The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

- by Iain Wilson

Big, burly, slow to anger but nigh on unstoppable when they get rolling, the Gnolti is an impressive sight on the table, and is one of my favourite models. A while back, I got to thinking about the different ways that the ongoing battles around the Maelstrom's Edge would affect these massive, generally peaceful aliens, and started exploring this with my 'Longhorn' conversion. At the other end of the scale from the implacable veteran, I thought it would be an interesting contrast to have a much younger Gnolti who handles the constant call to arms in a much more direct fashion - and so the Gnolti Berserker was born:

As with my previous Gnolti conversions, this was built from the standard Gnolti model.



I wanted to give him a charging pose, as this guy was definitely not the 'sit back and take a breather' type of fighter! So I started by cutting the left leg off with a razor saw, and then reattaching it with the leg pivoted to the rear.





In place of the Gnolti's normal field generating bucklers, I thought it would be fun to give the berserker an array of scavenged blades to fight with. Using a sharp exacto knife, I cut off the existing detail from the shields, added some cracks and dents, and glued on some blades cut from the resin casting tab that the parts came on. (Waste not, want not!) As the left hand's fingers are slightly flattened on the bottom where they normally sit on the base, I also reshaped these by carefully rounding them off with the knife and adding in some knuckle lines.



For my Longhorn, I had gone with the idea that the Gnolti's horns would grow as they age. Running that idea backwards, a younger Gnolti would therefore need shorter horns. I figured that reducing his beard would also be fitting, and so I cut away the back couple of sections of the horns, removed all of his beard, and also sliced open the mouth with a razor saw and, holding it under some hot water, carefully bent it open.



I used 'Green Stuff' putty to replace the missing detail around his neck where the horns and beard were originally, resculpted a smaller beard and added a layer over the lower lip to reshape it.



Similarly, I filled in the gap created by re-posing the leg, and also removed the blanket roll from the Gnolti's back just to create a little visual difference from the others, and sculpted in new draped cloth in its place.



Finally, I glued on the arms and did a little final gap-filling where the reposing of the arms caused them to not fit flush at the elbow joints.





Painting was largely the same as my original Gnolti conversion, although I used a very slightly darker grey on the scales and made his beard a brighter orange.









Conversions are only part of the fun, of course - What about getting the models on the table? You can find unofficial rules cards for the Gnolti Longhorn and Gnolti Berserker in the Force List section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here, or download a printable version in the 'Unofficial Cards' PDF compilation here.

If you want to give them a try but aren't as confident in your converting, you can very easily use the standard Gnolti model as a fill-in - for the Berserker, paint him without the light on the shields and maybe make him a bit dirtier, and for the Longhorn just glue on an appropriate gun in the right hand, and you're good to go!


Family Shot!

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To put together your own mountain of xenos rage, you can pick up the Gnolti kit 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 article roundup here.

- by Iain Wilson

One of the most enjoyable aspects of terrain building for me is to find everyday things that, with a little bit of tinkering, suddenly turn into something that looks at home on the battlefield. This has resulted in me spending more time than is healthy wandering through hardware stores and discount shops looking for new fodder for the workbench - it's often a little surprising where that perfect next project piece will show up.

This week's build is based on an idea that I have come across in several different incarnations online, and thought it looked too cool to not try it out. So after a quick trip to the local grocery store, I found myself building a generator out of bubblegum tape dispensers!

I picked up two packs of grape-flavoured Hubba Bubba. Obviously, the flavour doesn't make any difference to the build, but if you're buying bubblegum anyway, is there any logical reason to buy any flavour other than grape?



The first step was to remove the bubblegum from the packs, and remove the labels. The labels mostly peeled off easily, but needed a little cleanup with some Tea Tree Oil to remove the sticky residue - If you don't have access to Tea Tree Oil, use whatever local equivalent you have for cleaning sticky residue off things.

Then I may have got momentarily distracted...



One side of the pack has an internal ridge running down each long side of the opening, and a pair of tongues that close over into the other half. These needed to be removed, which I did with a sharp exacto knife. They're made from a fairly soft plastic, so cut easily.



This left four almost-identical, semi-circular pieces.



To join the segments together, I took four 25mm bases and cut them in half with a razor saw. The arc markers on the Maelstrom's Edge bases serve as a handy guide for this, but if you are using different bases then some measuring and marking would be involved here.



I cut a piece of masonite to an appropriate size for a base, and then a smaller piece of foamed PVC for the generator to sit on. I could have used another piece of masonite here, but figured the plastic gum dispenser would glue better to the PVC. On the PVC, I marked out where the dispenser pieces would sit, and added a 25mm-wide centre strip to serve as a guide for gluing the base pieces on.



Then, I sat each dispenser piece in turn onto the marks and glued the base sections in position on both sides using an all-plastics glue.





(The 'all-plastics' glue that I use is a 2-part system that has a tube of superglue and a 'primer' pen. You prime the contact points on both parts to be glued before applying the glue, and it creates a super-fast and extremely strong bond with just about any type of plastic).

It was around about this time that I noticed that there were small recycling symbols embossed on two of the dispenser pieces, so I carefully shaved these off with the exacto knife and lightly sanded down the surface. Then I moved on to the ends. Due to the dispenser having that tongue that I cut off back at the start, one side was left with a flat plate, while the other had a hole where the tongue originally slotted in. I took the cut piece of tongue and glued it into this gap.



Then I took eight support struts from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue, and cut off the vent sections on their ends. These were glued in pairs into the dispenser opening.





The four sections of dispenser were then glued down onto the base, with the 25mm base sections on each touching the matching section on the next.



I felt that the generator needed a control panel, so quickly threw one together using a console and two trapezoid windows from the terrain sprue, with a square of foamed PVC as a base.



With that glued in place onto the masonite base, the generator was ready for some paint!



I painted it up using my normal weathered metal technique (which you can find in the tutorial here).





To build your own generator, you should be able to find the bubblegum tape just about anywhere that sells bubblegum, and can pick 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 article roundup here.

This month sees the release of a new support unit for the Broken: Pa'ku Artillery, available now from the webstore here!

Behind the implacable visage of the Pa'ku resides a powerful, if often misunderstood intellect. Extremely logical creatures, when the Pa'ku are convinced a certain course of action will do more good than wrong, they will take lives without scruples if that is what it takes. Pa'ku artillery has been known to mercilessly bombard hospitals or civilian refugee groups when they have concluded that this was the most logical course of action. They do not make any decision lightly nor do they act carelessly. In fact, the Pa'ku sometimes drive their commanders crazy as they sit pondering the pros and cons of a proposed course of action and all the alternatives, and where the situation is particularly complex have been known to gather for private war councils with their own kind before they will consider responding to a call to arms. Despite their reputation for ruthlessness, when Pa'ku take lives it is because they believe there is no viable alternative. This does not however mean they are saints - all of a Pa'ku's deliberations are still ultimately guided by self-interest and a desire to survive the chaos of the Edge.



Despite their peculiarities, Pa'ku are especially desirable to the Broken. Their solid physiques make them extremely suited to carrying heavy loads, including the biggest artillery the Broken manage to cobble together. At close range, the Pa'ku can extend their very long tongue with enough force to cave in a man's skull. Pa'ku only speak to other species when necessary, and their language is difficult for most races to translate or speak. Combined with their large size, this generally results in them being overlooked by evacuation efforts, and so as with the even larger Gnolti, joining the Broken is often the only reasonable chance for a Pa'ku to escape the edge and find a new home.



Pa'ku are often found in the support lines of Broken forces with giant cannon and other esoteric weapons strapped to their broad shoulders. Linked with electronic targeting systems, these weapons can be slaved together to unleash devastating barrages of firepower onto enemy lines. Their favoured weapon is a multi-barrelled EMP mortar, which carpets the battlefield with explosive energy packets that can fry electronic systems and incinerate softer targets. You can find the rules for the Pa'ku Artillery unit in the Force Builder section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.



This high detail, multi-part resin kit contains one Pa'ku armed with a Quad EMP Mortar, and is available now from the webstore here!

- by Iain Wilson

As anyone who has been following these modeling articles may have noticed, I have all sorts of trouble looking at store-bought kits and not immediately coming up with various ways to hack them up and glue them back together again, and this week's article is no exception. There are a plethora of outstanding MDF building kits out in the market these days, which can be great options for inexpensive, easy to build terrain. Thanks to how easy it is to cut and glue, they can also form a great base for modification. I recently put together a basic desert building from Knights of Dice's Tabula Rasa range, with some extra detailing courtesy of the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue (If you missed it, you can find the article here), and this week, I'm taking a stab at a second building from this range. Intact buildings are just so pre-galaxy-spanning-apocalypse, however, so I'm taking the knife to this one and creating a small abandoned outpost:

The first step was to plan out exactly how I was going to destroy the building, so I popped the parts off their sheets and fitted the basic structure together with no glue. Then I took a pencil and drew a rough line around the outside where I wanted the walls to be damaged.



I cut the walls using a sharp exacto knife, by scoring through on the outside following the pencil line relatively closely, then scoring a roughly corresponding line on the inside of the wall piece (this wasn't an exact match, just eye-balled to be close enough) and then snapping the piece in two. The edge was then cleaned up using the knife to remove any fluffy or protruding parts.



When all of the cuts were completed, it was time to add some detail. The Tabula Rasa kits are deliberately plain, both to keep the cost down and to provide a generic structure for detail pieces to be added, and so they're a perfect base for the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue!

I took a door piece and used a razor saw to cut the door out of the frame, and broke the frame into several pieces. Some scarring was also added with the knife.



I widened both the exterior and interior doorways to match the terrain sprue door pieces. The door frame pieces were glued in place on the exterior doorway, and I added a second doorframe with the door also removed but the frame left intact into the inner doorway. Support struts cut to length were glued over the corner joints on the walls to hide them, and add a little more visual interest to the otherwise fairly plain, boxy building. On the first Tabula Rasa building I added detail over the window holes as well, but for this ruin it didn't seem necessary.



The courtyard has a low MDF wall that runs around it, but I wanted something a little more flashy, so I took a couple of ladders from the terrain sprue and cut off one side with a razor saw.



These were then cut to length and glue in place around the edges of the courtyard, after gluing the scrap pieces back into the locator holes for the original wall to fill them in.



To help turn this into an old, long-abandoned ruin that the jungle had started to reclaim, I built up some patches on the floor with air-drying clay.



I pressed a few castoffs pieces of MDF into the clay, and glued the distressed door down on the courtyard floor. Over this, I painted a thick layer of PVA glue and sprinkled on a generous layer of a gravel, sand and railway ballast mix that I like to use for building rubble as it has a lot of different textures in there.



When the PVA glue had dried, I tipped off the excess gravel mix, and then it was time to paint. I didn't have a brown spray to hand, so I undercoated with some flat black and, while it was still wet, followed up with a light coat of Army Painter Dragon Red.



Over this went a coat of a light cream colour, and then a highlight spray of white from above.



I went back over anything that I wanted to look like exposed metal and re-undercoated with Vallejo Beasty Brown, before drybrushing with P3 Pig Iron. The few bits of the original floor still peeking through the rubble were painted with Vallejo Basalt Grey and drybrushed with Vallejo Light Grey.



With that out of the way, I went to town with washes!

I gave the whole building a generous coat of Army Painter Strong Tone. The walls were painted with a medium-sized flat brush, using vertical strokes to create a streaky effect and allowing the wash to pool and run where it felt like it. When that first wash had dried, I went back over it, picking out small areas with extra dollops of Strong Tone and also adding some patches of Green Tone and Military Shader to give them a greenish, mossy tint.



Time to add some shrubbery!

I took a bunch of assorted fake plants. Most of these are cheap aquarium plants, although I also used a bunch of plastic greenery taken from a mat I found at a local hardware store for creating fake vertical gardens. It looks rubbish as an actual plant feature, but is a perfect resource for my purposes here.



Fake plants, particularly the cheaper kind, tend to be rather brightly coloured and slightly glossy, which just wouldn't do. I got around this by giving the plants a light spray with Army Painter Army Green - not enough to completely cover over the original colour, but enough to dull down the colour and shine. To add some extra colour differentiation, I very lightly misted the tips of some of the plants with white. The painted plants were then glued in place wherever seemed appropriate, but poking a hole through the rubble and into the underlying clay, applying some superglue to the plant stem and pushing it into the hole. I also cut some leaves off a few plants and glued them around on the ground.



The final step was to paint the fallen leaves with varying amounts of brown, and then a quick wash of Strong Tone. At this point, the ruin looked something like this:











To get all apocalyptic on your own building creations, you can pick 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 article roundup here.

- by Iain Wilson

This week, I'm having a play around with another of the original models released with the Battle for Zycanthus boxed set: The Kaddar Nova!

The Kaddar Nova is a member of the Karist Enclave priesthood, but they are often granted operational control on the battlefield due to their experience and the reverence paid to them by members of the Enclave. Equipped with an incredibly powerful cybel reactor that serves as both a power source and a weapon, the Kaddar Nova is a distinctive figure. Their bodies are enlarged and twisted by their constant exposure to cybel energy, and their ravaged faces cut a stark contrast to their powerful frames.

As the leader and figurehead of the Karist forces, the Kaddar Nova needed a suitably impressive model kit, and so the sprue comes with a nice array of parts to build them. But as always, of course, the sprue is only the starting point, and below I'll go through some quick and easy ways to further customise this fearsome individual.

Building your Kaddar Nova straight off the sprue lets you choose from three different sets of legs, two different arms for each side, two different heads, and an optional crown piece for the more formal-dressing Kaddar.







The indents in the crown mimic the extra eyes of the alien Angels that often accompany Karist forces. You can use this to make a more mysterious Kaddar Nova by taking the head with the scull-cap, trimming his nose down flat and gluing the crown piece on upside down over his face, so that the upper rim sits just below his eyes.



Headswaps are another easy way to mix things up on your models. The necks on the original Karist sets weren't all interchangeable (something that we've corrected in later Maelstrom's Edge models) but thanks to them being plastic that's easily fixed with a little cutting or filing. On the below model, I have used a head from the Tempest Elite set, with the helmet crust removed as it would hit up against the cybel reactor.



A more inscrutable look can be achieved using a Karist Trooper helmet with the neck trimmed down to fit, and the eye lenses sanded down to produce a blank faceplate. The staff on this model is a modified Cybel Glaive from the Faction Expansion sprue.



An advancing pose can be created with some careful cutting - trim a wedge out of the groin area where the legs join, so that they can be attached in a less spread position, and glue them so that one leg is to the rear slightly. Once the glue has set, cut or file the waist down flat and assemble the rest of the model - his robes largely hide the joint, but you can use a little modeling putty to fill any resulting gaps.



Alternatively, you can look for legs from elsewhere in the range. Trooper legs are too small, as they're not cybel-enhanced like the more elite Karist warriors, but by cutting through the waist of a Tempest Elite model with a razor saw, you can replace the Kaddar Nova's robed legs with walking, armoured legs instead.



Shadow Walker legs also work, although they're a fraction shorter. This Kaddar Nova is obviously just not quite as cybel-swollen as his compatriots yet.



The Kaddar Nova is only one aspect of the Kaddar priesthood, and others will be fleshed out eventually. In the meantime, though, it's fun to see where mashing bits together can lead you... The below model is a combination of Kaddar Nova and Shadow Walker parts, with some small tentacles taken from a couple of Mature Angel kits. I call him a 'Kaddar Noctis'.



Hopefully, this has given you some inspiration for your own Kaddar Nova builds! To get started, you can pick up the Kaddar Nova 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 article roundup here.

Prowler APV

Prowler is the group term used to refer to the armoured personnel vehicles used by Epirian Contractors and security forces. Six or eight wheeled, the prowler is sturdy enough to clamber over rough terrain or suffer small arms fire, and its sealed compartments are large enough to house five to ten men. Prowlers are utilised for different functions, with some having an empty rear for transport of goods or men, whilst others have banks of computer interfaces to control drones or even act as a mobile command vehicle in battle. Prowlers are fitted with a drone rack allowing for rapid launch of airborne drones, and military vehicles sport a roof-mounted turret with a surface to air rocket battery or machine gun.

- by Iain Wilson

The Maelstrom's Edge Terrain Sprue contains a slew of assorted plastic bits and pieces that can be used to pretty up your home-made scifi terrain, including a bunch of essential elements like doors, windows and pipe fittings. This week, I'd like to share a few tips and tricks for squeezing a little extra versatility out of the terrain sprue and adding some extra touches of detail to your buildings.

The terrain sprue in all its glory! While it's loaded with all sorts of interesting bits that can be clipped off and glued on to your buildings as-is, a little careful cutting and some extra materials will go a long way towards adding that extra detailing that helps to finish things off just right.


Handrails

An easy one to start with! The ladder from the sprue can be used for making railings for balconies or walkways, by cutting off one side along the red line shown below, with a razor saw or exacto knife. The lintel piece, cut down to length, is perfect for filling in the corners:



Alternatively, you can just glue the intact ladder sideways onto the outer edge of your walkway or platform, like this:



Ventilation Ducts

The large pipe fitting can be used for creating ventilation ducts with the addition of a fan blade made from plasticard or thin cardboard. Use the fitting itself as a template for the fan, by holding it upside-down against your plasticard or cardboard and drawing around the inside with a sharp pencil:



(In case you're wondering, you use the fitting upside-down for this because it flares out at the bottom. So if you draw around with the fitting right-way-up, your fan is going to wind up too wide to fit in)

Next, you can flip the fitting up the right way, and use the buttresses as a guide to make six marks around the circle:



The join the marks across the circle, and along each of the resultant radial lines make another mark 2mm out from the centre.



Then cut out the circle, and cut inwards along each radial line up to the inner marks. Dry-fit it inside the pipe fitting to make sure it goes in, and sand around the edge if necessary so that it goes in easily - you don't want a tight fit, as it will deform slightly in the next step.



Now gently twist each of the segments around the circle to create a fan shape. If you're using plasticard, go gently here to avoid snapping it - cardboard is a little more forgiving at this step. Obviously, you also need to make sure that you twist each segment the same way, otherwise your fan is going to run into some operational issues.





Your fan blade can now be glued in place inside the pipe fitting by applying a small amount of superglue around the edge and pushing it into place.



Once it's been glued into place on your building and painted, you ventilation duct can look something like this:



You can also create a more compact version using the smaller pipe fitting and a rotor assembly from an Epirian Firefly Drone. Simply trim off the mounting strut and fin from the rotor piece to make it circular, and glue it to the back of the pipe fitting, as below:



You'll need to cut a small hole in whatever surface you're mounting this on for the rotor assembly to sit in, so that the pipe fitting can sit flush.

Chimney Pipes

I always try to look out for ways to make use of all of the leftover sprue that builds up from all of those plastic projects. The round sprue used on this terrain set is particularly useful with just a little help from some plastic tubing. Take the small pipe fitting, an 'L'-shaped piece of the thinner side of the terrain sprue, a square cut from the bottom of one of the support struts, and a couple of short pieces of 7mm (1/4") plastic tubing (Plastruct, Woodland Scenics or the like).



The 7mm tubing fits nice and snugly into the small pipe fitting. In a happy coincidence, the thinner section of the terrain sprue fits just as neatly into the 7mm tubing. If you remove any extraneous casting gates and mouldlines from the sprue piece and fit it all together, you can do this:



This can be then glued in place wherever seems appropriate, and can be easily reconfigured to match your terrain using different combinations of sprue sections and/or extra bits of tubing or support strut sections.





Trouble-free Doors

Some people have been using various plastic containers, storage trays or home guttering sections in conjunction with the terrain sprue to create some interesting buildings for their MEdge tables. One of the big problems with some of these options, though, is that the doors need to be inset into the walls, and cutting some plastics easily and cleanly in order to do so can be problematic. So I came up with this solution:

Take a door, and three support struts.



Trim off the support struts along the red lines in the below diagram, keeping just the middle pieces. Note that the top piece in the below picture is slightly different to the other two, which have a rivet strip left on one end:



The glue them in place around the back of the door frame. The strut piece from the top of the diagram goes along the top, and the other two (which, unless something's gone horribly wrong, will be identical) go down either side with the rivet strip at the top.



This can then be glued in place on the wall of whatever you're using to make your building, with no cutting of the wall required.



These are just a few ideas that I've found useful when constructing terrain. One of the great things about a product like this is the more-or-less limitless possibilities opened up through the ease of working with plastic components and the open-ended nature of the construction allowed by it. It's always great to see people take the sprue and find new and unexpected ways to use the components on it. So why not give it a go? You can pick 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 article roundup here.

When the Battle For Zycanthus boxed set was released, we published some sample force rosters for the Karist and Epirian factions based on the models in the set, to help give new players an idea of what a Maelstrom's Edge force could look like. Since then, we have released a stack of new models and introduced a third faction, the Broken, to the game, so it seemed like a good idea to add some new force rosters to the sample collection. Below, you'll find three different sample force rosters for the Broken, and a breakdown of which models you would need to put them together.

LIST #1 - ALL-PLASTIC 120 POINTS

(a standard 'small' game, using just the plastic Broken Infantry Pack models)


Detachment #1 (of 2)

TYPE	UNIT	UPGRADE	POINTS
[Command]	Forsaken Chieftain (8)	x2 Beam Pistols (+0)	8 pts
[Core]	Broken Rabble (5)	x1 extra Broken Rabble (+1)
		x1 Chem Launcher (+1)
		x1 EMP Harpoon (+1)	8 pts
[Core]	Broken Rabble (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x1 Chem Launcher (+1)
		x1 Glue Rifle (+1)	9 pts
[Core]	Broken Rabble (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+1)
		x1 Auto Slugger (+1)
		x1 Longbeam Rifle (+1)	9 pts
[Hammer]	Rabble Assault (8)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+4)
		x3 EMP Harpoon (+0)	12 pts
[Hammer]	Rabble Assault (8)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+4)
		x3 Massive Torch (+3)
		x2 replace Beam Blastgun with Chem Pistol & Slug Pistol (-2)
		Boss replaces Beam Blastgun with Chem Pistol & Grenade Harness (-1)	12 pts
[Anvil]	Rabble Fire Support (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x3 Longbeam Rifle (+6)	13 pts
[Anvil]	Rabble Fire Support (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x3 Longbeam Rifle (+6)	13 pts
		DETACHMENT #1 TOTAL	84 pts

Detachment #2 (of 2)

TYPE	UNIT	UPGRADE	POINTS
[Command]	Forsaken Chieftain (8)	replace Slug Rifle with Beam Blastgun (+1)	9 pts
[Core]	Broken Rabble (5)	x1 extra Broken Rabble (+1)
		x1 Chem Launcher (+1)
		x1 EMP Harpoon (+1)
		Boss replaces Slug Rifle with Chem Pistol & Grenade Harness (+0)	8 pts
[Core]	Broken Rabble (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x1 Emp Harpoon (+1)
		x1 Glue Rifle (+1)
		Boss replaces Slug Rifle with Grenade Harness & Slug Pistol (+0)	9 pts
[Anvil]	Rabble Fire Support (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x3 Auto Slugger (+3)	10 pts
		DETACHMENT #2 TOTAL	36 pts
		GRAND TOTAL	120 pts

Models needed:

• Broken Infantry Pack x10.

The two Chieftains for this list are built from the plastic set, which is why there are two Rabble units that only have 5 in the unit.

LIST #2 - 120 POINTS

(a standard 'small' game, using a mix of plastic and resin Broken models)


Detachment #1 (of 2)

TYPE	UNIT	UPGRADE	POINTS
[Command]	Forsaken Chieftain (8)	x1 Beam Pistol (+0)
		x1 Trophy Melee Weapon (+1)
		Xeno Spotter (+1)
		Customized Weapons (+2)	12 pts
[Core]	Broken Rabble (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x1 Chem Launcher (+1)
		x1 Glue Rifle (+1)	9 pts
[Core]	Broken Rabble (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x1 Auto Slugger (+1)
		x1 Longbeam Rifle (+1)	9 pts
[Hammer]	Rabble Assault (8)	x1 Marsayan Hypnotist (+2)
		x3 Massive Torch (+3)	13 pts
[Hammer]	Rabble Assault (8)	x1 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x1 Hakoyu Grand Master (+4)
		x3 EMP Harpoon (+0)	14 pts
[Vanguard]	x2 Sig Jammer (12)		12 pts
[Anvil]	Gnolti (10)		10 pts
[Anvil]	Rabble Fire Support (5)	x1 extra Broken Rabble (+1)
		x3 Longbeam Rifle (+6)	12 pts
		DETACHMENT #1 TOTAL	91 pts

Detachment #2 (of 2)

TYPE	UNIT	UPGRADE	POINTS
[Command]	Forsaken Chieftain (8)	Customized Weapons (+2)
		Extensive Cybernetics (+2)	12 pts
[Core]	Broken Rabble (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x1 Chem Launcher (+1)
		x1 EMP Harpoon (+1)
		Boss replaces Slug Rifle with Chem Pistol & Grenade Harness (+0)	9 pts
[Anvil]	Rabble Fire Support (5)	x3 Auto Slugger (+3)	8 pts
		DETACHMENT #2 TOTAL	29 pts
		GRAND TOTAL	120 pts

Models needed:

• Broken Infantry Pack x6
• Forsaken Chieftain x1
• Forsaken Tech Chieftain x1
• Sig Jammer x2
• Marsayan Hypnotist x1
• Hakoyu Grand Master x1
• Gnolti x1

LIST #3 - 120 POINTS, SINGLE DETACHMENT

(a mix of plastic and resin models, optimized to fit into a single detachment)

TYPE	UNIT	UPGRADE	POINTS
[Command]	Forsaken Chieftain (8)	x1 Trophy Melee Weapon (+1)
		Xeno Spotter (+1)
		Customized Weapons (+2)
		Extensive Cybernetics (+2)	15 pts
[Core]	Broken Rabble (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x1 Auto Slugger (+1)
		x1 Longbeam Rifle (+1)	9 pts
[Core]	Broken Rabble (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x1 Chem Launcher (+1)
		x1 EMP Harpoon (+1)	9 pts
[Hammer]	Rabble Assault (8)	x2 Hakoyu Grand Master (+8)
		x3 Torch (+0)	16 pts
[Hammer]	Rabble Assault (8)	x2 Hakoyu Grand Master (+8)
		x3 Massive Torch (+3)	19 pts
[Vanguard]	x2 Sig Jammer (12)		12 pts
[Anvil]	x2 Gnolti (10)		20 pts
[Anvil]	Rabble Fire Support (5)	x2 extra Broken Rabble (+2)
		x3 Longbeam Rifle (+6)	13 pts
		TOTAL	112 pts

Models needed:

• Broken Infantry Pack x5 (you'll have a couple of models spare)
• Forsaken Chieftain x1
• Sig Jammer x2
• Hakoyu Grand Master x4
• Gnolti x2

Note that for the above list, you could get to 119 points by dropping the Rabble Fire Support and including another two Gnolti instead!

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Hopefully the above force rosters will give you some idea of how to plan your force. If you're looking for the force rosters for the Karist and Epirian factions, you can find them on the Maelstrom's Edge website here.



To assemble your own force, you can pick up the above models, and the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge model range, from the webstore here.


Happy Gaming!

- by Iain Wilson

The Maelstrom's Edge Faction Expansion Sprue introduced a couple of cybel-powered edged weapons - the Cybel Blade and Cybel Glaive - to the Karist faction. These weapons give the Karist troops a wonderful, savage look and add even more nasty, close-quarters options to their units.

Painting these sorts of weapons is a great opportunity to add some eye-catching detail to your force, so I thought it might be useful to offer some suggestions on different ways to do so, to suit varying levels of painting prowess. There's no right or wrong way - you can feel free to use whatever technique suits your style, but the below ideas might give you a starting point if you're unsure of how to go about it.

For each of the below methods, paint up the rest of the weapon however suits your force's colours, and then go to town on your blade!

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The Silver Wash Method

An easy one to kick things off. Start with a silver blade. Apply a wash of purple ink (I've used Army Painter Purple Tone). Let it dry, and you're done!

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The White Wash Method

Similar to the above, except that you start with a white blade. Apply a wash of purple ink, and let it dry.



To lift it just a little, you can then use a fine detail brush and a little white paint to highlight the raised edges.

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The Drybrush Method

Start with a silver or gunmetal blade. Apply purple ink to the back half of the blade, and let it dry.



Blend the purple into the metal by lightly drybrushing with the same metal colour that you used on the blade. This will also pick out the raised edges.

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The Crystal Method

Start with a white blade. Using a fine detail brush, apply light coats of purple ink which each successive coat covering slightly less of the blade so that you build up a gradient of purple fading gradually to white . You don't want the ink to pool - the lighter you apply each coat, the better the end result will be.



Work with the shape of the blade - you want the brightest (whitest) part of the blade on the curved part of the edge, so the purple builds up from that point towards the tip and the back end of the blade. On the top half of the blade this is reversed, so the darkest purple is on the inside of the curve, fading out to white on the ends. Once you've built up your colour to the level you want it, highlight the raised edges with a little white.

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And that's it - 4 different techniques for some very different results. You can vary these up some more by using different colours - I've gone with purple as that's the 'canon' colouring for cybel energy, but if you're using a different colour throughout your force (or looking to apply these techniques for a different miniature altogether) then you can easily substitute any colour ink.

If you're feeling inspired, you can pick up the Expansion Sprue from the Maelstrom's Edge online store here, and make sure you share your efforts on the Comm Guild Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/MaelstromsEdge)!

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

Although the existence of the xenos species called Angels was not completely unknown to the inhabitants of the spiral arm, only a handful of academics and long-standing spacefarers truly knew of them before the Karists began using Angels for their military and propaganda purposes. To everyone else, they were always simply a myth or legend bragged about by starship captains who had spent too many years traversing the void.

Karists tout that these creatures are emissaries of of the Maelstrom, with their priests having helped coined the name 'Angels' to describe them. When Karist priests attempt to sway the populace of a world to their cause, they often mention Angels, or even utilize a live Angel as a demonstration. For how can creatures so powerful and strange, they argue, serve the will of the Karists if their cause were not just and true?

In Karist military actions, Angel units are typically embedded into their existing forces, giving Karist commanders access to the many unique talents the Angels can provide. However, an entire force comprised of Angels is a powerfully intimidating site, doubly so to enemy troops who have never actually seen an Angel before. Therefore on occasion, full Angel detachments, led by an Angel Keeper are deployed. They are usually utilized as a terror-force, early in a planetary engagement before the enemy has any experience fighting against them. Angel detachments are particularly effective against fortifications, where the sheer terror caused by the Angels can cause enemy troops to flee without firing a shot, allowing the Karists to take an enemy strongpoint where it would have cost them hundreds of lives otherwise.

The First Contact faction objective represents a number of new avenues for our game. It is the first of several planned new faction objectives tied to particular models, helping to create different types of themed forces you can choose to utilize within the overarching umbrella of the existing forces. To this end, your force must include an Angel Keeper for you to be able to use the First Contact faction objetive.

First Contact

This objective may only be utilized if your force contains an Angel Keeper. If an objective type requires you to choose a force commander, it must be an Angel Keeper.

This objective can generate a maximum of 3 VPs per game, after which your units no longer benefit from the IrratIonal Fear ability.

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Partial: (conditional) Each time a non-fearless enemy unit fails any type of discipline check (even an automatic failure) while affected by the Fearsome ability of your Angel units, gain 1 VP.
Full: N/A

Irrational Fear: Friendly models with the angel designator gain the Fearsome (1) ability, or add +1 to their existing Fearsome ability.

You can download a printable version of this card here.

The existing basic faction objectives ('Secret Cache' for the Karists, 'Now You See Me' for the Broken and 'Automated Uplink Relay' for the Epirians) all work roughly the same way: they provide your forces an optional bonus, which you can choose to forgo each turn to instead gain +1 victory point. First Contact, on the other hand, provides your force with an automatic bonus: namely improving your Angel's 'Fearsome' ability, and successfully utilizing that bonus is what scores you the objective's victory points. Even better, this is the first faction objective where it is possible to earn the maximum 3 victory points in a single turn, even theoretically in the first turn of the game, which would definitely put your opponent on their back foot right out of the gate!

But that raises the obvious question: how can First Contact possibly be balanced compared to the existing two faction objectives? The answer is that the other two objectives provide you with better situational control. When you need a victory point, you can generate one, but when you need the bonus provided by the objective, you can utilize that instead. With First Contact, once you've generated your 3 victory points from it, the bonus provided by it ends and you're stuck the rest of the game without it, even if you would have preferred to keep the bonus around longer in lieu of gaining all 3 victory points.



In addition, generating victory points for First Contact ultimately relies upon your opponent failing discipline checks while within range of your Angels. Depending on how the game plays out and how crafty your opponent is, it is entirely possible for you to finish the game without earning some or even all of these victory points. Or in other words, this is the first faction objective where you have to rely upon your opponent doing something (failing discipline checks) in order to generate your victory points, which is inherently more risky.

We would love for you to try out some games with both the Angel Keeper and First Contact rules and let us know what you think about them. If you've got any feedback (with or without playing any games with the rules), please feel free to provide it either by replying to this article directly, or on our Comm-Guild Facebook group or in the Maelstrom's Edge forum on Dakka Dakka.


You can flesh out your shape-shifting alien force by picking up an Angel Keeper and any of the different types of angels from the Maelstrom's Edge webstore here!

- by Iain Wilson

The Maelstrom's Edge Terrain Sprue lets you quickly and easily build some awesome-looking terrain to play your games around and over. Finishing that terrain off with a stand-out paintjob is sure to make your games look even better!

A while back, I shared a tutorial on sponge weathering, which is a great way to quickly and easily add chipping effects to your paintjob. This time around, I'm looking at salt weathering, which is a little more involved than doing it with a sponge, but gives a much more detailed and realistic effect.

While it may look daunting at first, the most complicated part of the salt weathering process is actually just planning out what colours to use. The paint goes on in 2 or more layers, depending on how involved you want your weathering to be. For this tutorial, I'm going to just use a base layer which will become the 'weathered' part, and a top layer which provides the core colour for the building.

What you'll need.

- A building to paint

- Salt. You can use ordinary tablesalt, or rocksalt, or anything in between. The coarseness of the salt changes how your weathering will appear, so some experimenting can be required to find the effect that you like most. I use a coarse rocksalt that I grind up finely with a mortar and pestle. This gives the grains a less consistent size than just using table salt, which I think enhances the overall effect.

- Hairspray. The cheaper, the better. It doesn't need to hold your fabulous 'do for the whole party, just keep some salt in place while you spray it.

- A small, stiff brush. An old toothbrush is ideal.

- Spray paint. You can use an airbrush for this technique if you have one, but if you don't then spraycans will do just fine - that's all I use.




First step - Apply the basecoat. This is the layer that will show through as your weathering. If you're after a chipped cement wall look, then a dark grey is appropriate. You can use a metallic colour if you want a painted metal feature, or a rusty brown for more weathered metal. If you want multiple effects over the building, then you can mix-and-match as required. If you're worried about the basecoat scratching off, which can be a problem with some plastic or metal materials, then also apply a generous coat of gloss sealer at this point.

For my building, I'm going for cement walls with rusty metal details, so I've sprayed the whole building grey, and then gone over the parts that will be metal with brown for the rust.



The next step is to apply the salt. Working one facing at a time, spray on a generous (but not dripping!) coat of hairspray, and then sprinkle on the salt where you want your weathering to appear. For the most realistic effect, concentrate on areas that would be most likely to see wear and tear - exposed corners, raised edges and the like.

Note - You can use water for this step instead of hairspray, using a spray bottle or a paintbrush to apply the water where you want the salt to go. This can be a little more precise, but requires much more careful handling as the water doesn't bond quite as strongly to larger grains of salt and takes longer to dry than the hairspray.

When you're done, your building will look something like this:



Once the hairspray has dried, you can apply your next coat of colour - I'm using a flat white. Keep this coat light, as too much paint will make it harder to remove the salt. Set aside for the paint to dry.



Now comes the fun part!

Using your brush, gently scrub off the salt. If your building is made from water-proof materials, you can hold it under some running water while you scrub. If you have used something cardboard, foamcore or similar, dip your brush in some water and keep it wet while trying not to soak the building too much as you scrub instead.

As the salt comes away, your base layer is exposed in a lovely chipped pattern.



Let it dry before applying any final detailing. Any leftover salt residue will dry as a white powder on your paint, so can need a little bit of cleanup with a damp cloth. At this point, I like to apply a coat of matte sealer just to keep everything pretty while I do any detail work to the building, to avoid damaging the paint with the extra handling.



You can apply multiple layers of colour by repeating the above steps, either over the whole building to show different paint layers or more detail on corroded metal, or by masking off part of the building to apply specific detailing. Here, I'm adding a building ID to the top and front by taping a stencil in place.



Salt is applied over the stencil, followed by a spray of the new colour. Once you remove the stencil and scrub away the salt, you're left with detailing that looks as weathered as the rest of the building.



Once you have applied as many layers of weathering as you feel it needs, all that remains is to apply your final detailing





And that's essentially it. You can vary the amount of weathering by using more or less salt, and can create all sorts of nifty effects through layering and careful use of colours. A good idea if you're not sure of what will work is to google images of derelict buildings or machinery and use those for inspiration.

Why not give it a go? You can pick 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 article roundup here.

The Broken receive a bit of a boost to their melee capabilities this month, with the release of the resin Hakoyu Grand Master - available now from the Maelstrom's Edge webstore!.



The Hakoyu Grand Master is an optional add-on for Broken Assault units. Equipped with powerful close combat weapons and defensive shields, he can help to defend the unit from incoming close quarter attacks while also possessing the fighting prowess to stand toe-to-toe with a Karist Shadow Walker!



With four arms and a horn-like protrusion from their foreheads, Hakoyu can seem menacing at first glance, especially as most have trained for decades in various martial arts and tend to carry at least one large melee weapon with them at all times, despite the fact that they are quite passive by nature. When a Hakoyu does feel forced to fight, their lightning quick reflexes and zealous training means they can usually end the contest before their opponent even knows what has happened.

The Hakoyu hail from the remote Yedo system. Their society is governed by a strict code of honour that can be difficult for non-Hakoyu to decipher. They believe the needs of the group are paramount, with the desires and wants of any individual considered trivial. This means Hakoyu prefer to live their lives in their home system, which makes them one of the more rare alien species in the Spiral Arm, with most humans never encountering a Hakoyu in their lifetime. All is not perfect on Yedo however, as the Hakoyu have been locked in a centuries-old war with their neighboring species, the Cera, over territorial rites and a perceived slight to the Hakoyu peoples' honor that cannot forgive. The war has steadily sapped the resources of Yedo, with the Cera using their technological advantages to blockade Yedo from receiving much needed relief supplies for its civilians. This dire situation has forced increasing numbers of Hakoyu to flee Yedo in an attempt to earn a living selling their services throughout the spiral arm, usually as a bodyguard or enforcer, even though such work is in direct conflict with their morale code and likely means they would not be welcomed back to Yedo should they ever wish to return.



When the Maelstrom threatens a world, misplaced distrust in Hakoyu sell-swords means they're often discarded at the last second by their former employers and denied a place on escape craft, leaving them ripe to join the ranks of the Broken. The Broken offer the Hakoyu a way out and a collective where most everyone is an outcast to some extent, in which many Hakoyu have found a second home even as they long to someday find their way back to Yedo. The Broken, on their part, value the Hakoyu's fighting skills and their unselfish character. The most sought after Hakoyu are their pinnacle warriors: a Grand Master, as they tend to give any squad the upper hand in any close quarter fighting. The calm demeanor of a Grand Master under fire is enough to convince their Broken squad mates to charge into the teeth of enemy fire rather than to run away. Grand Masters wield deadly Hakoyu phase weaponry, a technology first seen on Yedo and whose methods of construction are a closely guarded secret. These weapons pass effortlessly through energy fields and can cause electronic circuitry to explode upon contact, both highly sought after abilities in the Hakoyu's fight against the Cera. Hakoyu are also renown for their exquisite skill with forearm deflectors, and Grand Masters in particular are able to use these to prevent an opponent from ever striking them, no matter what type of deadly melee weapon they might face.


The Hakoyu Grand Master is available now - You can find it in the Maelstrom's Edge webstore here!

The unit card will be up in the Force Builder section of the Maelstrom's Edge website in the next couple of days - but here's a sneak peek!

- by Iain Wilson

I've showcased a couple of customised Plast Craft Games buildings in the past - a scifi-d up pagoda, and a similarly modified western building. These kits are made out of a foamed PVC board which was really fantastic to work with, so I decided to track down some similar board to have a crack at putting together some of my own designs with it, with the below result:

Slightly unusually for my projects, I started this one by sketching out a plan to see how everything would fit together. This was partly due to my desire to take advantage of the flexibility of the PVC by adding a curved front wall to the building, so I wanted to make sure that I had my dimensions correct before I started cutting.



Once I was confident that I had it all worked out, I pencilled up the various panels that made up the building onto the sheet of PVC, and then used a steel ruler and hobby knife to cut it all out. The foamed PVC cuts really easily with a knife, and also sands well. It feels almost like something halfway between cardboard and foamcore*, without the inherent frailties, like the risk of damage from moisture or spraypaint.

*For the uninitiated, Foamcore, also sometimes called Foam Board, is a material made up of a thin sheet of expanded polystyrene sandwiched between layers of paper or thin card, and is a common building material for wargaming terrain and scale building construction.



Once everything was cut out, I did a quick dry-fit to check that everything slotted in where it should.



The curved panel on the front was made by cutting the piece to the right size and then laying it over an old baby formula tin while heating it with a hair dryer. This achieved the desired curve, but I suspect the hair dryer was a little too hot for the material as it caused it to swell on some of the cut edges. Next time around, I'll try just immersing it in hot water for a minute instead.



The door and windows are taken from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue. I cut the holes in the wall panels for those by sitting them in place, drawing around them with a pencil, and then cutting the resultant rectangles out with a hobby knife.



I wanted a walled roof area for troops to take cover on, so marked down 20mm inside each wall and glued in some strips of leftover PVC to act as support.



The walls, door and windows were all glued into place, and the roof dropped into place with a little more glue. I used superglue for assembly - this grabs really well, and quite quickly, on the foamed PVC.



As the last step before painting, I took support struts from the terrain sprue and glued them over the exposed joints on the walls.



That left me with the building itself assembled, and a few details to add on once the walls were painted. For some added sturdiness, I glued the building down to a square of 5mm masonite.



To kick off the painting, I sprayed with red right around the top of the walls.



I then applied a line of masking tape over the red paint, just below the tops of the walls. I lined this up with one of the panels on the support struts, to make it look neater.



The whole building received a coat of a nice, sandy brown colour.



This was followed up with a spray of white from above, leaving the sandy brown in the crevasses and undersides of the detail.



(And yes, it does feel a little absurd to take a white building, and apply three different coats of paint just to wind up with a white building again!)


Once the spray was dry, I peeled off the masking tape, and painted the base and the roof with Vallejo Basalt Grey.



Everything was weathered with a sponge and some Vallejo Heavy Charcoal (for a how-to on sponge weathering, check out the article here!), and the base and roof were drybrushed with Vallejo Light Grey and a little white.



I dirtied everything up with a generous drybrush here and there with Vallejo Beasty Brown.



The lower edges of the weathering on the red strips was highlighted with a little Citadel Tentacle Pink and Army Painter Pure Red, and I blacklined some of the deeper detail lines on the terrain sprue components. The 'puddle' stains were added with Army Painter Strong Tone and Dark Tone, by dripping small drops onto the board and leaving it to dry.



For the finishing steps, I added a fan on one wall using the large pipe fitting from the terrain sprue some plasticard, built a small pipe coming out of the back wall using some more terrain sprue pipe fittings, a couple of short pieces of plastic tube and a piece of sprue cut from the terrain sprue, and hung a ladder on the back wall. To add handrails to the top of the ladder, I trimmed away the top rung, and cut a couple of pieces of sprue that looked about right, added a ninety-degree bend with by bending carefully with pliers, and then gluing it all in place. The ladder was painted using my normal weathered metal technique.

The end result looks like this:

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You can pick 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 article roundup here.

- by Iain Wilson

The addition of the SecDef to the Epirian lineup adds a much more 'military' feel to the faction, and I've been having a lot of fun exploring that with the models. I previously added my own homebrew SecDef Lieutenant and Scout Walker unit cards to the force builder (and if you missed the article, you can see how they were built here), and this week, I'm fleshing them out a little more with the addition of a dedicated heavy weapons team, based on the Master Bot Handler exo-suit.

My idea was for a slower-moving, but more heavily-armed team variant, for those situations that call for a little more firepower. With that goal in mind, I grabbed some parts from the SecDef and Master Handler sprues, and went to work!

From the Master Handler sprue, I took a torso and backpack, the weapon support arms and two weapons (I used the flakk guns, but it doesn't really matter which you use as you only want the mounting ring on the back of them). From the SecDef sprue, I took a head, two arms, two legs and a pair of machine guns.



I didn't want these guys to be quite as heavily armed as the Master Handler, so the first step was to remove the missile racks from the top of the backpack. I sliced them off using a razor saw, and cleaned up with a hobby knife to get rid of any rough cut marks.



As the SecDef arms have small shoulder pads on them, I removed the ridges that sit directly over the Master Handler's shoulders on each side of the torso. Otherwise, the arms would wind up sitting too low.



For the weapons, I cut the mounting ring from the back of the Master Handler's guns, and the grip and trigger assembly from the top of the SecDef gun, and then glued the mounting ring to the back of the machine gun's butt.



From there, the body was assembled pretty much as you would expect...



And finally, the weapons were glued onto the outside of the forearms - I didn't bother adding any specific mounting for them, as I figure they would magnetically lock to the SecDef exoskeleton's wristbands. Then I glued the support arms in place, and the model was ready for painting!



The same process works with the chainguns on the SecDef sprue, although in that case I also removed the weapon butt before attaching the mounting rings, to avoid the weapon looking too long against the model's arms.

For the team sergeant, I used a pointing arm, and for something different I put the gun for that arm in a 'standby' position. When he needs it, the support arm would drop it down and it would maglock to his wrist, ready for action.



Of course, pretty models are only half of the story! I have also generated an unofficial rules card for the heavy weapons team, which you can find in the Force Builder section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

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To build your own heavy weapons team, you can pick up the Master Handler and SecDef sprues 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 article roundup here.

- by Iain Wilson

A few weeks ago, I picked up a couple of packs of scifi shipping containers from a company called 'Laser Cut Card'. They produce a range of different vehicles and building kits that are laser cut out of stiff cardboard, which are much cheaper and easier to work with than the more common MDF kits, and are surprisingly sturdy when assembled. I built four of the six containers I received as normal shipping containers, but then couldn't resist doing something a little different for the fifth one. And so for this week's modeling spotlight, I'm running through the construction of 'Honest' Pete's Trading Post!

The shipping containers come flat-packed in a set of three, with some pictorial building instructions on the back of the package insert, but assembly is essentially to roll a sheet of pre-scored card into an octagonal tube and then glue other bits onto the outside of it. I assembled mine with superglue, although you could use wood glue if you wanted to allow a little more working time to make sure you have everything lined up.



Obviously this wasn't going to be a particularly large shop, so the idea was to have a servery-style counter and awning rather than have customers go inside. So I began by cutting one of the large sections off the main body piece of the container, and then gluing the ends on to the result sideless tube.



A shop needs somewhere to put their merchandise, so I threw together a set of shelves from thin plasticard, to run along the back wall of the container. An angled bottom on the uprights allowed the shelves to sit flush against the container side.





Next up I cut another couple of strips of plasticard to create a counter, about a third of the height of the space in the container wall, and glued this in place.





For the finishing touches, I cut some 'concrete' stands for the container out of 5mm foamcore. These serve to lift the container up very slightly to allow a little extra head-clearance for the awning, and make the structure look more stable. The exposed foam center was sealed with a generous coat of PVA glue so that it wouldn't dissolve when hit with spray paint.



I added some corner reinforcing to the bottom of the front edge of the awning piece using some scrap card pieces, and built some corner support posts using the small pipe fitting from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue, some plastic tube and a couple of lengths of plastic cut from the sides of the terrain sprue itself.



Finally, I took a large pipe fitting from the terrain sprue and added a fan cut from a piece of thin plasticard. I trimmed the edges of the pipe fitting away so that it would fit neatly over the circular detail on the roof of the container.



At this point, the trading post was looking like this:



With an MDF base added, and some paint on:



The sign on the awning was a last-minute addition. I was originally going to have the trading post sign on the front of the counter, but realised that this wouldn't be hugely visible on the gaming table, so built a quick rooftop sign from some more scraps of card. I also added a mesh grill above the counter after painting inside the container, to make the interior of the store less accessible.



The container was sprayed with black and then Army Painter Army Green, before being sponge-weathered with Vallejo Heavy Charcoal and dirt weathering drybrushed into the creases with Vallejo Beasty Brown. The text for the signs was created in Gimp, printed, and glued on prior to weathering so that it would match the rest of the container.



I added grafitti on the back and sides of the container to give it a little character and to make sure that all the interesting bits weren't on the front.



The grafitti was sketched in with a black fineliner pen, and then painted in whatever colours seemed appropriate.



The roof was left plain, with just the weathering to break up the green.



As an extra little detail, I printed up a shipping carton and some bottle labels using Gimp, adapting the fronts I made for my Vending Machine templates a few weeks back (article here). The shipping carton was cut and folded, and then weathered with a little Army Painter Soft Tone, while the bottle labels were glued to some bottle bombs taken from the Broken Infantry weapons sprue with their rag wicks cut off.





And with that, 'Honest' Pete's is ready for the table!

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You can pick 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 article roundup here.