The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

2018 is halfway gone already, and so far it's been a busy year for Maelstrom's Edge! We would hate for you to have missed anything, so here's a look back at what these six months have brought us.

Our monthly model releases saw some hefty reinforcements arrive for the Broken, in the form of the Marsayan Hypnotist with his innate powers of misdirection, the equipment-tinkering Sig Jammer, a specialised Forsaken Chieftain, and of course the giant, muscle-and-scale-clad behemoth that is the Gnolti, our biggest model to date!





All of these add to the existing Broken Infantry units to allow for a more varied and tactical army. One of the great things about the Broken as a faction is the sheer range of possibility opened up by their nature as a melting pot of all of the leftovers and unwanted dregs of galactic society, and we're looking forward to exploring this further with future model releases.





April saw the release of a new plastic kit for the Epirian Foundation - The Master Bot Handler. This multi-part kit comes with a raft of weapons options to equip your Master Handlers for a variety of battlefield roles, as broken down in the 'Equipping the Epirian Master Bot Handler' tactics article that you can find here.



Over on the Comm Guild blog, Iain shared some different modeling ideas for this fantastic new kit, with a general modeling spotlight here and a conversion guide for a quad-weapon-equipped 'special character' version here.





The Comm Guild blog is home to an ever-growing listing of different modeling articles. On the terrain front, we've made mini hab domes from plastic bowls, created a grove of scifi cactus from foam balls and old toothbrushes, built personal sleeper caskets for those long interstellar trips, tinkered with some scatter terrain for detailing urban tables, assembled an Epirian-themed dice tower, set up a residence in the desert, made a ruin from a cardboard gift box, and finished up with a sci fi pagoda!







The miniatures weren't forgotten either, with articles sharing modeling and conversion ideas for Karist Angel Keepers, Epirian Drones, the Broken Sig Jammer, the Marsayan Hypnotist, and Epirian Bot Handlers





We also shared basic guides on working with resin models, and magnetising your Karist Heavy Weapon troopers, and some conversion spotlights on a re-posed Gnolti, an Epirian Light Carrier Drone and Sentinel Bot and a veteran Gnolti 'Longhorn'.







So... what's next?

Over the next 6 months, we will be continuing our regular model releases, starting with our newest plastic kit: the Epirian Secdef!



And of course the Comm Guild articles will continue to bring you more tips and techniques for making the most of your models. Stay Tuned!



Join in the Maelstrom's Edge discussion on the Comm Guild Facebook page!

To pick up the Maelstrom's Edge model range, visit the webstore here.

2017 has drawn to a close, and it has been a fantastic year for Maelstrom's Edge. Here's our year in review:



This year saw the release of the long-awaited third faction for Maelstrom's Edge: The Broken!



The Broken Infantry Pack consists of 4 sprues loaded with bits, that allow you to build Broken fighters from any of three 4 different unit types. And this is just scraping the surface of what we have planned for the Broken - 2018 will see plenty of new releases to fill out their roster, with additional troop types and a slew of new and fantastic alien species.

Also on the release front, we launched a supplemental range of resin models, starting with the Karist Angel Hellblaster.



While plastic models are great for all sorts of reasons, they have a rather long development leadtime, which slows down releases. Adding resin models allows us to get new things out more regularly, and also lets us develop models that wouldn't necessarily be practical or economical in plastic. So the aim going forward will be to have the core range remain in plastic, supplemented with resin models which will allow us to have a new release out every month.



The Hellblaster was followed up with Karist Heavy Weapon troopers, and this month saw the addition of an official model for the Karist Angel Keeper (which previously had a playtest rules card but required some conversion to build a model). It's not all Karist love, though - Epirians and Broken will be seeing some releases very soon!

On the fiction front, 2017 saw the release of Tales From the Edge: Escalation. This is our second compilation of short stories, and features work by some great names in science fiction, including Alastair Reynolds, Aliette de Bodard and Liz Williams!



Escalation is available in print through the Maelstrom's Edge webstore, or as a eBook through Amazon.

To go along with the book release, we took a bit of a look at what went into creating the fiction for Maelstrom's Edge with a series of articles here: Crafting Tales from the Edge, Developing Stories for Maelstrom's Edge, and The Maelstrom's Edge Fiction Creative Process, by Tomas L. Martin.

For the modelers, this year continued our regular article releases, with tutorials and spotlight articles covering a huge range of different hobby topics. We showed you how to build a model to represent the Epirian faction objective:



We went to town with the terrain sprue, with tutorials on shipping containers, buildings made from plastic storage trays and drainage channel, and some ideas for scatter terrain, blast craters, hedges, streetlights and 'blanket' door coverings made from bandages. We also shared templates for making a small minehead building and a larger bunker.





We also showcased a huge array of different terrain projects, including a plantation dome and a massive landing pad piece.





The models weren't forgotten, with tutorials on sculpting your own gas masks for your Epirian contractors, painting weathered-looking metal and heat stress on weapon barrels, a run-down on a quick-painting method for Broken Rabble units, and a guide to making bionic arms for your contractors from Scarecrow arms.



We also offered conversion tutorials and homebrew rules cards for a couple of new units types: The sneaky, sniping Reaper Cadre for the Karists, and the heavy-weapon-toting Scorpion Drone for the Epirians.



Along the way, we showcased a bunch of different modeling projects, including some small Epirian and Karist forces, some variant Epirian bot ideas, and a winged Angel conversion, amongst many others.





Gaming was also covered, with another fantastic battle report from DakkaDakka's Sgt Oddball - a Karist vs Epirian 'introductory' mission entitled 'The Final Act.



We also published a series of articles alongside the Broken release, taking a close look at their rules and how they fit into the game. You can find these here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

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So, what's next?

We have a slew of projects currently in development, and 2018 will see us continue with a new release each month to flesh out the three existing factions. This will include a couple of new plastic kits for the Epirians, and something a little bit... let's say 'heftier' for the Broken. Design work is also well underway for the next faction, which will bring some fun toys to the table for battle suit enthusiasts!

Stay tuned to the Comm Guild blog or the Maelstrom's Edge Facebook page for updates!

You can find all of our miniatures, the terrain sprue, and our fiction on the Maelstrom's Edge webstore here. For all of our modeling articles to date, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the article roundup here. And as always, feel free to join in the discussion in the Comm Guild Facebook Group here!

We are proud to announce that the third Maelstrom's Edge faction has now launched, with a range of plastic models. We present to you... The Broken!

From the factories and the slums, the mining complexes and the farms of the galaxy come the Broken, a growing movement of citizenry angered by the lack of opportunity to escape the Maelstrom. They are a diverse mix of workers, aliens, and rogues left on doomed worlds by the ruling parties.

These survivors take matters into their own hands after being left behind. They pool their resources and knowledge in a communal effort to escape the Edge. Derelict ships are repaired. Affluent people’s ships are stolen. Government ships are commandeered. Any ship available is pressed into service for the Broken. They are a group unlike any ever seen in the galaxy. Fear, hate, anger, need fused them, these abandoned people, into an unstoppable force with one goal - escape the Edge. The Broken is a term used to unify all such desperate people across the Edge. Their motivation, methods, and sanity vary wildly from fervent revolutionaries to callous pirates to the few who have stared into the maw of the Maelstrom only to come away unhinged.

The Broken are available for purchase now at the Maelstrom's Edge webstore. You can also check out the unit cards and faction rules at our brand new online force listing section.

Half a dozen models can be built from a single set of sprues, with enough options for all of your sci-fi civilian modeling desires to be fulfilled. Suitable as proxy models, conversion fodder, and part swaps for other ranges, there are plenty of uses beyond Maelstrom's Edge, so those spare parts you have left over when building a Broken force will have plenty of uses.

The kit is extremely versatile, with every arm, torso, legs and head a distinct part and combination. No hands are built in to the weapons so they are easily switchable with other models, and the entire kit is almost fully parts compatible with our Karist and Epirian lines, allowing for rogue Karist and Epirian forces to represented, as well as converts and captured equipment.

The kit also has unprecedented diversity for a plastic sci-fi civilian range, featuring plenty of female heads and gender agnostic heads, as well as large mixture of alien heads with variant poses to ensure you can build a force themed around a specific alien type if you so desire.

Keep your eyes on this website for assembly instructions and more articles featuring The Broken in the near future.

We are also pleased to report that this release kicks off the start of our increased release schedule, with a release planned every month. Make sure you follow us on facebook to see all of our releases as they are revealed!

Every month, we like to post a roundup of some of the awesome content posted to the Comm Guild Blog, just in case you missed anything! Below are some of the highlights from October:

This month saw the release of the first volume of the Tales From The Edge series of books, featuring short stories from the Maelstrom's Edge universe.



This book is titled Tales from the Edge: Emergence, and is available in digital format now.

Also released this month are our model bases, now available separately!

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Our regular 'Spotlight' articles are intended to show some of the models from our range, and include notes on the design process, colour scheme options and building or conversion guides.

The October Spotlights included a rather sinister-looking Epirian Bot Handler, an even nastier looking dark red Angel, an Epirian Hunter toting some serious firepower, a Firefly drone in our box-art colour scheme, and a ruined hab block from our studio terrain collection.

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We had a bit of a look at some great MEdge buildings made by Dakka Dakka user Panic, using plastic electrical boxes.



While we're talking about terrain, there was a tutorial by Iain Wilson (insaniak from Dakka Dakka) showing how you can create quick and easy buildings using the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue and cardboard gift boxes!



Iain also shared a tutorial on painting with washes; a valuable technique for getting a new force on the table as fast as possible.

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Our rapidly expanding range of artwork and background features this month included the very first completed art piece for our Karists, the mature angel, an interstellar hydrogen harvester, some scout ship artwork, some fiction on terraforming, metalloceramic production, the Kasmenai, the birth of the Karist movement, a second and third weapon preview for the upcoming Broken faction, a better look at the artwork featured on the cover of Emergence, and a look at the digital rulebook.

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On the community front, Sgt Oddball over on Dakka Dakka shared a fantastic kit-bashed Epirian objective marker:



Amongst the other great contributions by MEdge fans were Panic's Epirian Doom Marines, TP^DC Deputy Manager's Angel Minnow, and a desert-themed Hunter bot by Zambro.

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If you like what you see here, or have questions about the game or the Maelstrom's Edge universe, head on over to the Comm Guild Facebook Group page and and join in the discussion.

Starting after this post, we'll be reducing our posting frequency from daily updates to a more sporadic output. The constant flow of content is now being penalised by social media algorithms and we actually get a much higher readership for less frequent posting. We've got a lot of great hobby articles in the pipeline, as well as more of the usual content. In addition, the more detailed articles will not be pushed off our homepage as quickly as they have been due to our frequency of posting model photos!