The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

It feels like an eternity since we first released images of the Epirian Contractors. Our first sculpt with a new sculptor and manufacturer, getting the scale right took a number of back-and-forth attempts but after a few revisions we were able to create a model that was in scale with our Karist range and served as the starting point for the full Epirian range.

The Epirian sprue has a nice crisp level of detail and managed to cram a lot more on than we thought possible, which is why there are two pistols on each sprue. 5 heads and 5 pairs of arms opens up a lot of nice options for posing. Our Epirian models have a slight lean to them which makes them very difficult to photograph effectively but this is something we think we have continued to improve at. The lean does mean that the models look very nice when they are posed with a slightly raised leg, standing on a rock or similar.

The Epirian hats proved to be a dividing aesthetic. Some people love them, some people hate them. Fortunately, we were able to provide helmets as an alternative option for those who prefer to avoid the more casual hat look. A marmite feature!

The Epirian Contractors are our second best selling models, and are available in sets of 6 from the Maelstrom's Edge website.

The flexibility of having a plastic model range is really shown with the ease of head-swaps that can be done. This excellent example by Panic is part of his Doom force, which is a valid Epirian army, themed around the classic first person shooter videogame 'Doom'. The right colourscheme and a simple head swap really changes the feel of the model. We'll be sharing a lot more of Panic's amazing work in the future!

The Comm Guild's community spotlight focuses on sharing something from the Maelstrom's Edge community each week, if you have anything you'd like to get in to the queue, please get in touch with us via the Maelstrom's Edge website

What is it about Ochre that looks so good on models? This Epirian Hunter by Zambro at Dakka has a great finish and a nice use of contrasting colours that really make the model pop.

The Comm Guild's community spotlight focuses on sharing something from the Maelstrom's Edge community each week, if you have anything you'd like to get in to the queue, please get in touch with us via the Maelstrom's Edge website

The Maelstrom's Edge box set comes with two cardboard objectives for the Karist and Epirian forces. The above shows a lovely physical model based on the Epirian Objective by Sgt Oddball over at Dakka.

The Comm Guild's community spotlight focuses on sharing something from the Maelstrom's Edge community each week, if you have anything you'd like to get in to the queue, please get in touch with us via the Maelstrom's Edge website

Most of our Epirian colour schemes use metallic plating on the shoulderpads, but to many people, the 'blocky' effect is a bit too much. This one from Golem painting, went with a much more muted colour scheme to great effect. We've got an entire army painted up in these colours and will share more pictures of them here on fridays.

Part of our early testing for getting our final colourscheme together was sending our models out to a bunch of talented painters and getting them to completely make up their own colourschemes.

Today's photo is one of those - an Epirian Contractor in a white and blue colourscheme.

There is a lot going on in such a small space for this model, with the windswept leaves on the base working really nicely with the at-ease but on guard pose, as if the contractor has just spotted something of concern.

One of our most widely loved models, the Epirian Spider drones are fun little robots that are equipped with either a cutter light machine gun or a flakk gun.

Design
The origin of the design of these drones started with a desire for an 'animal sized' drone. We played around with a bunch of different options, with a crab-type robot being an early front runner. Debate amongst the team deemed it much more appropriate for the Epirians to have an all terrain drone that could fit in small spaces to help from a terraforming perspective. That role and specification evolved in to the spider drone.

Early Concepts
We always wanted to create a common drone core that could be extended into different means of locomotion. Below, we share one of our early drone development concept images:

Conversions
The drones also convert very easily due to being a versatile plastic kit. We've seen a few variants - the 'grasshopper' drone which has both legs and turbines, and the 'scorpion' variant, pictured below:

You can check out more on the Spider Drones, as well as being able to order them, at the Maelstrom's Edge web site.

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 :)