The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

- by Iain Wilson

Last week, I shared a Revolutionary Captain conversion that I had painted up to lead a new SARA force for my army collection. This week, I completed work on the rest of his detachment!




The leader for the detachment is obviously the aforementioned Revolutionary Captain, equipped with his signature pistol and an added trophy melee weapon. To accompany him into battle, I filled out a Vanguard slot with a pair of Sig Jammers, on using the regular resin model, and another converted up using a bunch of assorted parts, including the beret head that I didn't use on the Captain. Sig Jammers provide support to Broken forces by interfering with enemy Fields and forcing additional Suppression Points onto enemy units with their Tech Disruptors.



Rabble units make up the core of any Broken force. For my SARA, I wanted to give them a more military look than my Forsaken force, so I mostly stayed away from long coats and robes, and borrowed some extra armour parts from Epirian and Karist kits, and also a few bits and pieces from some Stargrave plastic models for a little extra variet. I also gave all of the models a shoulder pad on their left shoulder, as something to help unify the various assorted models... although in true Broken fashion, these pads are also sourced from a range of different places.



The second Rabble unit is accompanied by a Marsayan Hypnotist, to provide some tentacle-faced disruption to enemy shooting. Units accampanied by a Marsayan are difficult to hit, always counting as a Fleeting target and gaining a dodge against close range attacks.



For a bit of long range coverage, I added a Rabble Fire Support unit with beam longrifles to fill one of my Anvil slots.



To round things out, I took a Pa'ku for the other Anvil slot, because how can you go past a giant toad with a cannon. The model I've used here is one I converted up for the spotlight article some time ago to count as a 'heavy EMP mortar' instead of the usual quad mortar... but could still be used as just a variant version of the usual gun if I want to keep things official. The Pa'ku's EMP mortar is great for dropping large blasts on enemy formations, although it works best in concert with other Pa'ku due to their Coordinated Barrage rule. So I'll probably look at painting up a second Pa'ku with the second detachment, potentially retrofitting it back into this detachment with the Multi-Unit Selection rule allowing both of them to count as a single Anvil choice.



All up, this detachment currently comes in at 67 points, so is just under half of a 'standard' 150 point force. I'll be working on the second detachment as I have time, putting in another Revolutionary Captain, some snipers, and an assault unit featuring a couple of Hakoyu for some up-close-and-personal, pointy doom. In the meantime, I can always use these as a detachment alongside my Forsaken force.

More to come - stay tuned!







To build your own army of revolutionary doom, you can pick up the Broken along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range from the webstore here.



What are you working on? We would love to see your models and terrain in the Comm Guild Facebook group!

For other building ideas, modeling tutorials, army spotlights and conversion walkthroughs, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

- by Iain Wilson

With the release of the Revolutionary Captain and Sniper models for the Broken, I couldn't resist the lure of that new army smell, and so I've been working away to put together a SARA force to sit alongside my existing Forsaken collection. The model I chose to lead the force was one that I showed back in the Conversion Spotlight article when the Revolutionary Captain was released, but this week I finally got some paint on him!




For those who haven't checked out the article linked above, this model was a conversion of the plastic SARA Captain model. The head was taken from an Epirian Contractor, with a hat added using 'green stuff' putty. I also gave him a sword built from a couple of chopped up weapons from the Broken Rabble sprue and a slightly reshaped Karist sword blade taken from the Faction Expansion sprue.



For this force, I chose to go with a colour scheme fairly similar to the Maelstrom's Edge studio model, using a lot of Army Green with white 'techy' bits. To make the Captain stand out a little more from the horde, though, I swapped out the studio model's green coat for a dark brown leather one. This was painted with Scalecolor Bosh Chestnut and several layers of Army Painter Dark Tone, before highlighting with Army Painter Leather Brown with a little Skeleton Bone mixed in.



The rest of his uniform is Army Painter Army Green for the pants and hat, and Army Green mixed with Coat D'Arms Putrid Green for the shirt. These were washed with Army Painter Military Shader, and then the hat given two coats of Green Tone, before it was all highlighted with some more Putrid Green and Army Green mix. The metal was painted with Army Painter Plate Mail Metal and washed with Dark Tone and Strong Tone, with a Shining Silver highlight, while the white parts were given a coat of Army Painter Uniform Grey and then a heavy drybrush of white. It's a little rough up close, but quick and easy and looks suitably beaten up on the table!



The next job is to finish up the painting on the rest of his detachment, and then start on a second detachment so that I can work in a sniper or two!





To build your own army of revolutionary doom, you can pick up the Revolutionary Captain along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range from the webstore here.



What are you working on? We would love to see your models and terrain in the Comm Guild Facebook group!

For other building ideas, modeling tutorials, army spotlights and conversion walkthroughs, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

Following stealthily on the heels of the Revolutionary Captain comes another new model release for the Broken - The Sniper!



Broken Snipers originate either as marksmen from a planetary military that is displaced by the Maelstrom or pulled from within the ranks of the SARA and trained when it is noticed that they display a high level of accuracy with their rifle. Unfortunately, the Broken simply do not have the types of training facilities that other factions have access to, nor the manufacturing and technology in place to produce state of the art high-powered sniper rifles. All of which means that, one-on-one, Broken Snipers will never be a direct match with their foes. Therefore, the role of a Sniper focuses more on being a jack of all trades thorn in the enemy’s side.



A Sniper amongst the Broken is an immensely valuable battlefield tool and therefore Broken commanders commission their weaponsmiths to produce custom, high-end weapons and tech for their Snipers, so as to give them a fighting chance on the battlefield. Though each Sniper has a slight variation in their kit, their basics usually entail a cloak with powered optical and anti-radar camouflage, along with a drum-fed sniper rifle, which is able to switch on the fly between several different custom-made specialty ammunition types.

As with all Broken, Snipers are the master of stealth, and their ability to pick the right ammunition type to most punish their target before disappearing into the mists before the enemy can return fire in earnest makes them one of the most loathed foes in the spiral arm.



The Broken Sniper is a plastic kit on a single sprue, and is supplied with a 32mm plastic base.



Grab your Sniper from the Maelstrom's Edge webstore now!

- by Iain Wilson

With the release of the Revolutionary Captain ushering the SARA subfaction into Maelstrom's Edge games, a range of new tactical options opens up for the Broken. I'll be sharing my fledgling SARA force in an upcoming army, but to kick things off I thought it would be fun to have a look at some modeling options for the fantastic Revolutionary Captain model!




The Revolutionary Captain is a multipart, plastic model. He's not as modular as most of the Maelstrom's Edge model range, as the sculpt was in this case aiming for a specific character look. Being plastic, however, it's still relatively easy to give the model a more customised look if you feel so inclined, and I'll explore some different ideas for that below.


The studio model, painted by Winterdyne.

Built straight off the sprue, the Revolutionary Captain is equipped with his SARA Officer's Pistol. His rules card, which can be found here, gives him the option to take one of a number of different secondary weapons, which can mostly be sourced from the Broken Rabble kit. To equip a Beam Blastgun or Slug Rifle, the easy option is to just stick the weapon on his back. You could model a rifle strap from modeling putty, or just assume the weapon is held in place with a magnetic lock built into the back of his coat.



To take a more hands-on approach, for this version I sliced off his right hand, and used a forearm snipped from a Rabble sprue arm to hold the blastgun. As it still sits against his waist, there's no need to try to resculpt the coat belt where the hand was removed, as you can't see it anyway.



Of course, everyone knows that battlefield commanders spend a good amount of their time pointing at things. If your commander isn't either pointing at something, or standing with one foot on something, people might not even recognise them! By slicing off the Revolutionary Captain's left arm at the coat's shoulder seam, I was able to glue a pointing arm from the Rabble sprue in its place. I also replaced the head with a regular Rabble head by drilling out the neck a little with a 2mm drill bit, and glued a maglock pistol from the Epirian Contractor kit onto her hip with some strapping made from 'Green Stuff' putty to replace the officer's pistol. The putty isn't strictly necessary - you could easily just glue any of the Captain's pistol options to the belt, but the addition of the putty strap does make it look a little nicer on the model.



Of course, there's no reason for only humans to be revolting! With the neck drilled out as above, you can use any of the alien heads from the weapons sprue in the Rabble kit to create a xeno force commander.



While we're replacing heads, some Captains like a nice, sensible cap in place of a beret, so for this one I used an Epirian Contractor head (mostly for the sunglasses!) and built the cap up into an officer's hat using Green Stuff. I also added a melee weapon on his belt using part of a Karist sword from the Faction Expansion Sprue and bits from a couple of weapons on the Rabble sprue. This could easily represent either the Poisoned Blade or Trophy Melee Weapon. For a slightly easier option, you could just use the Karist sword or knife from the Faction Expansion sprue. The resin Forsaken Chieftain also comes with both of these melee options, so if you have that model you could use whichever one you didn't use on her for the Revolutionary Captain.



Of course, if you're hacking up your Revolutionary Captain model to replace heads and weapons, this leaves you with some useful parts to build another Captain to lead a second Detachment! For the below model, I used some parts from the Rabble kit (legs, arms and beam pistol), the left hand and head from the Revolutionary Captain, and a torso from the Epirian SecDef kit just to help him to stand out a little more from the Broken horde.





To build your own army of revolutionary doom, you can pick up the Revolutionary Captain along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range from the webstore here.



What are you working on? We would love to see your models and terrain in the Comm Guild Facebook group!

For other building ideas, modeling tutorials, army spotlights and conversion walkthroughs, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

Last week, we shared an intro into one of the sub-factions within the Broken - the Spiral Arm Revolutionary Army. The time has come to see SARA roll out onto the table, with the release of a new plastic model for the SARA Revolutionary Captain!



Revolutionary Captains lead companies of SARA troops on the battlefield. While SARA companies are comprised mostly of the same sorts of units as you would find in Forsaken or Jackal forces, their more military-focused structure results in better discipline and tactics on the battlefield.



On the table, the Revolutionary Captain's military experience grants your Broken force some new abilities. The SARA Discipline rule grants units in the Captain's command radius a boost to their WP. These units are also granted the new Guerilla rule, which allows a unit taking an Advance & Fire action to shoot before moving, allowing your units to to attack enemy positions and then fade away into cover.



The first of a series of smaller plastic kits that we are releasing, the Revolutionary Captain kit is a single sprue with a multipart, monopose model and is supplied with a 25mm base.



Grab your Revolutionary Captain from the Maelstrom's Edge webstore now!