound up with detached floor tiles when the supports came off, but that wound up being an advantage when the time came to assemble this intact senatorium.

The dome roof really ties it all together for me, and with only light butchery to the printed part once I realized that it wasn't going to fit on the narrowing spire base. It definitely benefits from that extra bit of height, though, and if I had it to do over again I'd probably modify the geometry in advance to accommodate it.

[titanomancy]

I was dismayed to discover that the tall Civitas wall panels are not the same height as the combined short and medium wall panels but, overall, I don't think it's that much of an issue - shimming the gap between the floor and the next level ensured adequate contact and the whole thing is super solid.

The 3x3 plinth with stairs gives it that little bit extra, although I'm not yet sure what to do with the corners. The natural solution is 1x1 tiles, maybe with buttresses or decorative statues. Decisions, decisions.

[titanomancy]

Getting a lot of mileage out of these Imperial Palace foundation walls. The fit is spot on for the Civitas range and there's nothing quite like a big, impressive stairway to give even the most derelict structure a sense of grandeur.

I may still go back and add some corner columns to this one, but otherwise I think it's a solid addition to the board.

[titanomancy]

Wrapping up another couple of additions to the skyline. The Civitas Spires have been available for a while, but I haven't utilized them to any meaningful extent aside from the Capitalis.

Varying height helps to keep things visually interesting, especially where a common color scheme is going to be applied to all or most of the terrain. Likewise, the inclusion of ruined elements in an otherwise intact structure lends verisimilitude when mixed in with fully intact or completely ruined buildings. And, of course, the bigger the terrain the more thought you have to put into maneuvering around it.

Of the two pieces, the larger tower was the more challenging because the central tower basically had to be built as a discrete 2x2 structure, and sat atop a square of complete 1x2 structures for the lower tier in order to give the appearance of interior walls on the collapsed floors. If I had it to do again, I'd likely have swapped the ruined wall sections so that there's more continuity to the destruction of the inside corner - but, overall, I like the effect.

[titanomancy]

Working on a thing.

[titanomancy]

My gaming group is going hard on both Legions Imperialis and 3d printing, so here's a test print of some Grimdark Terrain on a Dragon's Rest city tile, next to some KMFP Designs Orbital Knights for scale. The 8mm madness is upon us and we're doing a bit of proof-of-concept in preparation for a campaign.

Remarkable what a modern filament printer is capable of producing, and with only a 0.4mm nozzle at that. Can't wait to see what the 0.2mm is capable of.