The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

- by Iain Wilson

Back in the barn!

I recently shared the first part of this build, combining a Plast Craft Games warehouse with parts from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues to build the shell of a sci fi barn (part one is here). This week, I broke out some more terrain sprues and set to work on the interior!




When I built the outside, I left the floor unglued, to get easier access for fitting parts. So I started by taking the floor piece back out and spraying it matte black, so that it wouldn't show underneath the grating pieces I was planning to use for a new floor layer on top. After measuring out the width of the floor against the floor grate pieces from the terrain sprue, I found there was going to be a slight gap around the edges, so I added some skirting using the reinforcing struts from terrain sprue #2.



Then I tiled the floor with one of the floor grates from terrain sprue #2, spacing them out with struts from terrain sprue #1 to cover the full length of the barn.



I wanted a small balcony on the end with the smaller door, which would provide access to the platform and crane on the outside of the wall. I used another of the floor grate pieces with some more reinforcing struts and lintel pieces top build the balcony, and some plastic tube with two of the small pipe fittings from terrain sprue #1 to hold it up on the protruding corner. Finally, a ladder from terrain sprue #1 provides access up to the balcony.



To add some detail to the inside of the doors, I grabbed some extra doors and cut the frames off the outside using a razor saw and scalpel.



The rectangular inside frame of the existing doors protrudes through the wall about a millimetre, so I cut some 1mm plasticard to form a spacer behind the new interior frames, trimming it up to match the contours of the outside of the frames and then gluing it all into place. I also added the outside ring from a porthole from terrain sprue #2 to finish off the hole for the exhaust fan on the outside wall.



I considered adding some interior detail around the windows, but this would complicate painting as I needed to get the clear plastic panes in at the end. I also thought about building some animal enclosures, but decided to keep the floor space open so that, in the event the building is being used with the interior accessible, I can just drop in a vehicle or some crates and other obstacles to suit the situation.

So that just left putting the barn onto a base. I cut a piece of 5mm hardboard to size, sanding down the edges to bevel them off and then glued the floor piece of the barn into the middle of it. When I went to glue the rest of the barn over the top, it immediately became apparent that I hadn't accounted for the raised floor tiles when I added the interior door frames, so I had to cut out some inserts for them to slot into.



Finally, I mixed up a batch of filling plaster with some PVA glue and fine sand for texture, and slathered it around the outside of the building to cover up the hardboard. This mixture didn't immediately stick particularly well to the hardboard, although it would once the glue dries, so this process involved poking it into place with fingers and an old paintbrush, and a certain amount of cursing. In the end, though, I got the plaster laid down all around the exterior, with a smoother ramp of pure filling plaster leading up to the larger door. Then I finished up by adding some small patches of sand and gravel mix here and there, glued into place with some more PVA glue.





Next up: Getting some paint on. Click here!







To build your own outbuilding of rural doom, you can pick up the terrain sprues 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

Time to get some terrain on!

Back in 2017, I put together a sci-fi 'western' gunshop, using the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue and a foamed PVC western shop kit from Plast Craft Games. Plast Craft sadly appear to have gone out of business, but I picked up a few building kits on clearance from a local retailer to start fleshing out a themed table. The first (and probably largest) off the rank is an appopriately upgraded barn!




Along with the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues, the kit I used for this build is an urban warehouse. If you want to build something similar yourself, while you may not be able to still track down this specific kit, there are other similar buildings available in MDF from other manufacturers, or you could use foamed PVC or foamcore to build your own from scratch.



I started out by adding some tech details to the windows, bulking out the frames using support struts and lintel pieces from terrain sprue #1, and floor panels from terrain sprue #2.



On the front of the building, I replaced the sliding wooden doors with a garage door from terrain sprue #1. To make up the extra height, I cut off the top of a second garage door with a razor saw and glued the two together.



The resultant door was the right height, but too wide, so I also widened the door cavity in the wall with an exacto knife before gluing the door in place. The round window at the top of the wall turned out to be exactly the right size for the exhaust fan from sprue #2..



The other end of the building has a smaller door and a rectangular window up high. I enlarged the cavities slightly and glued in a shutter window and door from sprue #1.



To avoid the building from just winding up looking like a plain box, I built a small platform and crane onto the wall, turning the small window into an access point for small freight. The platform was constructed from sprue #2 floor grates and some scrap pieces from the warehouse kit's roof trusses. The crane used a trapezoid window and a couple of energy fence pieces from sprue #1, the upright supports from the gun unit on sprue #2 and another scrap piece of PVC. I'll need to find some string or fine chain for it to finish up.



At that point, it was time to start slotting everything together.



The warehouse kit has a tiled roof, but I wanted to go with corrugated iron instead, for a better contrast from the brick walls. With the top ventilation struts trimmed off, the assembled roof provides a solid base for the iron roof. I've left the middle two roof trusses and the roof itself unglued, so that the roof can be removed and the building interior used during a game.



Over the original roof, I glued two sheets of corrugated cardboard, adding a strip of thin, folded card for the ridge capping. That didn't look quite right as-is, so I decided to also add some rain guttering, using some plasticard and a few more components from terrain sprue #1.



The windows are still missing their 'glass' - some thin, translucent plastic that comes with the warehouse kit. This will be glued in place after I've painted the barn. Otherwise, the finished exterior:



As a final touch, I decided the small platform needed a hand rail, so I whipped one up using a pair of posts from terrain sprue #2 and some thin plastic rod.



Coming up in part 2: I'll add some detail to the interior of the building before painting. Find it here!



To build your own outbuilding of rural doom, you can pick up the terrain sprues 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

When Stargrave arrived on the gaming scene, bringing the popular Frostgrave rules into a sci-fi setting, it sparked all sorts of interesting ideas amongst gamers for building crews. While there is an official model range for the game, it also encourages players to use whatever miniatures they like, which is a perfect excuse to break out some models and get creative! I was particularly interested in the rule allowing any crew members to be robots, and set to work building up a crew using (mostly) the Maelstrom's Edge Epirian Scarecrow plastic kit!




The bulk of the crew was made up of very slightly converted Scarecrows with different heads taken from the Remnant Militus battlesuit kit to denote different 'classes' of robot. Thanks to how wonderfully poseable the Scarecrow kit is, it's really easy to get a range of different looking models out of it! I also used a resin robo-dog from Artel W for a guard dog, added a (still to be painted) space dwarf from Victoria Miniatures as a first mate, and a converted Remnant Nimbus battlesuit for the Captain.



I wanted an easy paint scheme that I could get done quickly, and used Army Painter paints for the bulk of it. I started with a base coat of Uniform Grey spray, followed by a top-down (or 'zenithal') spray of white, so that the grey would stay visible in the creases and underneath surfaces to provide some shading. I then went over the joints and other exposed metal parts with a coat of Dark Tone, and gave the weapons three generous coats of the same. The final details were done with Citadel Contrast - Iyanden Yellow for the tanks on the robot's backs and Leviadon Blue highlighted with Army Painter Ice Storm and white for the eye lenses. The different classes of robot also received some shaded panels to tell them apart - yellow for techs, orange for soldiers and red for specialists.



I'm still deciding how to paint up the first mate, and how closely he will mimic the colour scheme, but here's the rest of the the crew all assembled:



Captain and Guard Dog:



The Captain was built from a Nimbus battlesuit with the head taken from the Karist Heavy Weapons kit. The energy blade is part of a trimmed down lightsaber from a Star Wars figure, left over from an old project. He represents a cyborg in combat armour.

Tech crew - Hacker and Chiseler:



Chiselers are normally equipped with lockpicks. I decided to go a more direct route and gave him a cutting torch using part of a weapon from the Broken Rabble kit.

Troopers



I gave the troopers bulkier left arms to house their combat knives using spare Scarecrow shin pieces. The knives are taken from the Faction Expansion Sprue.

Specialists - Burner and Sniper:



The Burner has a pistol and knife as well as the flamethrower, so I gave him the same knife arm as the regular troopers and mounted a mini grenade launcher taken from the Epirian Handler kit to his shoulder to represent the pistol. The sniper has a different head to the regular troopers, and his sniper rifle was a handy way to make use of the second set of arms that come with the Captain's Nimbus suit.

Time to get that mate painted up and send these bots out on into the black!



To build your own robot crew of clanking doom, you can pick up the Scarecrow kit 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

A while ago, I picked up a set of the Army Painter coloured metallic paints, and decided this week it was time to take them for a spin. The paint set includes some lovely purples that were just screaming out for a friendly little angel to bring to life. And so that's what I did.




The model I chose to use for this was a conversion that I put together some time ago while playing around with the Mature Angel kit. The end result is a slightly sinister-looking, floaty juvenile angel.



Metallic paint generally goes best over a dark basecoat, so I started out by spraying the model with some Army Painter black.



I then gave the whole model a coat of Night Scales, a metallic black from the Army Painter set. This has a slight bluey-purple tint to it that is just perfect for the angel. I was tempted to just leave it like this and call the job a good'un.



Deciding to go for a little more 'wow', though, I grabbed the bottle of Royal Purple, a midrange purple metal colour, and drybrushed the angel with it, building up more colour on raised areas and tentacle tips.



I used a light drybrush of Zephyr Pink to add some extra highlights wherever it seemed appropriate. I also went back over the top of the head with some more Night Scales, and picked out the eye sockets with Zephyr Pink before adding some white over on the eyeballs and inside the mouth. Finally, I added some coarse sand mix to the base with PVA glue, and then painted with Army Painter Dirt Spatter, then a wash of Mid Brown ink, and finally a drybrush with Kobold Skin, also picking out the base edge with more Dirt Spatter.









To build your own angel of floaty, screamy doom, you can pick up the Mature Angel kit 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

Regular readers would know by now that I have a habit of grabbing odd things from around the place that have interesting shapes and turning them into terrain. In the past, I've built terrain from various bits of building hardware, storage containers, food packaging, and Christmas tree decorations, amongst other things. This week, I ransacked Amazon's toy department to put together a communications hub!




The base for this model was a small light up laser gun toy that I found while browsing Amazon. This particular toy came in a set of 4 - three of this same design in different colours, and another blockier design that I'll find a different use for later.



The first step was to take the gun apart so that I could remove the pistol grip and any other un-needed parts. The cowling from the front will likely wind up as a building entry at some point in the future, and I saved the light and speaker just on the off-chance that I want something to light up and make pew-pew noises.



The main part of the gun was almost perfect as is, although I trimmed down the protrusion that the pistol grip originally clipped onto with a razor saw.



I then cut a piece of plasticard to fit neatly over the opening, and grabbed a computer panel from the first Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue to add to this plate.



I reassembled the body of the gun, and added a couple of aerials made from plastic tubing, aluminium rod and a post piece from the second Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue.



Finally, I added a base to make it a bit more stable, glued an exhaust fan from the second terrain sprue over the muzzle piece, and puttied over the screw holes.



With some paint on, it wound up looking like this:



I considered leaving the blue central piece unpainted as a shiny, translucent feature, but decided against it as the three guns have different coloured pieces, so the translucent piece would be different on each comm hub... and that would offend me on a deeply spiritual level when I build the other two.







To build your own hub of communicative doom, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues 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.

- by Iain Wilson

There are a few different options out there for filling in open windows on terrain. In the past, I've used clear plastic or aluminium mesh cut to shape and glued in. I recently picked up some Ultraviolet Resin intended for creating water effects, and it occurred to me that this might be a fun alternate way of adding panes to some windows.




The resin I'm working with is sold by Green Stuff World. It's a super-clear gel that you squeeze from the bottle and then set with a UV light, or by leaving it out in the sun. They also sell a UV torch, which I couldn't resist picking up.



To create a window pane, I took a painted door from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue and laid it down on some aluminium foil, with a small piece of thin plasticard in behind to push the foil snug against the back of the window frame.

(I used a painted door as it was going to be impossible to paint the inside of the window frame once the resin was in place.)



I then added a drop of resin into the middle of the window, leaving it a minute or so to settle out to the edges of the frame. There were very few airbubbles in the resin, but I used a pin to gently poke the few that were there to make them go away.



To set the resin, I sat the UV torch on top of the doorframe pointing directly at the window, and left it for a couple of minutes to let it do its thing. From further experimentation later, the resin starts to cure within a few seconds, but I wanted to leave it long enough to make sure.



From there, the door was ready to be glued into a piece of terrain and detailed.

For coloured window glass, transparent paint gives a nice tint. This porthole was filled with resin in the centre, and then once set I painted the back of the resin with two coats of Tamiya Clear Orange.





To make your own windows of transparent doom, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues 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

Time to hack something up, just because we can! I've had my eye on the Hornet dropship from Mantic's Warpath game for some time, as its general shape feels similar to the Epirian Firefly drone, just scaled up. So, I decided to take one and turn it into a heavy cargo drone to support Epirian forces behind the lines! Read on to see how it was built.




With its design already including wing-mounted turbines, the main alteration required was to make the front of the Hornet look like a standard Epirian drone. I used a small pipe fitting from the first Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue for a sensor lens housing. For the lens itself, I rolled out some 'Green Stuff' putty into a thin sheet and used the pipe fitting as a stamp to cut out a circle. I also took a couple of pieces of aluminium rod and bent them to fit across the front section on the Hornet, to form the rectangular grill that Firefly and Spider drones have under their sensor lens.



Once the Green Stuff was fully cured, I trimmed away the excess, and glued everything into place on the front of the Hornet. The Hornet's protruded above the lens housing, so I covered over it with a thin piece of plasticard. I had originally intended to cut off the cockpit bulge and seal over it with plasticard, but decided it would be easier to use some putty to fill in the windscreen recesses.



As this drone was intended as a scenery piece rather than for gaming, I decided to keep the cargo container as a separate piece. There is a doorway on one end with no door, as this normally sits up against the door on the back of the Hornet cockpit section. I took a door from the terrain sprue and trimmed it down to fit into the opening, adding a piece of plasticard to fill in the window. I also wanted to add some detail to the top of the container. Taking a fan from terrain sprue #2, I trimmed it down to fit inside the large pipe fitting from terrain sprue #1.



I glued the fan assembly onto the top of the container to line up with the circular vent on the underside of the Hornet's fuselage, and added some plasticard shaped to match the fuselage's trapezoid hatch.



With everything else just assembled as normal, the new drone was ready for paint!



And the finished Pegasus Heavy Cargo Drone, ready to haul some heavy cargo:







To turn your own Hornet into a heavy drone of logistical doom, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues 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 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.

- by Iain Wilson

I came across this idea a little while ago in a Facebook group, and thought it was too good to not give it a go. Turns out, there are a bunch of pop-up LED lanterns currently floating about that are just perfect for turning into fantastic light-up reactors!




So, the foundation for this build is a pop-up lantern that I found on Amazon. There are variations available all over the place, all with a very similar design. The light comes on automatically when you lift the top of the lantern, and goes off when you push it closed.



These look pretty amazing just painted up as-is, but I couldn't resist tweaking a little. The handles are spring steel wire, pushed into holes in the top of the lamp, so I removed these and put them aside. Then I gave the outside of the lamp a light sand with fine sandpaper. This part isn't essential, but I like to do it with unfamiliar plastic as it can help the glue and paint stick better.



From there, I took the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues and added some details. I cut down some support struts from the first terrain sprue to make some bracing for the sides, and added the square end pieces from the struts onto the small protrusions spaced around the base of the lamp. I also cut the tops from some railing posts from the second terrain sprue to cover over the handle holes, and added an iris portal to the top as a heat vent.



It looked like it needs just one last thing, so I used the vent pieces from the support struts to add a little more detail around the top of the lamp, and then it was ready for paint.



To paint up the reactor, I started with the clear plastic light cover. I used a sponge to apply a rough layer of Scalecolor Elandil Violet (a dark purple) and then when that was dry, a layer of Army Painter Warlock Purple. Normally I would do this on the inside of the clear plastic, to protect the paint, but it proved impossible to disassemble the lamp without breaking parts, so it went on the outside, and then I sealed it with a coat of Testor's Dull Coat.



To paint the rest, I started with a basecoat of Army Painter Wolf Grey, drybrushing white onto the upper edges. After gluing on some printed signs worked up in Gimp, I then sponged on some weathering using Army Painter Dirt Spatter, adding scattered white highlights on some of the broken grey. The metal grills and iris were given a coat of Dirt Spatter, a sponge of Vallejo Heavy Charcoal, a light drybrush with P3 Ember Orange, and finally a touch of Army Painter Dry Rust. To finish up, I drybrushed some more Dirt Spatter and Vallejo Beasty Brown into the creases.



Because the fit of the light tube is rather tight, it does run the risk of rubbing the paint off by lifting or lowering it, so I've settled for turning it on and off by just taking the batteries out, instead. But other than that, I think it turned out quite well. The light is not as bright as it was originally, but it still gives a noticeable glow, even with the lights on!





Put together your own evil reactor of purple-powered doom by picking up the terrain sprues, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range from the webstore here.

Then pop on over to the Comm Guild Facebook group to show us what you're working on!

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

When pursuing conflicts outside of its zone of control, the Epirian Foundation makes use of portable uplink drones that link to orbital satelites and airborne recon to provide battlefield intelligence and allow Bot Handlers to remotely interface with Epirian assets on the ground. The Battle for Zycanthus box includes a cardboard marker for the Automated Uplink Relay, but for those wanting a more 'solid' version, I shared a kitbash idea some time ago using parts from various Epirian plastic kits and metal tracks from a Bombshell Miniatures model. The arrival of the PDC Gun Carriage gave me an idea for an alternative, all-plastic version!




I made a few changes to the drone design this time around, with the most obvious one being the tracks. I built the track unit from the gun carriage as normal, although I trimmed off the lugs on the front that hold the dozer blade.



As with the original version, I used the body of an Epirian Hunter war mech, cutting apart at the waist with a razor saw.



I gave the waist a rotating cuff by gluing on the round grill piece from the gun carriage, and added vanes on the head trimmed from a piece of thin plasticard.



For the arms, I used the shoulders from the Hunter, with the upper arms trimmed off. I needed to glue a new piece for the weapon assembly onto the outer surface of the shoulder, so I sanded this down flat.



To make rotating cylinders for the tri-barreled Flakk Defense Battery, I used a couple of turbines leftover from the Epirian Spider/Firefly Drone kit. Because the kit makes either drone variant, if you have built any spiders, you'll have some of these laying around. I trimmed off the attachment peg and the wing.



I used the Hunter's weapon casing forearms for the bulk of the flakk weapon casing, drilling out the attachment hole a little larger to accommodate the central hub on the drone turbine.



From there, I glued the weapon casings onto the outside of the shoulders, and the turbines onto the front of the casings. The barrells of the flakk weapon came from the drone kit, with the rear surface trimmed down flat and glued to the front of the turbine.



The last thing the Uplink Relay needed was the communications array. I used the 'spare' piece from the drone kit as a fixed arial, glued onto the top of the weapon casing on the left arm. I also assembled a signal dish using a trimmed Hunter foot and the back chassis piece from the drone kit. For the dish itself, I used the leg piece from the drone kit, with the legs themselves removed at the 'hip' pivot.



The assembled Automated Uplink Relay, ready for paint:



And the finished Relay, ready for the table:





Put together your own Automated Relay of Uplinky doom by picking up the plastic Hunter, Drone and Gun Carriage kits, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range from the webstore here.

Then pop on over to the Comm Guild Facebook group to show us what you're working on!

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

- by Iain Wilson

Time for some more hobby basics! Last time around, we ran through how to apply a basic sand texture to your bases. Now it's time to finish them off, with an article covering how to apply static grass. Find it here!




Stay tuned for more!

- by Iain Wilson

Time for some more hobby basics! In this latest addition to the article library, we're running through how to add and paint basic sand texture to your miniature bases. You can find the article here!




Stay tuned for more!

- by Iain Wilson

In games of Maelstrom's Edge, along with whatever objectives apply to the mission being played, each faction has an additional themed objective of their own. For the factions in the Battle for Zycanthus box, there are cardboard counters to use as faction objective markers, but it's always nice to have physical models to represent them instead. I shared a conversion some time ago for a kitbash of the Epirian's Automated Uplink Relay Drone (with a new, all-plastic version of this build coming up in a future article very soon!), and this seemed like a good time to balance things out with a Secret Cache marker for the Karist Enclave!




I was looking at the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue for a completely different project when it occurred to me that the iris hatch was a nearly perfect size for the Karist objective. The Secret Cache is a small objective, which means a model to represent it goes on a 25mm base, and as it happens, the iris is 25mm in diameter. So as an incredibly quick and easy option, you could just use the iris portal as-is. To keep things accurate, you can measure to the iris, ignoring the surround, or if your opponent agrees you could just measure to the outer edge of the portal, making it a 30mm objective marker instead of 25.



For a slightly more elaborate version, I took a portal and used a 16mm spade bit to drill out the middle of the iris.



Wrapping a small piece of sandpaper around my index finger, I flipped the portal over and sanded around the underside to make it concave.



To make the base of the cache piece, I cut a small square of 6mm foamed PVC, and then drilled most of the way through the middle of it with a 25mm spade bit, before giving it a light sand.



To fill the cache, I took a bunch of assorted Karist weapons from the Faction Expansion Sprue. I trimmed the bottom of the rifles down flat, sanding the bottom so that they fit neatly inside the cache cavity. If you don't have the expansion sprue handy, you could also just use spare weapons from the Karist Trooper sprue, cutting the hands off the bottom - either way, the bottoms of the weapons won't be visible once the cache is sealed up, so either way works just fine.



I glued the rifles in place, and then filled the space around them with grenades and a couple of ammo drums cut from grenade launchers. I also glued a small circle of plasticard into the drill bit guide hole in the bottom of the cache.



The final step before painted was to check that the portal fit neatly on top. At this point, I also used a hobby knife to cut some vertical lines into the inside of the hole in the iris, to delineate the tips of each petal. I left the portal separate for painting, gluing it in place at the end.



And speaking of painting, with some colour on the portal wound up looking like this:





Put together your own secret cache of pre-prepared doom by picking up the plastic terrain sprue, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range from the webstore here.

Then pop on over to the Comm Guild Facebook group to show us what you're working on!

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

Over the Christmas break, I found myself in a local hardware store picking up some supplies for a few jobs around the house, and as so often happens I got a little distracted by random pieces of plastic. As a result, this week's modeling article is a sci fi barracks building made from components from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues and a piece of plastic air conditioner ducting!




I have plundered the aircon ducting display before, resulting in a battlement-roofed bunker (which you can see here). This time around, I had picked up a longer piece that is usually used to cover over the spot where cables or drain hoses turn to go through a wall.



Because the shape was so perfect as is, there was very little that needed doing here, but it did need a front wall. For this, I used a piece of 3mm foamed PVC. Sitting the ducting end-on on top of the PVC, I traced around the inside with a pencil to get an accurate cutting pattern for the wall.



In the middle of the wall piece, I cut a rectangle to fit the garage door from Terrain Sprue #1.



Before gluing everything in place, I gave the ducting a light sand all over. This breaks up the shiny outer surface of the plastic, allowing glue and paint to stick better. With that done, I glued the front wall in place inside the ducting, and added some iris windows and exhaust fans from Terrain Sprue #2 for some extra detail.



I decided against adding a base, as it didn't really seem necessary. The flange around the ducting makes it nice and stable on the tabletop, and this way it will fit in with whatever style of battlefield I choose to plonk it onto.

So, with some paint on, the barracks looks like this:











Put together your own sci fi barracks (of doom?) by picking up the plastic terrain sprues, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range from the webstore here.

Then pop on over to the Comm Guild Facebook group to show us what you're working on!

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