The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

- by Iain Wilson

While fusion reactors and other super-advanced energy generation is all well and good on worlds with bountiful resources, sometimes a more low tech solution is called for.

This week's article was spawned, as so many of them are, by my reluctance to throw stuff away. I found myself looking at an old electric toothbrush head and thinking, 'That would make an excellent base for a fan!' And so the wind farm of the future was begun.





I started out, as I said, with a perfectly ordinary electric toothbrush head.



The wider circle near the base of the stem turned out to be exactly the right size to fit into the large pipe fitting from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue. So I started out by trimming a little length off the bottom of the stem with a razor saw, so that the raised circle would sit flush with the top of the fitting when it was seated in place.



The bristles needed to go, to make room for the fan blades, so I plucked them out using a pair of clippers.



For the fan blades, I cut three strips of thin plasticard, rounding off the ends.



I added a twist to the blades by holding one end with pliers and rotating the other end.



With the blades shaped appropriately, I glued them in place using an all-plastics glue (a two-part glue that uses a primer pen and a tube of superglue to securely bond all sorts of different plastics. Useful when you're using plastics that don't holding plain superglue well).



For the turbine's hub, I cut the end off a superglue tube cap with a razor saw.



Using the all-plastics glue again, I glued the cap piece into place in the middle of the brush head.



Finally, I glued the large pipe fitting into place on the bottom of the stem.



With a little paint on, the turbine is ready for the table, either as a standalone piece of scatter terrain, or to add to another terrain piece!





You can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge model range in the webstore here.

As always, feel free to pop along and share your creations, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!

For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

- by Iain Wilson

I somehow managed to get through Salute this year without bankrupting myself on shiny, new models, but I did come home with a few fun-looking odds and ends. There were quite a few vendors selling laser-cut MDF kits, some of which I had seen before and some that were new, at least to me. One of the latter was Uncertain Scenery, who had an amazing industrial catwalk setup topped with a very cool sensor dish that I couldn't resist picking up.

This week, I decided the time had come to crack it open and see what I could do with it!





I have to start by saying that this was a fantastic kit to put together! It uses a mix of 3mm and 1.5mm MDF, and the design is really clever at making use of those two sheet thicknesses to create detail. Parts are cut with only a single attachment point to the surrounding sheet, so removal is easy and there's only that one point to trim up.



Because I can't resist the urge to tinker, I did make a few minor changes. As with a lot of MDF kits, the doors on the base of the structure were just a single panel with the door shapes etched into them. To give a little more detail, and to better fit in with the rest of my terrain collection, I decided to replace the existing doors with a door from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue. It turned out the base structure was just a fraction shorter than the plastic door, so I added some spacers cut from 0.5mm plastic strip to the tops of the interior walls. This lifts the roof piece up just enough for the plastic door to slot in place. Rather than cutting into the walls to slot the door in, I cut a strip of leftover MDF from one of the parts sheets to run up either side of the rear of the door frame, and then just glued the door onto the outside face of the interior wall.





I also decided to replace the blocky, MDF ladder with a plastic ladder from the terrain sprue, cut to an appropriate length. The original ladder used a 3mm thick ladder piece, and guardrails up either side assembled from three pieces of 1.5mm sheet. As luck would have it, the ladder and the innermost guardrail sections together turned out to be exactly the same width as the plastic ladder, so leaving out these inner sections allowed my adjusted ladder to just slot into place as if it was meant to be there.





The base section originally had doors on two opposing walls, but I decided to just go with the one, and have a pipe running in where the other should have gone. I glued the door piece on backwards, with a new panel line etched in with a panel scriber so it wasn't just a featureless expanse, and added a pipe made from a couple of large pipe fittings from the terrain sprue, a piece of a 13mm drip irrigation elbow, and half of a press-stud for a valve.



Everything else was assembled as per the nicely comprehensive instructions, although I left the dish panels off for spraying to make life a little easier, gluing them on once everything was mostly painted.



To paint, I started by giving the whole kit a coat of matte sealer, to help prevent the basecoat from soaking into the MDF as much. The base structure and dish panels were sprayed with a beige primer, and then given a rough coat of flat white.



For the rest of the assembly, I sprayed a generous basecoat of AK Interactive Rust spray, and then a light spray of Army Painter Platemetal. The bare metal parts on the base structure were given a coat of some old Citadel Scorched Brown, and then a drybrush with P3 Pig Iron.



I added weathering to the white by sponging on Vallejo heavy charcoal, and then dirtied everything up wherever seemed appropriate with a drybrush of Vallejo Beasty Brown.



And that's it, ready (for now) for the table. I've left it unbased for now, as I have some plans in that direction which will likely wind up in a future article...





To spruce up your own MDF kits, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge model range in the webstore here.

As always, feel free to pop along and share your creations, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!

For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

This month, we're revisiting the Epirian SecDef, with the addition of a new SecDef Lieutenant! This high quality resin kit contains one Epirian SecDef Lieutenant model with two weapon options (CB22 Assault Carbine and G20 Pistol) and a 25mm base, and is available now from the Maelstrom's Edge online store here. The SecDef Lieutenant is a Command model, and lets you field a force comprised entirely of SecDef units!



Anyone underestimating a SecDef lieutenant is about to pay dearly for his mistake. Promoted from amongst the most capable veteran sergeants, SecDef lieutenants are level-headed combat experts on both a tactical and strategic level with extensive financial and material resources to hand. Often taking on the most difficult (and therefore highest paying) missions with their platoons, the aim of most lieutenants is to accrue enough backpay to purchase a field commander commission, and the heavy combat rig that goes with that position.



While technically tasked with safeguarding the same corporate goals as every other Epirian division, issues can arise when SecDef units are forced to cooperate with Bot Handler commanders in the field. Their philosophy, character and approach are almost diametrically opposed to that of the average Handler. The SecDef's innate distaste for bots results in them having little faith in the abilities of their robotic allies, having seen them fail once too many in their long careers where they believe proper SecDef infantry would have got the job done. Nevertheless, they are professional enough to let the deadly Hunter Warmechs profit from their shoulder-mounted target designator. Many a foe has perished under a hail of strike missiles shortly after a SecDef lieutenant is inserted into enemy lines, quickly identifying and painting the largest threat.




SecDef Lieutenant Rules Card

You can find the SecDef Lieutenant in the Maelstrom's Edge online store here!

- by Iain Wilson

Metal and concrete buildings are all well and good, but I thought it might be fun to build something a little shinier for a change. Nothing says 'futuristic city' quite like mirrored-glass-wall buildings, after all!

I've had a play in the past with some clear plastic and mirror-effect sprays, without managing to achieve the effect I was after. Then I came across some lovely, shiny silver card in a discount store, and an idea was hatched.





The basic idea was to make a structure out of 5mm foamcore, using the support struts from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue to form a framework to hold the cardboard. I started by plotting out a rough design using a bunch of struts trimmed to appropriate lengths, so I could get the foamcore dimensions correct.



After marking out the wall dimensions on the formcore, I cut them out using an exacto knife and a steel ruler.



I made a base for the structure from two stacked squares of 2mm foamed PVC. The upper, smaller square created a framework for the foamcore to sit up against, to ensure the building was square and give it some extra strength.



With the outer wall constructed, I added some reinforcement on the inside corners using some offcuts of PVC.



To create the framework for the card to slide into, I glued 5mm plasticard strips onto the walls, tracing the pattern of the support struts.



The strips are narrower than the struts, so with the strut centered on the strip a 1mm overhang was created on each side.



To help avoid the building just being a boring, square box, I left a cutaway to allow for an angled doorway. To fill this in, I cut a square of foamcore to fit across the opening, and cut a rectangle out for a door from the terrain sprue.





With the wall structure complete, I started building up the roof layers with some more PVC, cut to overhang the walls just slightly to close off the tops of the card slots. These weren't glued in place yet - that had to wait until the card was in place.



I joined the three roof levels together using angled pieces of PVC. This served the dual purpose of giving the roof an interesting shape, and also making the whole roof structure into a single piece that could be lifted on and off, which would be easier for painting than separate pieces.



At this point, it was time to paint! I decided to keep it fairly simple, as the main focus on this building was going to be the mirrored walls. I gave the whole exterior a base coat of AK Interactive Rust spray, and then a layer of a satin black spraypaint, leaving the rust in the crevasses for some natural weathering.



When the spray had dried, I cut strips of the silver card to fit into each of the wall slots.



Once all the strips were in place, I glued the roof on top.



For the final detailing, I painted the base with Vallejo Neutral Grey, drybrushed with Vallejo Light Grey. I also gave the black a light drybrush with the light grey, and then added some dirt weathering with Vallejo Beasty Brown. I also added some signage, with Epirian logos made from strips of the silver card and some gold card from the same pack for the 'yellow' lower squares. All ready for the table!











You can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge model range in the webstore here.

As always, feel free to pop along and share your creations, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!

For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

We're hard at work on a second edition rulebook for Maelstrom's Edge, and over the coming months will be showcasing changes and refinements, and asking for feedback on different directions for the rules. One of the bigger changes we're implementing involves the number of dice rolled by models in Close Quarters attacks.

In the current Maelstrom's Edge rules, unless you have a melee weapon with a specified SHO value, the number of dice you roll for Close Quarters attacks is determined by a neat little formula that uses the model's EVS, MAS and FOR stats. While this provides some nice granularity, and allows for a large model's CQ ability to be reduced as it takes damage, it's also a little awkward to calculate on the fly. As a result, it's the one thing in the V1 rules that, going by player feedback, is almost universally disliked by players. We've taken that feedback on board for V2, and will be changing model statlines to include a shiny, new Close Quarters Attacks (CQA) characteristic!





This entirely replaces the current formula - No more algebra in the middle of the game, you just look at the CQA stat, and roll that many dice! This does mean that large models no longer lose shots as they are wounded, but this will be accounted for elsewhere, with their ability to use multiple weapons being affected instead.

You can join in on the discussion of the new rules, and download a copy of the current draft rules for V2, in the development thread on the DakkaDakka forums here. You can also post any feedback in the Comm Guild Facebook group here.

If you haven't tried Maelstrom's Edge yet, and don't want to wait for V2, you can download the PDF version of the current Maelstrom's Edge rulebook from the website here!

- by Iain Wilson

A beautifully painted army that someone has slaved over for more hours than is healthy can be a truly wonderful thing to behold. Sometimes, though, we just want to get some models on the table as quickly as possible. Way back when I first started writing these articles, I shared a tutorial on painting with washes, as it's a really simple technique for speed painting. (Don't look at it, the pictures are horrible and I really need to redo them...)

I thought I would revisit it this week, with a step-by-step walkthrough painting a Broken Pa'Ku (almost) entirely with Army Painter Quickshade washes.





A quick note before starting: Army Painter have two different product ranges under their 'Quickshade' banner. The first are dips, which come in a tin and are used precisely as the name implies - you essentially paint the model in basic colours, drop it in the dip, shake or wipe off the excess dip, and call the job a good 'un. These are good for quickly adding shading to a bunch of models, but can result in a rather muted overall effect due to everything being shaded the same colour. The second product is what we're using here. These are washes, sold in dropper bottles. Washes are thinner than regular acrylic paint, and are usually painted on over lighter colours, where they settle into the creases and darken everything up. Instead of doing that, I'm painting directly over a flat white spray undercoat.



My previous Pa'ku was painted green, so I decided to change it up a little and go blue this time. The first step, then, is to paint a generous coat of Blue Tone all over the Pa'ku's skin. Because the wash is quite watery, this isn't a precise operation. You're unlikely to win awards with models painted using this technique, as regardless of how careful you are, a little bit of wash running into places it doesn't belong as more or less unavoidable. If it gets too messy, you can wait until the first layer dries and then touch up the rest of the model with some white paint before proceeding.



Next up, I painted the straps and bindings with a coat of Mid Brown.



I wanted the large bumps on his back to contrast with the blue skin, so used Flesh Wash. Over the white, this created a light, weathered-bone sort of colour. This needed to go on quite heavily, and required a couple of touchups after it dried, as the flesh tone is very light. In hindsight, Soft Tone might have worked better.



For some brighter colour, I painted the armour pads with Purple Tone.



That left the gun and other metal parts, and the fur around his back pad. I painted these with Dark Tone. For the metal, I was aiming for a dark grey/black tone rather than a true metallic. If you want more of a metal tone, then painting the metal parts with Gun Metal before washing would have done the trick. Instead, I opted for a couple of coats of Dark Tone, with the below picture showing the first coat.



To finish up, I applied the second coat of Dark Tone to the metal parts, and ran a coat of Strong Tone over the fur to help differentiate it slightly from the metal. I also decided that the brown was paler than I wanted, so gave it a second coat of Mid Brown. The Quickshades lend themselves well to this sort of layering - they're heavily pigmented, but over the white the effect is light enough that you can get subtle colour effects with light coats, and a more vibrant colour with a heavy coat, or layer extra coats (or different coloured washes) over the top for a darker finish.



I also went over the targeter lens with some Red Tone, and added a little Dark Tone into the other three eyes, following up with a small dot of regular white paint (hence the 'almost' disclaimer!) in the center of each eye and the targeter when the washes dried.



The base was painted with Army Green, washed with Strong Tone, and then drybrushed with Ash Grey.



The end result is a fairly basic colour scheme - If I was so inclined, I could go back over and tidy up a few small areas of splash-over from the wash, and add a few extra details here and there like the cabling on the gun.



If you're looking for quick and easy, though, it's a really handy technique to play around with, and can easily be adapted to other colour schemes using different wash shades.



If you're keen to paint up your own big, blue, artillery frog, you can pick up the resin Pa'ku kit, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge model range in the webstore here.

As always, feel free to pop along and share your creations, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!

For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

- by Iain Wilson

Last month saw the release of the fantastic new Militus suit for the Artarian Remnant, a brand new faction being introduced to Maelstrom's Edge. The Remnant wage war using elite Champions is advanced, armoured suits, and the Militus is the first of three suit variants to see the purplish-tainted light of day. From a modeling perspective, the Remnant are a joy. For starters, the Militus is a multi-part, articulated plastic kit with a huge range of posability (as shown in my recent Militus Spotlight article). To add to the fun, Remnant Champions are big fans of personal heraldry, with each suit being uniquely decorated with the Champion's Fire Team and House colours. So this week, I decided to write up a step-by-step painting guide for a colour scheme I chose for one of my converted Militus suits.





The model I chose to paint up was one of the conversions featured in the spotlight article mentioned above. I built this suit using a mix of plastic Militus parts and a bunch of resin components from Max Mini that I've had sitting around in the bits box for some time now. I didn't want to spoil his pretty, detailed shoulder pads by mounting a weapon up there, so I also built him a weapon drone using a modified jump pack.



Rather unusually for me, this model was painted entirely with Army Painter paints - normall I use a mix of different brands depending on what suits the current project, but in this instance I happened to have all of the colours I needed in the one range!

To start things off, I base coated the model with a spray of Platemetal.



I then painted the armour with a couple of coats of Ash Grey, and the trim with Wasteland Soil. For the base, I used a generous coat of Army Green.



The trim then received two coats of Bright Gold, and the suit's mechanical underlayer, sword blade and the drone's Incursion Blaster were all given a heavy wash with Dark Tone.



I painted the shield background and the helmet crest with Pure Red. Over the gold, I applied a coat of Flesh Wash, and also added a thick wash of Strong Tone over the base.



When the washes were completely dry, I drybrushed the base with Ash Grey, and added a light drybrushed highlight of Shining Silver to the gold. I then went over the grey armour with Matt White and Ash Grey, using pure white on upward facing plates, and blending down with Ash Grey on angled facings, leaving pure grey on downward-facing portions. I also added a wash of Red Tone over the red on the shield and helmet crest.



This just left some final detail work. A added a highlight to the shield and crest with a mix of Pure Red and Matt White, although I wasn't happy with the finishing tone on the crest - I fixed this with another wash of Red Tone. I also picked out the gems on his shoulders and sword with red, shading with Dark Tone and adding specular highlights with white. I also added a red glow to the sword blade and the drone's jets using a mix of red and white, and added some nice, bright red in the eye hollows. And finally, I painted around the base rim with black, and added a couple of tufts of grass for a little contrasting colour.



The finished suit in action, taking on some Karist troopers!





You can pick up the Militus kit, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge model range in the webstore here.

As always, feel free to pop along and share your creations, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!

For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

Tempest Elites with Ravager Vulcan pulse cannons and a Coriolis launcher deployed in rough terrain

No one saw them coming: the warriors in their smooth armoured plating, accompanied by the beautiful yet horrible Angels. They took the abandoned and dilapidated production facility at Argos, killing the few patrolling Contractors without mercy. A hastily assembled Epirian contingent, including a powerful Hunter Warmech and a squad of elite SecDef, arrived on the scene the next day to root out the zealot strike force. These Maelstrom-worshipping crackpots were about to pay dearly for their boldness.

This game sees an Epirian force commanded by Iain take to the field against a Karist incursion led by Jon. The mission is Groundfall, which has the Alpha Strike and Territories objectives. Points are gained by destroying enemy units and by capturing the 5 territory markers scattered across the board. Deployment was determined to be in opposing L-shapes: Karist bottom right, Epirian top left. The Karists have easy access to 3 of the 5 territory markers. Uphill battle for the Epirian side?

The Epirian commander wastes no time: Firefly drones zoom up the compound to take stock of the situation and drive out the Karist vanguard. Immediately they spot the biggest threat in the Karist force: a mature Angel. The huge beast seems all but immune to their laser attacks, however.

The Firefly Drones fly up the field but only manage to suppress the Mature Angel.

Elite Karist Tempests respond immediately, heavily damaging the Hunter Warmech with their Ravager Vulcan Pulse Cannons. The Angel also responds to the Epirian attack, taking cover whilst destroying two of the Firefly Drones with her tentacles.

The Hunter takes heavy damage from the Tempests.

Realising the Karist resistance was much stronger than anticipated and finding himself in a bit of a pickle from the get go, the Journeyman projects his mind into the Hunter's damaged shell and returns fire at the Angel in her position of cover. The shooting is ineffective, and the Angel remains unperturbed.

Pondering...

With his toughest asset is compromised, the handler quickly switches to one of his Scarecrow Snipers. The lone bot looses a precision round from its Railrifle into the Angel, hitting the mark this time and visibly hurting the creature.

The Angel finally takes damage from the Scarecrow. Their low-shot sniper weapons can literally be hit or miss, but they have huge damage potential.

The Karist Kaddar Nova, witnessing the opening rounds of the engagement, chooses to maintain the momentum and attempt to finish this quickly, dashing out from his position on his own and taking down another Firefly. His troopers nearby follow suit and down another of the now completely hammered squad of Fireflies. His Angel, meanwhile, takes another Railrifle round from a second sniper robot in the distance, and is now badly hurt. The Karist troops need to act fast, as more bots are fast approaching their position and laying down fire on the juvenile angels on the other flank.

The Karist commander exposes himself, but downs a Firefly, and the nearby troopers destroyed another one. In the Groundfall mission, getting the first kill of the turn is worth a lot of points.

The last Firefly crashes and burns after more Karist troopers lay down a hail of suppressive fire, giving the Enclave the first kill.

Troopers finish off the fireflies, giving the Karists the crucial first kill.

The Foundation commander, witnessing how the Karists are holding a strong firm and his own forces struggling to get in a dominating position, carefully moves up his remaining force through the compound. The contractors launch a few grenade shells into the Karist line to suppress their fire and buy their robotic comrades some time.

Contractors returning fire at the Karist troopers.

Meanwhile, an enigmatic Shadow Walker rifts into hiding near the Epirian flank, with an eye to neutralising the sniper threat. The Angel Keeper assigned to the contingent of Angels in the force has his Juvenile beasts rain down cybel energy on the advancing Drone force, keeping all eyes off the sinister agent stalking up the flank.

The Spider Drones equipped with flakk guns are too far from the action to contribute, and the Angel Hellblasters aim to keep it that way by suppressing them.

The SecDef sergeant, watching the assault unfold on his transport's screen, sighs deeply as his opinion of robotic forces is once again confirmed. Deciding he needs to show how it's done and he'd better do it now, he signalls for his squad to drop right into the Karist position. Landing with guns blazing, he is pleased to see the nearby Karist Troopers turn their heads in surprise and duck down.

SecDef troopers drop behind enemy lines.

Out of nowhere, though, appears a flock of dark fluttering creatures: Angel minnows on the hunt. They frenziedly fire their cybel pulses at the SecDef landing zone. Even though the SecDef had taken up a safe position in cover, they lose one soldier to this alien assault from above.

The Minnows move towards and target the SecDef squad that just dropped behind both trooper squads.

The larger Angel, severely weakened by the merciless sniper fire, seems to lose form and suddenly disappears from the fight just as the Hunter's guns ready for another salvo at this most dangerous foe. Moments later the Hunter explodes in a cloud of shrapnel as the Tempest Elites continue their barrage.

End of the first turn: Jon elects to remove his dangerously wounded Mature Angel in order to deny the Epirians an easy first kill in the coming turn. The Karists hold 3 out of 5 territory objectives, whilst the Epirians have the other two. Iain, having left his damaged hunter on the table, immediately regrets this as the Tempests destroy it in the first action of the second turn and score those valuable first kill points again.

The SecDef realise something needs to happen now. Ignoring the smaller Angels spewing death onto their position, they take aim and down two Karist Troopers, hoping to break the Karist line from the rear.

The SecDef are in position to damage various Karist squads, taking advantage of their assault from the rear, but they are in turn dangerously surrounded.

The Journeyman Handler, taking the SecDef's cue, coordinates the fire of his Scarecrow Sniper with the SecDef squad, catching the Karist Troopers in a crossfire that wipes them out. The tables seem to be turning.

The Scarecrow again shows its potential as it wipes out the remains of a Karist squad.

Ignoring the little Angels would prove a costly mistake, however, as they now came down on the SecDef position. Despite killing several of the flying beasts, the SecDef lose two more soldiers to the pulsing cybel energy, leaving the Sergeant alone to escape the Angel threat and run for cover.

The SecDef sergeant flees from the angry Minnows. Aerial insertion is a powerful ability, but dropping in the middle of the enemy lines comes with certain risks...

The larger Angel Hellblaster also takes a heavy toll as another cybel salvo immolates all of the approaching Spider Drones. The Kaddar Nova, sensing victory and eager to lead by example, dashes forward, emerging from the Karist lines to personally end this heretic assault.

The powerful blasts from the juvenile Angels reduce the Spider Drone squad to just their handler.

Seeing the Karist leader run out and resolved to capitalize on the hole punched in the Karist line by the SecDef's assault, the Journeyman Handler links again to one of the Scarecrow Snipers, dangerously overloading its circuits, in a desperate attempt to deal the deciding blow to the enemy. A precision shot hits the Kaddar Nova square in the chest, ending the priest's heroic ambitions immediately. Surely this would break those crazy zealots! Meanwhile, the contractors move up to secure their end of the compound and open up on the Angel Hellblasters, with little effect.

Hellblasters with their Angel Keeper in their position of cover, guarding one of the objectives.

The Shadow Walker rifts up the field once more, cursing the Kaddar Nova's poor timing, but intending to take down the Sniper bots that were wreaking such havoc on his compatriots. His pistol shots glance off the nearest bot, however, as its position is well protected.

Registering this new close-ranged treat, the nearby bots all respond: the flakk guns on the Relay drone opening up and the Sniper bot quickly taking a shot at the advancing enemy agent. The nimble Shadow Walker, however, manages to dodge unscathed through the hail of incoming fire.

Suddenly the terrifying shape of the Mature Angel reappears at the edge of the compound, immediately bearing down on the lone SecDef sergeant. The veteran soldier stands no chance against this alien monster and quickly falls to its slashing attack.

By voluntarily removing the badly damaged Angel earlier in the game, Jon ensured he would have a strong reinforcement to bring on later. She can now come back to finish off another unit, grabbing the Karists enough points to finish the game.

Realising his situation, the Journeyman Handler orders his force to retreat into cover and await further reinforcements. The Karist force remains in control of the compound, for now.

Epilogue: Iain's decision to keep his Spider drones back to hold objectives rather than sending them after Karist targets, combined with essentially sacrificing his Firefly unit by sending them out into the open unsupported allowed Jon to make the most of the mission with his more aggressive Karist units. While the Scarecrows did their best to even up the playing field, the rapid casualties inflicted on the Epirian force allowed Jon to very quickly rack up enough VPs for a turn 2 victory.

- by Iain Wilson

A short while back, I showed off an Epirian Contractor truck that I put together using a Games Workshop Ork truck with all of the Ork bits removed. It seemed only fair to give the Karists some similar vehicular love, and so I found myself once more purloining the parking lots of the 41st Millenium, this time making off with an Achilles Ridgerunner. The moment I saw this buggy, I thought it would make a fantastic anti-grav vehicle, which was right up the Karist Enclave's alley. And so I set to for some serious wheel-removal action!





There was surprisingly little conversion actually required to make this work - I was intending for a fairly high-tech take on anti-grav, with all of the 'workings' would be internal. This helps to preserve the lines of the vehicle, and eliminates the need to build parts specifically to represent the techy stuff. So for the most part, the buggy was just built as standard. I chose the radar dish that comes in the kit instead of the open cupola, because I liked the look of it.



With the wheels being left off, I also needed to remove the axles, so these parts were all either left off, or trimmed away as necessary.



To conceal the gaps where the front axles should have been, I added a piece of thin plasticard in the wheel arch on either side, and then glued the shock absorbers running down to connect the chassis to the front armour plate. This was just intended to create a little detail, rather than having just the flat plasticard.



On the rear, I covered over where the differential piece should have gone with a couple of vents cut from the support struts on the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue.



Obviously, an anti-grav vehicle needs to hover, but I didn't want it sitting too high and also wanted a nice, sturdy joint for the flight stem. To this end, I drilled a hole in the bottom of the buggy, allowing the flight stem to fit snugly through, and glued a short length of plastic tube to the inside of the buggy's top section, for the flight stem peg to slot into.



To attach the stem to the base, I just drilled an appropriately-sized hole a little aft of centre, and called the job a good 'un. The stem would be glued in once everything was painted.



The original weapons needed to be replaced with Karist versions. I left off the smaller weapons that attach either side of the cab, but for the main gun, I cut the attachment joint out of the missile launcher's lower plate and glued it to a pair of Cybel Lances taken from the Karist Heavy Trooper set, with the firer's arms removed.



For the gunner himself, I used the kneeling Heavy Trooper, with a right arm purloined from the plastic Karist Trooper sprue and a hand from the Faction Expansion sprue.



From there, it was just a matter of gluing the rest of the buggy shell together. With the assymetrical cabin, it wound up looking a bit lopsided without the wheels, so I added a small pair of stabiliser wings on the rear, cut from 1.5mm plasticard.





With some paint on, the buggy was ready to fly!











If you're feeling the need for speed, feel free to pop along and share your vehicular creations, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!

You can find the Karist range, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge model range in the webstore here.

For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

- by Iain Wilson

I'm home from Salute (which was a blast!) and a regrettably very short stay in London, and now getting caught up on everything. As a result, this week's modeling article is a short and sweet one, which also creates a little more progress on my landing pad display board. One of the features I wanted to add on was a viewscreen displaying a 'Welcome' message to new arrivals to the pad. I wanted this to give the illusion of being an illuminated screen without actually having to resort to playing around with LEDs and the like, and below is a quick rundown on how I set this up.





The frame for the viewscreen was made from a garage door from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue. I cut the door out with a razor saw, and then sliced up the doorframe and rearranged it into a smaller rectangle. (You could also just use a rectangle of thick plasticard with the middle cut out!) This was then painted using my normal weathered metal technique.



I wanted the back of the screen to be slightly smaller than the frame, so that the viewscreen would look like it was sitting out slightly from the wall rather than having the sides sit flush against it. So I traced around the frame onto a piece of thin plasticard, and then it cut out about 1.5mm inside the line to make it smaller than the tracing. I then glued this piece to the back of the frame, and painted around the outside edge with some Vallejo Heavy Charcoal so there wouldn't be any white peeking out from behind once it was mounted on the wall.





For the image on the screen, I grabbed an appropriate picture and added some text in Gimp, before printing it out at an appropriate size on glossy photo paper.



I sprayed the picture with a light coat of gloss sealer to protect it, and then glued it in place inside the frame.



To give the illusion of a glow, I painted around the inside edge of the frame with silver, and then added a couple of coats of brush-on gloss varnish. The gloss creates a dull reflection around the edges of the frame - it's a subtle effect, but enough to convey the idea of a low-powered screen that doesn't throw out a lot of excess light.



An alternative to this effect would have been to paint around the inner edges of the frame with colours matching the adjoining parts of the picture. This can create a much brighter 'glow' than the method I've used above, but can also look off if you look at it from the wrong angle.

With that done, it's time to get cracking on the rest of the display board, since I'm getting rather impatient to see it finished!



Build your own viewscreen by picking up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge model range from the webstore here.

As always, feel free to pop along and share your work, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!

For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.