The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

- by Iain Wilson

I've previously shown off a couple of conversions built to represent Karist Angel Keepers - a HQ unit that is currently in development and intended to offer a different way of playing Karist forces, by giving them access to an army potentially made entirely (other than the Keeper, of course) out of Angels. The conversions garnered a fair amount of interest, so I thought I should put together a brief run-down on how to do it. Of course, nice conversions are all well and good, but you also need rules to use them. So as an extra bonus, I snuck into the rules development vault and purloined an early playtest version of the Angel Keeper's unit card, which you can download as a PDF here.

Note: This card is now out of date. The current version of the Angel Keeper's rules can be found in the Karist Enclave file here.




The PDF includes two cards: The Angel Keeper unit card, and a 'companion' card that includes new rules that apply to the Keeper. The rules on both of these cards are 'Playtest Rules', meaning that they're rules that are still being worked on, so you should ok it with your opponent before using the Angel Keeper in your games. Once the development process has been completed, the rules on the companion card will be rolled into the normal rulebooks and a final version of the unit card will be issued.

Obviously, the Keeper's force roster isn't yet as complete as it could be, because there are currently only the two angel kits - Minnows and the Mature Angel. Rest assured there will eventually be more unit options (and the associated model kits) to fill those other slots!


Building the Angel Keeper

My initial idea for the Angel Keeper included a sculpted mask and a flail lifted from a Games Workshop kit. He looked the part, but the sculpting required was going to be a turn-off for some players, so I worked up a second incarnation that used only MEdge parts, which looks like this:



To build this version yourself, you'll need the following parts:

• A 25mm base
• Kaddar Nova legs and crown
• Shadow Walker Torso
• Karist Trooper arms and shoulder pads
• A bare head from the Kaddar Nova, Trooper or Expansion Sprue
• Ripper Grenade Launcher, Cybel Glaive and grabby hand* from the Expansion sprue

*Yes, that's totally the official designation for it.



Assembly is mostly fairly straightforward: Build the legs as you normally would for the Kaddar Nova. You can create a slight visual break from the Nova by trimming off the bottom-most layer of the tabard, so it looks slightly less fancy than the Nova's if you like. Assemble and glue on the torso and the head.

One of the main identifiers for the Angel Keeper is the mask that they wear, which aids them in communicating with their angels. This mask covers the keeper's lower face, and is made by taking the Kaddar Nova crown and trimming away its peak, as below:



This is then glued in place with the former peak pointing downwards over the Keeper's nose and mouth. To give it a slightly better fit, slice off the Keeper's nose and if you're using a Kaddar Nova head (which is slightly more gaunt than the Trooper heads) it can help to make the mask a little more curved - hold it upright between your thumb and forefinger and give it a gentle squeeze to bend it very slightly, and then glue it in place.

There is a small hollow in the small of the Nova's back, which is normally filled with the Nova's giant backpack. For the Angel Keeper, it's a handy place to glue the Ripper Grenade Launcher, hanging in reach on the Keeper's back for when it is needed and nicely disguising the hollow. If you're modeling your Keeper with the grenade launcher in hand, you can instead glue a grenade there, like on my first-generation keeper below:



The Angel Keeper is armed with a Cybel Goad, which he uses to encourage the angels in his charge to do as they're told, and also to whallop nearby enemies when the need arises. I envisaged the goad as potentially taking various forms depending on the preferences of the individual keeper - So some may use a staff or prod, others a whip or lash of some kind, or something else entirely. This opens up all sorts of modeling possibilities, but I'll show a couple of relatively easy options that I've come up with so far.

The easiest version of the goad uses just the shaft of the Cybel Glaive. Chop the head off just below the energy unit, along the red line shown below:



I picture this goad having a small cybel cannister in the round part behind the spike, which distributes a tiny jolt off cybel energy along the spike when it comes in contact with something.

Alternatively, you can trim the bottom spike and the blades off the glaive, as below:



This one is more of a taser-style unit, still requiring contact to use and administering a small cybel charge directly to the target rather than along a blade or spike.



Option number three is a little more complicated, using the handle from a Cybel Blade (from the Expansion sprue), the spike from the bottom of a Cybel Glaive and a short piece of metal guitar string to make a whip, as below:



I have this one coiled up to hang on the Keeper's belt. The coiled guitar string is bound with a little fine copper wire to keep it together.

If you want your Keeper to have his grenade launcher in hand instead of his goad, the easiest option is to use the grenade launcher from the Trooper sprue instead of the Expansion sprue version, as it has the firing hand attached. For a single-handed grip, just slice or file off the support hand from the grenade launcher's stock. The pistol arm on the trooper sprue is nicely positioned out to the side for the grenade launcher - just cut off the pistol hand at the wrist, and glue the grenade launcher hand in its place.

For the Keeper below, I have also used Shadow Walker legs with an Expansion sprue loincloth, instead of the Nova legs. This is an easy way to give your Keeper a slightly more dynamic pose or to make him slightly less austentatious.



You can pick up the parts you need to build your own Angel Keeper from the Maelstrom's Edge online store (www.maelstromsedge.com - You'll need the Kaddar Nova, Shadow Walker, Karist Trooper and Faction Expansion Sprue, which will build you an Angel Keeper and because of all of the extras on the sprues will still leave enough spare parts to still build a Kaddar Nova, a Shadow Walker and a unit of Karist Troopers or Praetorians.

We would love to hear any feedback you have on the Angel Keeper's rules, and see how everyone is building their own keepers, so please share your creations, questions or comments on the Comm Guild Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/MaelstromsEdge)!

The Maelstrom's Edge Digital Rulebook is the fastest way to get started with the universe and rules of the Maelstrom's Edge tabletop game. It has 144 full colour pages, and is crammed with background fiction, model images, artwork and clear, coherent diagrams. The digital rulebook also has a full bookmark structure, making it easy to skip to the rules you want to read, and is automatically updated for free as and when FAQs are needed (only once to date so far!)







The rulebook is also supplemented nicely by our game walkthrough document, which can be read online as a webpage on maelstromsedge.com, or downloaded as a free PDF here.

We are very proud to announce, that as previously teased, today sees the release of the first volume of the Tales From The Edge series. This series will cover all aspects of the Maelstrom's Edge universe, all factions, and fiction from a large number of perspectives and authors.

The first release - Emergence - includes stories by Tomas L. Martin, Stephen Gaskell and Andrew Everett. It will be digital exclusive on Amazon until February, when it will also get a print release alongside the second volume.

It is available right now on amazon (US / UK) for just $2.99 / £2.31, or you can get it and read it for free if you use Kindle Unlimited.

Go and check it out today, and please spread the word to your sci-fi fan friends if you enjoy it as word of mouth really helps us to thrive!

One thing that slipped a lot of people's notice was that we now have a very detailed game walkthrough document up at the maelstrom's edge website.

It is also available in PDF format for reading on a tablet or phone offline, or printing out.

The guide covers all major parts of the gameplay of Maelstrom's Edge, from setting up, to the phases of a turn, suppression and beyond. Even if you are very familiar with Maelstrom's Edge, we still recommend having a read through of the document as it could always give clarity on things that you want to know more about.

In other news, the Maelstrom's Edge homepage has had an update. We will continue to update content on the website, but the homepage was very overdue for some tweaking. One fun thing of note on there is this video:

The above was made for internal use only, but we do like the narration on it, so we'd thought we'd share for a while. The video is the one that we made to show off the basic concept of Maelstrom's Edge to the many third party authors who have written for us. That compilation is currently scheduled for release in February, though we'll likely release at least one story from it for free on here before then.

Today is also the last day of the discounted expansion sprue before we start widely promoting it, so if you are one of our core followers, be sure to grab it before the 22nd!

Tuesday and Wednesday's free PDF army books are great for building a force and learning the rules, but when it comes to playing the game, nothing beats having a handy reference sheet nearby.

We've updated our reference sheets to include all the latest units, weapons and rules for both the Karists and Epirians. Now you can download them right here:

Karist Quick Reference Sheets

Epirian Quick Reference Sheets

We look forward to hearing how the Karist Praetorians fare in battle against a fully equipped Epirian Contractor Suppression Team!

Yesterday we gave you the Karist Faction book, today we have the same for the Epirian Foundation.

To help you build your forces up using the expansion sprue released on Monday, here is a completely free PDF faction book for The Epirian Foundation.

This book contains everything you'd expect from an army book, from the background and origins of the Epirian Foundation, to detailed, up-to-date force listings, abilities, equipment and points values and model stats, along with lots of lovely artwork.

If you have an Epirian army, you need this PDF, so grab it now, stick it on your phone or tablet, or just print a copy out as it is just 21 pages in all at time of writing, so fairly reasonable!

This book and the Karist one from yesterday will be going to print eventually, but not until we add a bunch more units next year, so it is digital only for the time being.

Enjoy :)

To help you build your forces up using the expansion sprue released yesterday, here is a completely free PDF faction book for The Karist Enclave.

This book contains everything you'd expect from an army book, from the background and origins of the Karist Enclave, to detailed, up-to-date force listings, abilities, equipment and points values and model stats, not to mention lots of lovely artwork.

If you have a Karist army, you need this PDF, so grab it now, stick it on your phone or tablet, or just print a copy out as it is just 22 pages in all at time of writing, so fairly reasonable!

Enjoy :)