The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

- by Iain Wilson

With the release of the Revolutionary Captain ushering the SARA subfaction into Maelstrom's Edge games, a range of new tactical options opens up for the Broken. I'll be sharing my fledgling SARA force in an upcoming army, but to kick things off I thought it would be fun to have a look at some modeling options for the fantastic Revolutionary Captain model!




The Revolutionary Captain is a multipart, plastic model. He's not as modular as most of the Maelstrom's Edge model range, as the sculpt was in this case aiming for a specific character look. Being plastic, however, it's still relatively easy to give the model a more customised look if you feel so inclined, and I'll explore some different ideas for that below.


The studio model, painted by Winterdyne.

Built straight off the sprue, the Revolutionary Captain is equipped with his SARA Officer's Pistol. His rules card, which can be found here, gives him the option to take one of a number of different secondary weapons, which can mostly be sourced from the Broken Rabble kit. To equip a Beam Blastgun or Slug Rifle, the easy option is to just stick the weapon on his back. You could model a rifle strap from modeling putty, or just assume the weapon is held in place with a magnetic lock built into the back of his coat.



To take a more hands-on approach, for this version I sliced off his right hand, and used a forearm snipped from a Rabble sprue arm to hold the blastgun. As it still sits against his waist, there's no need to try to resculpt the coat belt where the hand was removed, as you can't see it anyway.



Of course, everyone knows that battlefield commanders spend a good amount of their time pointing at things. If your commander isn't either pointing at something, or standing with one foot on something, people might not even recognise them! By slicing off the Revolutionary Captain's left arm at the coat's shoulder seam, I was able to glue a pointing arm from the Rabble sprue in its place. I also replaced the head with a regular Rabble head by drilling out the neck a little with a 2mm drill bit, and glued a maglock pistol from the Epirian Contractor kit onto her hip with some strapping made from 'Green Stuff' putty to replace the officer's pistol. The putty isn't strictly necessary - you could easily just glue any of the Captain's pistol options to the belt, but the addition of the putty strap does make it look a little nicer on the model.



Of course, there's no reason for only humans to be revolting! With the neck drilled out as above, you can use any of the alien heads from the weapons sprue in the Rabble kit to create a xeno force commander.



While we're replacing heads, some Captains like a nice, sensible cap in place of a beret, so for this one I used an Epirian Contractor head (mostly for the sunglasses!) and built the cap up into an officer's hat using Green Stuff. I also added a melee weapon on his belt using part of a Karist sword from the Faction Expansion Sprue and bits from a couple of weapons on the Rabble sprue. This could easily represent either the Poisoned Blade or Trophy Melee Weapon. For a slightly easier option, you could just use the Karist sword or knife from the Faction Expansion sprue. The resin Forsaken Chieftain also comes with both of these melee options, so if you have that model you could use whichever one you didn't use on her for the Revolutionary Captain.



Of course, if you're hacking up your Revolutionary Captain model to replace heads and weapons, this leaves you with some useful parts to build another Captain to lead a second Detachment! For the below model, I used some parts from the Rabble kit (legs, arms and beam pistol), the left hand and head from the Revolutionary Captain, and a torso from the Epirian SecDef kit just to help him to stand out a little more from the Broken horde.





To build your own army of revolutionary doom, you can pick up the Revolutionary Captain along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range from the webstore here.



What are you working on? We would love to see your models and terrain in the Comm Guild Facebook group!

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

Last week, we shared an intro into one of the sub-factions within the Broken - the Spiral Arm Revolutionary Army. The time has come to see SARA roll out onto the table, with the release of a new plastic model for the SARA Revolutionary Captain!



Revolutionary Captains lead companies of SARA troops on the battlefield. While SARA companies are comprised mostly of the same sorts of units as you would find in Forsaken or Jackal forces, their more military-focused structure results in better discipline and tactics on the battlefield.



On the table, the Revolutionary Captain's military experience grants your Broken force some new abilities. The SARA Discipline rule grants units in the Captain's command radius a boost to their WP. These units are also granted the new Guerilla rule, which allows a unit taking an Advance & Fire action to shoot before moving, allowing your units to to attack enemy positions and then fade away into cover.



The first of a series of smaller plastic kits that we are releasing, the Revolutionary Captain kit is a single sprue with a multipart, monopose model and is supplied with a 25mm base.



Grab your Revolutionary Captain from the Maelstrom's Edge webstore now!

By far the most rare of the Broken sub-factions are the Spiral Arm Revolutionary Army, also known as just SARA. These are Broken who escape their system but cannot abide the immoral way that governments at the Edge continually lie to, and doom the common man to death by the Maelstrom while escaping to safety themselves, and they vow to do whatever it takes to stop this from happening to others. Unlike most Broken, members of SARA are proud to be known as Broken, and often display the Broken symbol on their ships and gear. Like all Broken, SARA engages in piracy to survive, however they make a point to go after very specific targets, namely those they deem to be colluding to save only the rich and powerful from the Maelstrom. They regularly attack Epirian Foundation facilities, blaming the massive, wealthy corporation of profiting off the destruction caused by the Maelstrom while not utilizing these profits to save every person they can. Its unsurprising that SARA is also a natural enemy to the Karist Enclave, as the Karists actively attempt to keep people from escaping the Maelstrom. Unlike other sub-factions of Broken, SARA utilize propaganda and often have secret donors helping to support their cause even when all planetary governments condemn the actions of SARA as those of a terrorist organization.




Tales of SARA have filtered throughout the spiral arm, so similar to the Jackals, there is a constant stream of people moving towards the Maelstrom’s Edge looking to join their cause. However, while SARA sees the Forsaken as potential allies and a pool for recruitment, they are vehemently opposed to Jackals, who they see as poisoning the otherwise good name of the Broken. SARA cells will often go out of their way to attack a Jackal stronghold when they discover its location.

With their well-equipped, fast-moving fleets, SARA does wage some military campaigns at worlds right at the Edge, mainly by attacking external forces that have laid siege to a planet so as to exploit its resources before the Maelstrom arrives. But even when they’re successful in these types of campaigns, the number of people they can actually rescue is often quite small, basically just those who can fit onto the ships they manage to liberate during the fighting. As a result, SARA instead prefers to target worlds that are still a few generations away from being threatened by the Maelstrom, but are downplaying the danger to their populace and secretly shuttling away the rich and powerful. These types of worlds almost always have secret cells of SARA already in operation, funded by secret donors who see SARA as either a philanthropic cause or just a way to guarantee their own escape from the Maelstrom. These cells seek to weaken local government and ferret out hidden Karist Enclave cells. Bolstered by reinforcements from out-system, SARA groups will spread their infiltration throughout the society to fuel full scale revolts. It isn’t entirely unknown for SARA to completely topple a government this way, and turn the planet’s full scale production towards producing ships to save as many people as possible.



SARA is very much a paramilitary organization and more often than not, the founders of a cell start as lower echelon military units on a dying world who realize their government is not going to save them. They spend years organizing rebellions, training civilians to fight, struggling to get as many people off-planet as possible. As SARA contains a higher percentage of military-trained individuals, it tends to be much more regimented and organized than most Broken forces, and has better discipline and morale. When the time comes for open conflict, SARA cells are organised into brigades, each led by a Revolutionary Colonel. Each brigade is comprised of a varying number of companies depending on the number of SARA units available, each led by a Revolutionary Captain. When SARA manages to rescue souls from a dying world or from ships that have no place to go, able-bodied adults are offered a place in a SARA company for a certain period of time - usually 5 to 10 years, depending on the particular cell. After their service time is up, they are free to leave and try to find their own way in the galaxy, though many choose to remain with the fleet. In this way, SARA fleets are constantly provided with a stream of new recruits.

While from outside SARA is commonly seen as a single entity, there is no true central leadership and each brigade acts autonomously. Some degree of communication between fleets does exist, through cells utilising fast courier vessels or infiltrating Comm Guild facilities and piggybacking support requests or warnings onto authorised Guild messages. This allows SARA fleets to converge when a larger response is required than each can handle alone, or to avoid systems where the danger from the Maelstrom’s unpredictable advance is too great to risk their valuable resources. Sharing similar goals does not always guarantee co-operation though, as fleet commanders may disagree on the value of specific objectives or the best allocation of resources, occasionally even leading to conflict between different SARA brigades.

SO... why are we telling you all this?

Next week sees the release of our new, plastic SARA commander model, which will open up new options for your Broken forces in Maelstrom's Edge. We will also have a showcase article to follow the commander, with a SARA force being put together by Iain - stay tuned!





Put together your own ill-equipped rabble of doom by picking up the plastic Broken infantry sprues, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range from the webstore here.

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

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

Another in our continuing series of spotlight videos, this time taking a look at the Nimbus battlesuit for the Artarian Remnant!




You can find this fantastic resin miniature in the Maelstrom's Edge webstore here.

- by Iain Wilson

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




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



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



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



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



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



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



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





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

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

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

While StackaRack moves on towards completion and production following the successful Kickstarter, we're also hard at work on new releases for Maelstrom's Edge. In the coming weeks, we'll get back to the usual modeling articles here, but in the meantime, here's a short spotlight video on one of our favourite Epirian miniatures - the SecDef Lieutenant!




You can find this fantastic resin miniature in the Maelstrom's Edge webstore here.

Over the course of developing a product, you wind up with a few prototypes sitting around with nothing to do once the design has moved past them. So what to do with them?

If you're Iain, you turn them into terrain, of course!




Get in on the Kickstarter before time runs out! Find StackaRack on Kickstarter now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spiralarmstudios/stackarack

As the clock continues to wind down on the StackaRack kickstarter, we're continuing our work to develop and refine the parts. Shown below is a build using test prints for the 45 degree corner piece that is unlocked in the first Stretch Goal. This part allows you to bend your StackaRack around corners, which is great both for making best use of your desk space and also increasing stability, particularly on taller builds.




We're still some way off unlocking this stretch goal, and time is rapidly running out. It would be a shame to miss it, as the corner adds so much extra versatility to the kit but physically can't happen without the second sprue being unlocked. So if you've been considering upgrading your pledge, or undecided about sticking a toe in to start with, now would be a great time to do so! We need more backers to get behind the physical sprue pack pledges to hit the Stretch Goal in the limited time remaining.

Find StackaRack on Kickstarter now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spiralarmstudios/stackarack



You can also find StackaRack on Facebook here. Like the page for news and updates as they happen, and share it far and wide to help us bring StackaRack to your painting desk!

With the support of over 300 backers and counting, StackaRack has reached its initial funding goal!




The initial funding goal covers the amount we needed to produce the basic StackaRack components, but they're only the start of the story. The rack gets exponentially better if we can fund two sprues worth of components instead of one, with a better distribution of parts and the addition of the corner piece. The jump up to the first Stretch Goal is higher than the original funding target, though. This is because we used what funds we could to put towards the initial development, which meant that we could keep the initial goal much lower than it would otherwise have been. For the second sprue, though, we need to cover the full cost of producing that new tool.

We would obviously love to see that second sprue happen, and we hope that you do too. Help StackaRack turn the corner by backing the project now!

Find StackaRack on Kickstarter now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spiralarmstudios/stackarack



You can also find StackaRack on Facebook here. Like the page for news and updates as they happen, and share it far and wide to help us bring StackaRack to your painting desk!

The greatest strength of the StackaRack design over other paint racks is its ability to fit into whatever space you have. If you have the space in your work area to dedicate to racking 500 pots of paint right there close at hand, StackaRack has you covered. (And let's face it, who doesn't love to see a wall of perfectly organised paint?)

But even (maybe even especially!) if you don't have much space, being able to configure the rack to suit yourself means that you can make the best use of that space. For example, if you're the kind of painter who tends to work on a single project at a time, rather than using up a whole lot of desk space for paints that you're not using right now, you can use StackaRack to build some storage just the right size to hold the paints that you are actively using right now.




The rest of the horde can be safely packed away, or held in a larger rack somewhere more suitable, where you don't have that pot of fluorescent orange staring at you accusingly the whole time you work ("Why did you buy me all those years ago, just to leave me here, still unopened? Why? Whyyyyy???")

Ahem.

This can also be a handy way to ease into your storage. Don't have the funds to rack all of your paint right now? Just grab enough StackaRack sprues to hold the paint for a single project, and then add to it as you go!

Find StackaRack on Kickstarter now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spiralarmstudios/stackarack



You can also find StackaRack on Facebook here. Like the page for news and updates as they happen, and share it far and wide to help us bring StackaRack to your painting desk!

A massive thank you to everyone who has backed the StackaRack project so far. After the first day, we are almost halfway to the funding target!




Obviously, there is still a way to go, so be sure to spread the word! StackaRack needs as many people to get on board as possible to make it the best system it can be!

Find the StackaRack on Facebook here. Like the page for news and updates as they happen, and share it far and wide to help us bring StackaRack to your painting desk.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spiralarmstudios/stackarack

The StackaRack Kickstarter campaign is up and running, and already over 30% funded! If you haven't checked it out yet, you can find it here.




You can also find the StackaRack on Facebook here. Like the page for news and updates as they happen!

The StackaRack Kickstarter campaign is all set to launch tomorrow, April 20, at 6pm London time.




You can find the prelaunch page here. Click the 'Notify me on launch' button for a reminder when the project goes live.

You can also find the StackaRack on Facebook here. Like the page for news and updates as they happen!

One more week to go until the StackaRack Kickstarter campaign goes live!




Hop on over the the prelaunch page here and click the 'Notify me on launch' button for a reminder when the project goes live.




While that's going on, Maelstrom's Edge hasn't been forgotten. The next few releases are currently with the painter getting some colour in their lives. We're looking forward to getting these out to you. While you're waiting, here's a teaser of some things to come for the Broken!






To stay abreast of releases and other news, visit our pages on Facebook and hit the 'Like' button!

Maelstrom's Edge *** StackaRack

Just two short weeks to go until the StackaRack Kickstarter campaign goes live!




You can find the prelaunch page here. Click the 'Notify me on launch' button for a reminder when the project goes live.






You can also find the StackaRack on Facebook here. Like the page for news and updates as they happen!