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Imperial Command Center
Sytoru
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:21 pm 
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Well, after much absence for a couple of months I'm still excited about the whole E:A thing and with only a few models left to arrive from Forge World I've turned my attention towards the terrain side of things.
  Since the group is just starting out in E:A we have absolutely zero terrain and have been messing around with whatever happens to have been left in the vicinity of the table we happen to be using. So battles have so far been fought over 40k Cities of Death, Warhammer Castles and assorted randomness from other gaming systems.

  It has been decided that we will all build some terrain relevant to the armies that we have started to collect. So, as the resident IG player it is basically down to me to build your common or garden Imperial buildings and IG facilities. The SM player(s) will be building the specialist/uncommon Imperial buildings. Now, I'm rather taken with the Valkyries as models and the Storm Troopers in game terms and I wanted something that would stand out both as a launching platform for them and as something of a centerpiece for the terrain set that I will be producing.
  Now I know all the rules with regards to easing yourself in and saving the centerpieces for last since you will have acquired the requisite skills to do a decent job by the time you get around to it, but let me explain....

  I have done a fair amount of modeling over the years with a large amount of experience in both 40k pieces and also 2mm (N Gauge) model trains. I have picked a size of model that I am comfortable building with that background in mind so the approximate overal dimensions are a footprint of 14" square and an overall height of between 15" and 18". Now this, there is no denying, somewhat large for E:A terrain and so I needed something more important than some random aircraft hangar or supply depot. Thinking about the kind of things that I could do and with the Valkyries clear in my mind I settled upon some form of 4 platformed base for the Storm Troopers. Browsing through the Forge World catalogue that came with my initial order I spied the landing platform from the Anphelion base. I wanted these raised from the ground on some kind of tower so I cast my mind around for suitable structures that I had seen. After a while I suddenly realised that there was one structure within central London that would be perfect as a basis! The BT tower. Now I am fairly familiar with this since my father worked for BT and regularly attended meetings there and I went as often as possible since the view is rather good from the top.

  What does all of this mean? Well, think of the high level helipads that are tacked onto the sides of buildings, multiply that by four and arrange them around the BT tower and you have my visual concept of an Imerpial Guard command station set within the confines of a base.

A very rough outline of the intended plan and profile of the structure.

  Note that the central column on the profile is somewhat thicker than I envisage.

  Now I always like to make a rough first attempt at anything as a sort of "proof of concept" before getting serious about anything. With that in mind I quickly grabbed some scrap card and set about creating some templates for the landing platforms. The below image shows the four platform surfaces with the Valkyries sitting upon them for an indication of scale (each platform is 3" across the diagonals).



  I also needed to work out how the actual support from the central tower would look. I settled fairly early on for using plastic tubing or two diameters. The larger would be a short dropping piece with the smaller running parallel to the ground and running into a drilled hole on the dropping piece. To provide the appearance of a solid platform I also needed something below the thin card to join it to the support beams. I thought that a shallow conical piece would be just the job, thank God I paid attention in Math classes! So using what I could dredge up from my memory I produced a circular template from with a 20 degree slice was cut and after measuring the length of the arc that this would remove at a radius equal to that of the plastic pipe that it would be wrapped around marked out and cut the necessary hole for it all to fit together. The results of it are seen below again with a Valkyrie for scale purposes.




  Unfortunately you can't really see the conical section very well. However, you can see the small doodle I made before doing anything else. More photo's as and when I make progress.

-S
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Dwarf Supreme
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:27 pm 
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Ambitious plan! Looks like you've made a good start. I wish I were familiar with the BT tower to get an idea of what look you're trying to replicate.

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plm2212
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:33 pm 
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Very interesting idea I look forward to seeing your progress.

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Sytoru
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:55 pm 
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Images of the BT tower in central London

As you can see it lacks the lower decks that I intend placing on the model but there is all manner of funky comms stuff plastered all over a portion of it and that will be a feature on the upper reaches of the model. For some reason I have this burning desire to attack a sheet of thin plasticard with a hole punch to create lots of little dishes. :) The real devil is going to be in the detail, basic structures are always easy to create when you have the materials handy (I also have some nice heavy duty 3.25" diameter cardboard tubes to form the central column), but adding all of the exterior plating on the command decks is going to be slow going as will making the handrails for the walkways from the center to the landing platforms; I am currently planning on soldering these up out of 0.33mm brass roding, with luck the solder will make a decent representation of the mounts for the handrail to run through the vertical posts. The only thing that I am completely undecided on is the base. Do I have a simple entrance to the circular tower of something more substantial? Hmmmm....

-S
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Dwarf Supreme
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:20 pm 
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Oh, I didn't know the Postal Tower was renamed. That building I know.

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smokezombie
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:29 pm 
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The BT tower is one of my favourate buildings, good luck with this, it sounds like fun.
I think the entrance should be substantial, and heavily fortified it's allready a monster of a terrain piece (15 to 18 inches high!) so might aswell make it tough.
It'll be great fun to play with... but a beast to store
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Sytoru
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 5:48 pm 
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@Dwarf Supreme: Sorry for the confusion over the name. I think that it was officially named as the "Telecom Tower" but it's referred to in so many different ways I just used the one that came to mind first. :)

  Anyway, I've gone about as far with construction as I will today since I need to start drawing the templates for the lower decks and the upper portion (above the landing platforms). I'll warn you now that I've had a change of mind with regards to the overall height of the piece. It has just got bigger! The tube that I was going to cut down for the central column is 25" in height and with the platforms mounted it has a certain something. So I've decided to leave it uncut and build up from where the landing platforms are.



  The minis scattered around the base are 8x Sentinels, 3x Baneblades, 3x Manticores and 8x Storm Trooper units. Mostly for scale but also for looks. Having just got off of the 'phone from the guy who runs my LGS where the gaming group is based it has been agreed to go for a modular style for the gaming boards with each being 24" square. This will mean that 6 are needed for a regular 6'x4' board and also allows a central feature to be placed with smaller ancillary constructions so that we can all have our centerpieces with one being used alongside 5 other "regular" boards.






  A closer view, from above, of the four landing platforms carrying their Valkyries and finally a shot of the same but from below to show the support structures for the landing platforms. The conical mounts are clearer in this shot and the dropping tube will, eventually, have rounded bottoms with ariels and antennae projecting from the bottom. Each of the horizontal tubes are large enough for your average 6mm scale person to move along and are therefore of sufficient diameter to include access conduits with the necessary cabling and so on being carried within them.

  The host of communication dishes that I envisage creating will sit just below the landing platforms with the command and control decks being mounted below that. The superstructure above the landing platforms will represent both the towers defences as well as air control for the surrounding area.

  I'm off to play with designs for the lower decks and also work on ideas for the ground entrance.

-S


Edit:
  It should be noted in passing that one of the reasons that I finally took the plunge with E:A was that I was never really happy with the scale of things in 40k. The battles never involved enough people and the terrain never really came any closer than a rough approximation of the ground over which the battles were fought.
  I was particularly unhappy with the size of most Imperial buildings since I see them dominating the immediate area in much the same way that Cathedrals dominated the surrounding areas in Medieval times. They were simply huge in comparison with the other buildings and almost incomprehensible in size to the people of the time. This is something that I want to recreate with my E:A terrain and one of the reasons I'm so excited by the whole thing. To duplicate this building in 40k would mean a  distance of approximately 10' (ten feet) from the base to the landing platforms.
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Dwarf Supreme
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 5:53 pm 
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(Sytoru @ Jun. 07 2007,12:48)
QUOTE
@Dwarf Supreme: Sorry for the confusion over the name. I think that it was officially named as the "Telecom Tower" but it's referred to in so many different ways I just used the one that came to mind first. :)

Don't worry about it.  :cool:

Man, that's one tall building.

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Legion 4
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:10 pm 
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Wow !  Big !  Go for it !! :D

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vanvlak
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 6:19 am 
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Oh wow - hope you have volumes of storage space. :) :)
Grand! :)

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Justiniel
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 9:19 am 
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Very impressive start, looking forward to seeing how this progresses.
I too like EA for it's better sense of scale, I like armies, not a scattering of troops and tank companies, not one or two  :D

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Sytoru
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:03 pm 
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Update time:

  Well I've not done a huge amount today except make it taller...... (32" and counting) I've put the basic structure together for the entrance level, sticking with the octagon theme, and loosely placed a couple of blisters to represent ramps to lower storage levels. I'm not certain that they will stay however since I am also considering a separate small (no really, max of 2", honest) building connected by an armoured passage, or possibly a small complex of buildings all interconnected and leading back to the main building.
  I've also flattened off the top of the central column and added the base platform to which the landing pads will connect. Upon this stands the reception area for the landing pads and upon that stands the comms tower and air command station. The comms gear I've decided to reposition above the landing pads rather than below them so that I can move the main command center further up the central column. The only extra height that will be added now are the orbital comms arrays which will probably just be a cluster of pointy sticks.




  Next up will be adding the main entrance to the front of the ground level structure and making the basic structure of the actual command module which will sit just below the landing pads. Currently I'm not planning on adding anything much in the way of weaponry since things like orbital defense lasers and other large defensive weapons are usually the focus of an initial assault and should be separate from the "mind" to prevent it being too good a target to pass up. I may succumb to adding some Hydra turrets or heavy AAA guns to the top of the air command portion but that is a decision that can be left until pretty much the end.

-S
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Moscovian
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:25 pm 
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Wow, that thing is big!  I like it.  Have you thought about adding some little support struts under the landing pads?  Some polystyrene rods would go perfect there.  It looks really good without them - don't get me wrong!  I'm just thinking out loud.

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Sytoru
 Post subject: Imperial Command Center
PostPosted: Sun Jun 10, 2007 4:40 pm 
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@Moscovian: It's certainly a possibility, I've plenty of stuff floating around that can be used for supporting rods. However, like any weaponry that may or may not be added, being a small detail that is right on the outside area of the model it is something that I don't need to decide on for quite a while yet. ;)

  Anyway, what with working on Saturday and some unfortunate RL stuff I've not had much of a chance to do anything. I've finished what will be the basic structure, although most of it is still not glued on to enable me to work on the component parts more easily.



  The final position of the command center (the big blob thing under the pads) is not set since it slides down and off of the central column. The lower half will have some simple sloped sides, similar to those on the ground level part, whilst the upper section will have sides that run vertically to the large octagon below and then supports sloping down at each vertex. The sides will be recessed slightly from the top octagon for a bit of extra detail.
  The air command section needs to have some card wrapped around the cds to provide the facade but will otherwise be a very plain, utilitarian area with the main panoramic window being mounted flush. Again some support struts will be added below it and will be more along the lines of an open construction rather than the solid triangles envisaged for the roof of the command center.

  The above view shows the full height of the model which is 35.75". I'm happy with the way things have come together so far and it won't be long before the detailing work begins and you get something a little more interesting to look at. :)

-S
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