The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

- by Iain Wilson

As a wise man once said, "With great Christmas comes a great big bunch of junk food!"

Amongst my family's collection of sugary delights this year was a plastic jar full of candy sticks, bought for my daughters to stuff into Christmas cards. Once empty, though, the jar itself was just too interesting a shape to toss it away. So, there was nothing else for it but to build something!




The jar in question, blissfully unaware that it was about to enter a whole different plane of existence.



After removing the labels and cleaning off the glue residue with some isopropyl alcohol, I sprayed the inside of the jar with some matt black spray. I do this whenever I'm using something clear as a terrain base, as it prevents stray light bleeding through the paint, and also stops things looking weird if the paint on the outside gets scratched.

I also gave the outside a scrub with some sandpaper to break up the glossy surface. This gives a better surface for the glue and paint to adhere to.



To fit doors and windows from the terrain sprue to the curved surface of the jar, rather than building a framework to square things up I decided to fit them to the curve. I laid a piece of sandpaper over the jar and used this as a curved sanding block to shape the back of the parts.



Adding the support struts around the rim of the lid was a little easier - I just bent them around the curve and glued them in place with superglue and a plastic primer.



In a happy coincidence, the spacing worked out almost perfect. I used three full struts, and cut the last one down to three sections, needing to trim only a fraction off the end to make it fit perfectly.



I glued the door and windows into place, adding some steps and gluing the jar down to a piece of hardboard. I also added a grating piece onto a bare patch of the board just for some extra visual interest, painting underneath it with some black as this was easier than doing it later.



To dress up the top of the building, I grabbed a few assorted pieces from the terrain sprues, whipping together an aerial array, a control box and a chimney using a piece of the sprue and some plastic tube.



With these parts glued in place, I finished off the roof with a fan and large pipe fitting glued onto a base that fit just perfectly over the cavity in the top of the jar lid.



The jar needed some texture, so I added a coat of textured paint and while that was drying I built up the base with some filling plaster.



Finally, I added a layer of sand and gravel mix over the filling plaster, fixing it in place with some PVA glue.



After a quick bit of paint work, the new building was looking totally sweet and ready for the table!







To build your own desert habitat of sugary 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.

Well, with 2021 consigned to the scrapbook, it's time to look ahead at what the coming year will bring. We have a bunch of new stuff in the works, which we're really looking forward to showing off. So to get things started, here's a sneak peek at just some of the models in the production queue!




Along with the host of new models, there is also the ongoing Beta testing for the second edition of the Maelstrom's Edge rules. If you missed the announcement just before Christmas, you can find out about some of the changes and download a copy of the Beta rules, including force lists for all four current factions, from the article here.



Start building your 2nd edition force by heading over to the webstore here.



Then make sure you share your models, terrain and game reports on the Comm Guild Facebook group!

- by Iain Wilson

It's become a bit of a tradition around this time of year for me to grab some leftover sprues and throw together a sci-fi Christmas tree ornament. For this year's trinket, I grabbed some parts from the original Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue and made myself a somewhat technological snowflake!




The build for this one was pretty simple. I started out with two trapezoid windows and half a dozen energy fence pylons.



To make the branching parts of the snowflake 'arms', I grabbed some 1.5mm aluminium rod, cut it into 20mm and 30mm lengths, and bent them in the middle.



I made a simple formwork to glue the rod pieces in place, by laying a pair of struts from the terrain sprue on either side of the fence posts, adding a drop of glue into the grabby port on the post, and then sitting the bent rod in place. Another dollop of glue on top sealed the rods in place. I also added another piece of rod bent into a loop on the end of the 'top' fence post, to serve as a hanging loop.



Once the frankly horrific amount of glue I had used here had time to set, I used plastic cement to glue the windows together, and the bottoms of the fence posts to the window frames.



On to painting! I sprayed the whole thing with Army Painter Matt Black, and then with a layer of Plate Metal.



I then went over the window frams and fence posts with some Secret Weapon Soft Body Black wash that I had sitting around from an Adepticon goodie bag a few years back.



On the fence post bases and the window frames, I added a coat of Citadel Macragge Blue, with a highlight around the edges of Army Painter Ice Storm.



Then, because I apparently can't go for more than a week without weathering something, I took a sponge and some Vallejo Heavy Charcoal and added some chipping to the blue areas, highlighting with some more Ice Storm. As a final touch, I used some Army Painter blue tone to add a blue tint in the creases of the 'arm' attachments, for a little extra colour. And then on to the tree it went!



Here's wishing everyone a safe and happy time for whatever holidays you happen to celebrate around this time of year!



Build your own ornament of celebratory doom by picking 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.

With another year almost come to an end, it seems like a good time to pause and look back at some highlights from the Maelstrom's Edge!




The Karist, Broken and Epirian factions all received some reinforcements this year. We also saw the end of the Battle for Zycanthus boxed set, as our existing stock sold out. With the second edition of the game on the horizon, rather than producing more of this set, we added some starter bundles and troop bundle deals for each faction to the Maelstrom's Edge webstore.

The Contractor Support Drone added some new equipment options to Epirian forces, allowing Contractors to field Engineer and Medic units and adding sensor drones to Contractor Scouts. This is the last full resin model to be released for Maelstrom's Edge as, with the exception of a couple of upcoming equipment options for the Artarian Remnant, we have now moved completely to plastic for our models.



The Kaddar Alessi Novitiate serves as an alternate command option for Karist forces. Slightly less unhinged than the typical Kaddar Nova, Kaddar Alessi use their charisma and oratory prowess to inspire the forces under their command, or to shake the resolve of any enemy within earshot.



The Spiral Arm Revolutionary Army are a new sub-faction for the Broken. These paramilitary groups tend to be more organised and disciplined than other Broken, and this is reflected in their command structure. Revolutionary Captains stands proudly at the head of their forces, co-ordinating strikes and holding the rabble steady with their iron discipline. While in the shadows, Broken Snipers lurk beneath advanced camouflage cloaks, picking out valuable targets amongst enemy forces.



As an added bonus, this year we also sourced some stock of the plastic gun carriage kit from PDC Gaming. This kit builds a range of variant weapon platforms, and is also a handy source of parts to build an Automated Uplink Relay for Epirian forces, as you can see in this spotlight article here.



As usual, Iain has been working away on a range of different modeling articles, often using found materials combined with the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues, including an energy plant built from a camping lamp, an air conditioner ducting barracks building and a communications relay made from a toy gun! You can find these and the rest of our various modeling articles compiled in the hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

Fans on the Comm Guild Facebook group have also been sharing some great projects of their own!



You can check out all of these and more by joining the Comm Guild group here.



For the year to come, we'll be rolling up our sleeves and getting stuck into the second edition of the Maelstrom's Edge rules, with the Beta version of these scheduled for release very soon! Also coming in from the production queue we have some reinforcements for the Artarian Remnant, and that new faction that we've been teasing for a while now...





Stay tuned!



For the full plastic and resin Maelstrom's Edge model range, the ever-useful Maelstrom's Edge Terrain Sprues, novels and audiobooks, check out the webstore here.

For building ideas, modeling tutorials, army spotlights and conversion walkthroughs, have a look at the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

- by Iain Wilson

Time for a super-quick terrain build! In the grand tradition of painting things instead of throwing them into the recycling bin, this week I built an air purifier station out of a plastic fruit jar, with some help from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue!




The bulk of this terrain piece uses the aforementioned plastic jar, which I think originally had plums in it. The plums weren't much good for modeling, but the jar itself was an interesting shape, so I figured it was worth hanging onto it.



I started out by spraying the inside of the jar with some black paint. This helps to avoid things looking weird if the outer layer of paint gets scratched with use, and also blocks light from showing through if the outer paint layer is thin in places. I also gave the outside a light sand to help the glue and paint to stick better.



To cover over the embossed logos on the bottom of the jar, I took a large base and cut some indents into the bottom to sit over the mould line on the jar. I glued this in place using some all-plastic glue (a superglue with a primer pen that helps give a secure bond on different types of plastics). In the middle of the base I added an iris portal from the second Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue.



I went light on additional details as I thought the shape of the jar was interesting enough by itself, but I added a vent on each side - the iris on top would be opened to suck in contaminated or otherwise unsuitable air, and the cleaned/chemically altered/now fit for breathing air would be pumped out through the vents, with all of the 'working gubbins' sealed away inside the unit.



Finally (or so I thought) I added a small base cut from a piece of 5mm foamed PVC.



While I was painting the purifier unit, I decided that it still looked a little too much like a jar turned upside down, largely because the lid is such a recognisable shape. So I broke it up a bit by adding some buttresses around it cut from a piece of polystyrene foam.



With some paint on, the air purifier wound up looking like this:







Build your own air purifier of respiratory doom by picking 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

Sometimes I like to take a break from building things for the tabletop, and put something together just for the fun of it. That's what I had in mind this week, when I started work on a display backdrop piece that I'm calling 'Sector 16'




Most of the time, I get a rough idea of what I'm building in my head, and I just wing it from there. Some builds though require a little more planning to make sure everything will fit together correctly. My plan for Sector 16 wasn't particularly complicated, but with pipes running in multiple directions and platforms on several levels, I decided that a rough sketch would be a good idea. This still just serves as a starting point, and things tend to change along the way, but it helps to avoid those inadvertant 'oops' moments when something doesn't fit where it is supposed to.



The bulk of the structure was made from foamed PVC sheet, cutting a base and back piece that would go together in an 'L' shape, with detail layered over the top.



I thought that adding some detail along the front of the base would help to add depth, and when using it as a photo backdrop would be useful for disguising its relatively shallow depth. To this end, I constructed a conveyor assembly using parts from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues, some 1mm foamed PVC and plastic tubing.





In the interests of mixing things up visually, I wanted the multiple level platforms to be constructed differently. The upper level was to be concrete, but for the lower level I used floor grating pieces from the second Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue, with support poles cut from the sprue itself of the original terrain sprue.





To finish up the lower section, I put together some pipes made using pieces from a kid's toy pipe construction set (which looks a little technicolour right now, but should be a little less cartoony when they have some paint on!) and some 12mm aluminium tubing, and added some additional details like lights, edging and pipe support straps using more pieces from the terrain sprues.





Tune in next time, as I get to work on the upper level!



To build your own sector of unspecified 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

Sci Fi Barn, episode 3: Now in Epirocolor!

In this latest installment, I finally get some paint on this barn build. If you're wandering in here wondering what it's all about, this was a kitbash of a Plast Craft Games warehouse with parts from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues to build the a sci fi barn (you can find the first part here).




With assembly completed, I kicked off the painting by spraying the whole thing with a coat of a mediumish-dark brown satin spray paint that I had sitting on the shelf. Or, I would have, but it ran out on me. So I wound up spraying the top of the roof with some old Rustoleum flat red that I sometimes use as a base for rusty metal.



I went back over the red roof with some Vallejo Charred Brown before drybrushing over all of the metal parts with some Citadel Boltgun metal (Leadbelcher, for the newcomers). The non-metal parts of the interior walls were drybrushed with some Army Painter Skeleton Bone to pick up the texture on the foamed PVC, and the exterior bricks were given a heavy drybrush of Scalecolor Baal Crimson. Then before putting the drybrushes away, I gave the dirt on the base a layer of Vallejo Heavy Brown.



I was aiming for a weathered but not overly rusty metal look for this piece, as it's intended for a fairly arid 'western' themed table set. So over all of the metal parts and the base I added a generous coat of Army Painter Strong Tone and set it aside to dry.



At this point it was time to fit the window panes. The warehouse set came with painted clear plastic pieces that looked fine in the original warehouse, but turned out to not look right here. So instead, I used them as a template to cut some clear plastic sheet to size as a replacement.



I hadn't originally planned to add internal window frames, but with the panes in place the glue around the edges was very obvious , so I added some thin frames using some thin PVC.



After painting these new internal frames brown, all that was left was to add final detailing. I drybrushed the base dirt with some Army Painter Skeleton Bone and all of the metal parts with a light layer of Army Painter Shining Silver. Lights and sensors on the door frames were painted in with red and blue.





With the metal parts being quite dark, I didn't add a lot of dirt weathering, other than over the tops of the doorframes where it served to conceal a few messy over-brushes of red from the bricks. I did add some brown dirt smearing around the edges of the window panes, partly to give them a more weathered appearance, and partly to conceal any fogging from the glue.





With some crates and an old vehicle thrown in for colour, when the roof is lifted off the interior winds up looking like this:





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

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

With its horned visage towering over the rest of its force, the Gnolti cuts an imposing presence on the battlefield. The resin Gnolti kit is one of our most popular, and makes for a fantastic centerpiece for any Broken force. Let's take a look at it!




Originally hired and transported to systems requiring extreme manual labour or exposure to elements lethal to humans, their normally calm, thoughtful temperament made Gnolti easy to integrate into human society. Gnolti are extremely loyal to those who treat them well, gladly risking themselves to protect their friends. Despite being incredibly useful, Gnolti are often denied berths on planetary evacuation ships due to their extreme size. Gnoltis have few opportunities to escape the Maelstrom, and stranded Gnolti are a common recruit into the ragtag warbands of the Broken, where their physical power can be a huge asset.


The studio Gnolti model, painted by Winterdyne Commission Modelling

The Gnolti's impressive physique is clad in makeshift harness and armour, its forearms covered by jury-rigged protective shields that it uses to protect nearby Broken units. The multi-part kit was sculpted for us by the resin techno-wizards at Anvil Industry, and cast in high quality resin.



While the Gnolti kit is easy to assemble and impressive on the table, the resin is also easy to convert, which led to a few conversions that we've featured in previous articles:


Raging Gnolti


Gnolti Longhorn




Gnolti Berserker



Pick up your own towering behemoth of muscly doom 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.