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I would like to discuss various aspects of Dakka's Own Kickstarter coming up, but the mods have clearly limited what is to be discussed in the Maelstrom's Edge (or MEdge as we trendsetters call it) thread. Since no one else has created this thread yet, and since I haven't been baned too badly, I'm stepping up.

Let's talk about the miniatures. They are usually the most important part of a miniatures game. How do the MEdge minis stack up?

Here is the gallery where you can see all the minis.



The Karist faction, pictured above, is the faction of cool armor and, uh, charming monsters. Personally, I quite enjoy the look of this faction, but this is the thread for criticism. (Please post positive comments in the official thread to keep up the positive energy vibes.)
The troopers have the arms, legs and pauldrons of the old Warzone Bauhaus minis, but with awesome 2010-era videogame heads instead of pickelhaubes. I'm sold.

The Tempest Elites are both incredibly menacing in design, and anatomically troubling. The biggest units have the smallest helmeted heads. There's no way a human (Epirian) head could fit into one of the trooper helmets, and those are more human head-shaped than the Tempest's helmets. There is also the issue with their funky wrists holding up Cable-style weapons. What do you think, fellow Dakka peons?

The minnows take me back to my childhood and the dawn of practical effects in movies. I like them because they look like non-denominational demons for 40k or something the Ghostbusters would catch on their lunch breaks. However, they certainly don't look like biological entities, especially not ones that could fly under their own power to terrorize the innocent, and this is going to cost them sales. Thoughts?





Here we have the Epirians. This army is the drone army full of drones, where some of the drones look like animatronics that escaped an amusement park. Or are those humans? Just as long as they don't pull a Five Nights at Freddy's and jump-scare m--

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!

Judgedoug posted a picture of a Technolog mini that captured the essence, the very (transferrable?) soul of an Epirian Contractor, in the other thread, but I'm not trawling back to find it. To sum up:
Big head
too much lead
Shoulders? Jeez.
pads on knees
blocky caps
buttless chaps
dress-up day, work or play
What else do I have to say?


The drones are amazing and I am physically incapable of saying anything bad about them, except that they are too expensive. They need to be cheaper so I can buy more.



Now, let's talk about the art:



This is a nice piece right here, but it definitely feels more 'Mantic' in quality than GW or AT-43. The composition, palette and blurring effect leave a lot of space lacking in awesome. It's a nice first piece, but I think it should be interior art rather than, say, the front of the big box itself. Now, I am not against dark colors or foggy paintings--Bob Eggleton is one of my favorites--but the lower half of the painting gives my eye no joy, and the upper middle looks cramped. Would I buy a book full of this kind of art by the painter? Yes, but I wouldn't pay full price.





This is an inspiring piece that really feels like old Warzone art in spirit. Unfortunately, by today's standards, it feels a bit sparse or clean. Still, in a small interior space, this painting would shine.



A landscape that has a very Martiniere quality to my eye. It looks a lot like someone photoshooped some photos of LA and then added the Nexus from Generations. Yet, somehow, it works for me. Quite evocative.



The Books:

I have not read the books, but I would love to read some reviews of them in this thread. Please hide all spoilers, because I want to read them as soon as they are available in paperback.

The Rules:

The rules seem to be the one thing safe to discuss in the official thread, but if you want to harsh on them, here is the place for it.

Kickstarter Stragegy:

How and why will Dakka's Spiral Arm Studios make a million bucks off of us?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
There has also been a whiff of accusation about the inspiration for Maelstrom's Edge that cannot safely be discussed in the original thread.

Scuzzy pointed out that the name, and possibly some of the thematic elements, of MEdge sound very similar to his own game, Vor: the Maelstrom. I am not familiar with that universe at all, so I can't really speak to the accuracy of his claims, but feel like they should be addressed. If you know much about Vor: TheM, please share your thoughts on the matter. Let's either validate the comparison or put a rightful end to it.

Here is a picture of some Vor minis I found. I don't see many similarities right off...

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The minnows take me back to my childhood and the dawn of practical effects in movies. I like them because they look like non-denominational demons for 40k or something the Ghostbusters would catch on their lunch breaks. However, they certainly don't look like biological entities, especially not ones that could fly under their own power to terrorize the innocent, and this is going to cost them sales. Thoughts?

They look exactly like monsters that would be thrown from off-camera at underpaid/undertalented Italian teenagers in a Mario Bava film circa 1979. Which means I love them. But for all the reasons I don't think the designers intended.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Judgedoug posted a picture of a Technolog mini that captured the essence, the very (transferrable?) soul of an Epirian Contractor, in the other thread, but I'm not trawling back to find it.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
What else do I have to say?

Since the Epirians appear to by physically larger than the powered armor gents, one must assume that either the Epirians are a foam rubber suit that is worn by another, normal-sized entity. Or that the Karists are small and slender and the Epirians of the future are uplifted children, retaining the same rough head-to-body ratio as a toddler.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The drones are amazing and I am physically incapable of saying anything bad about them, except that they are too expensive. They need to be cheaper so I can buy more.

On this I agree; I've always loved the Battletech / Mechwarrior 4 Vulture

and I'm quite thrilled to see it's torso flying around or crawling along on spider legs. (Though I'd prefer DARPA style Big Dog legs)
But seriously, I want a giant pile of these.

Thanks for making a dedicated thread, Bob! And as I posted in the N&R thread, originally I may have been duplicating up things with another moderator, since so many of us were checking that thread, and I'm sincerely sorry about that. You can certainly say anything you like there, too, although I think having a thread dedicated to discussing model aesthetics is a good idea!

I'm going to copy over some images of the Epirians since I've been leaning towards them myself now





I think definitely the contractors are the weakest of that range (which makes sense, since apparently they were also the first to be produced and there is a learning curve to all of this!). However, I think they look worlds better without metallic shoulder pads, so something more like the above pic is definitely how I will be painting them.

I thought these comparison pictures with some other model ranges were helpful, too:

Your post is certainly welcome and acceptable, and thanks for opening with some compliments at least I feel it prudent to ensure the scale reference pictures are also in place to keep comments on proportions in context:

(removed scale pics as ninjad by RiTides!)

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

The Tempest Elites are both incredibly menacing in design, and anatomically troubling. The biggest units have the smallest helmeted heads. There's no way a human (Epirian) head could fit into one of the trooper helmets, and those are more human head-shaped than the Tempest's helmets. There is also the issue with their funky wrists holding up Cable-style weapons. What do you think, fellow Dakka peons?

The minnows take me back to my childhood and the dawn of practical effects in movies. I like them because they look like non-denominational demons for 40k or something the Ghostbusters would catch on their lunch breaks. However, they certainly don't look like biological entities, especially not ones that could fly under their own power to terrorize the innocent, and this is going to cost them sales. Thoughts?

To clarify a touch, the Karist helmets are masks, so dont need quite the same level of space as full on helmets. Heroic scale always draws close to crazy bobble-headed-ness so maintaining 100% consistency across the range would lead to some odd looking models, instead we go as close as we can (plus different planets, different sized people, etc). The karists are using cybel weapons that are usually killing them slowly too!

The minnows look best from above (on the tabletop) and I look forward to sharing those images too They are the most alien of all creatures in our universe and are barely biological by standard classes. Their core is solid, but everything else is a form of gel which they can manipulate at will to take whatever form the situation requires. They have full gravitic control and are the inspiration for a lot of Karist technologies so the wings are more down to the state of the minnow's adaptive capacity than actually being needed for flight. The novels are full of info on the angels for more details. One of the huge angels in the novel is described as being a writhing mass of tentacles, yet is practically floating across the desert.

I'm not a big fan of the contractors myself close up, but holding the sprues I can honestly say that they look far better in person than the photographs would indicate.

I think sometimes we forget just how minute the detail on 28mm is to the naked eye from a metre plus away.

I'm a ninja

The other scale pics with the ruler are probably helpful too, for ease of discussing height of the models and the like:

Take that effect and multiply it by 20 and that is how 3D renders look on screen. It makes judging models without a 3D print extremely difficult!

So far, the minnow is my favorite. I love the heaviness of the design for a flying creature, indicating (to me at least) that it is actually swimming rather than flying -- maybe on the currents of transdimensional aether? These guys are definitely fauna from some kind of nightmare psychic ocean.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
To sum up:
Big head
too much lead
Shoulders? Jeez.
pads on knees
blocky caps
buttless chaps
dress-up day
work or play
What else do I have to say?

I think my US Marine buddy sums up the Epirians rather well

"I'm tired of sci fi guns. Why can't rifles be designed like, you know, rifles?

Also anything other than armor across the torso back and sides is unnecessary in modern warfare. Tired of seeing shoulder pads and what not.

No one aims at your shoulder or your leg or arm. They aim center mass."

Which is the same way I feel about ridiculous shoulder armor. WHY.

Thanks for making this thread! It doesn't really feel right being mean about the minis created by the ones who create the website I love so much on their own thread...

Honestly the only models I like are the Karist troopers. Sure their heads are a little small but the armoured look is really nice and I think with a few tweaks the weird hand placement could be fixed. Their fat bat friends however are awful. I can't envision them being able to fly at all with those massive bodies and they just look a little cartoony for my tastes.

The only thing I don't like about the Epiran troops is their massive shoulders. Granted I am a person of a very slim build but I thought the general rule for anatomy was that there should be space for one head between the end of your shoulder to your actual head? This looks more like a head and a half's width and the shoulder pads certainly don't help this look.

The drones look like they would fit really well into a present-day parallel Earth scenario but look far too low-tech for the Maelstrom universe. Now the bots shown in the art do look good as they have chunkier limbs and a few more sleek, rounded parts. Shame that aesthetic didn't pass off onto the actual models.

Another thing that bothers me is the inconsistency with bases. Round for the infantry, hexagon for the flying stuff and none for the drones? It just makes everything very jumbled looking. Still, it's not as bad as the Infinity bases with those add-on bits that they have on some of the bigger models.

Regarding the art I quite like it. While I am not a big fan of the heavily photoshopped stuff normally. It does seem to match with the setting from what I can gather from it. As the game progresses however, I would like to see more pencil and paintbrush art. It just looks far more edgy and portrays war and violence far more effectively.

I noticed that GW used a computer created piece of art for their Skitarii codex and I personally thought it was awful. Everything seemed too washed out and it looked like a bad poster for an old video game.

Anyway, while I do like aspects of this game (model wise that is), I don't think I will be joining in on the kickstarter as I think they still have a long way to go in perfecting the models. Of course I wish the team the best of luck. The more choice in games we have the better!

 judgedoug wrote:

"I'm tired of sci fi guns. Why can't rifles be designed like, you know, rifles?

That design choice is because when you are playing with models 1" tall and looking at them from 4 feet away across a table, it is nice to be able to see what type of weapons they are holding without going in for a close look every time. If we were making models that were not designed to be gaming pieces we'd have made a different design choice, but we definitely have the best balance it is possible to get - smaller than GW's giant weapons but larger than some of the spindly breakable things that you see on many true-scale models.

 legoburner wrote:
Your post is certainly welcome and acceptable, and thanks for opening with some compliments at least

Don't get me wrong; I am pledging hard for your game. I'm more excited for it than any other release in the last decade. There isn't a single mini I'd kick off the modelling table. I need those drones so bad, I'll give ya a sack o' cheeseburgers, man.

However, there were definitely issues with the official thread being heavily moderated and not feeling like a safe space for some members to voice their opinions.

I feel it prudent to ensure the scale reference pictures are also in place to keep comments on proportions in context:

(removed scale pics as ninjad by RiTides!)

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

The Tempest Elites are both incredibly menacing in design, and anatomically troubling. The biggest units have the smallest helmeted heads. There's no way a human (Epirian) head could fit into one of the trooper helmets, and those are more human head-shaped than the Tempest's helmets. There is also the issue with their funky wrists holding up Cable-style weapons. What do you think, fellow Dakka peons?

The minnows take me back to my childhood and the dawn of practical effects in movies. I like them because they look like non-denominational demons for 40k or something the Ghostbusters would catch on their lunch breaks. However, they certainly don't look like biological entities, especially not ones that could fly under their own power to terrorize the innocent, and this is going to cost them sales. Thoughts?

To clarify a touch, the Karist helmets are masks, so dont need quite the same level of space as full on helmets. Heroic scale always draws close to crazy bobble-headed-ness so maintaining 100% consistency across the range would lead to some odd looking models, instead we go as close as we can (plus different planets, different sized people, etc). The karists are using cybel weapons that are usually killing them slowly too!

The miniatures market is just in a difficult place right now, torn between 28mm, 32mm, 28mm Heroic, and "tru scale" 28mm. No matter which set of proportions you use, someone won't be happy. That said, the Epirian Contractors are easily the weakest minis in your herd, and the hyenas are hungry.

The minnows look best from above (on the tabletop) and I look forward to sharing those images too They are the most alien of all creatures in our universe and are barely biological by standard classes. Their core is solid, but everything else is a form of gel which they can manipulate at will to take whatever form the situation requires. They have full gravitic control and are the inspiration for a lot of Karist technologies so the wings are more down to the state of the minnow's adaptive capacity than actually being needed for flight. The novels are full of info on the angels for more details. One of the huge angels in the novel is described as being a writhing mass of tentacles, yet is practically floating across the desert.

I love all of that. Can't wait to read the novels. Unfortunately, without that knowledge of your background, the minis do not really convey all of that information on their own. They seem to be a somewhat love-them-or-hate-them design. The monopose nature of their sprues will also limit their usefulness for conversions. Still, nonhumanoid aliens in hard plastic are a rare and valuable commodity.

My main problem with the contractors is the posing. Take away the armour and the blocky cap and you're still stuck with models that have very rigid poses, with awkward arms and blocky fists.

My first thought on seeing the Contractors:-

 judgedoug wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The minnows take me back to my childhood and the dawn of practical effects in movies. I like them because they look like non-denominational demons for 40k or something the Ghostbusters would catch on their lunch breaks. However, they certainly don't look like biological entities, especially not ones that could fly under their own power to terrorize the innocent, and this is going to cost them sales. Thoughts?

They look exactly like monsters that would be thrown from off-camera at underpaid/undertalented Italian teenagers in a Mario Bava film circa 1979. Which means I love them. But for all the reasons I don't think the designers intended.

Yes! That's exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about! Although I might have thrown in some Roger Corman and bikinis.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Judgedoug posted a picture of a Technolog mini that captured the essence, the very (transferrable?) soul of an Epirian Contractor, in the other thread, but I'm not trawling back to find it.

Thank you!

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
What else do I have to say?

Since the Epirians appear to by physically larger than the powered armor gents, one must assume that either the Epirians are a foam rubber suit that is worn by another, normal-sized entity. Or that the Karists are small and slender and the Epirians of the future are uplifted children, retaining the same rough head-to-body ratio as a toddler.

It's a scale thing as Legoburner described. I would have to see them in real life to know how I feel about them. If worse comes to worst, I can swap out their heads with WGF plastics.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The drones are amazing and I am physically incapable of saying anything bad about them, except that they are too expensive. They need to be cheaper so I can buy more.

On this I agree; I've always loved the Battletech / Mechwarrior 4 Vulture

and I'm quite thrilled to see it's torso flying around or crawling along on spider legs. (Though I'd prefer DARPA style Big Dog legs)
But seriously, I want a giant pile of these.

 legoburner wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

"I'm tired of sci fi guns. Why can't rifles be designed like, you know, rifles?

That design choice is because when you are playing with models 1" tall and looking at them from 4 feet away across a table, it is nice to be able to see what type of weapons they are holding without going in for a close look every time. If we were making models that were not designed to be gaming pieces we'd have made a different design choice, but we definitely have the best balance it is possible to get - smaller than GW's giant weapons but larger than some of the spindly breakable things that you see on many true-scale models.

There have been any number of manufacturers that have pulled off near-truescale weapons that don't require getting close nor are easily breakable.



I could perhaps see the reasoning for guns that are as wide as they are tall if there was an array of them, but from what I see, there's one rifle type and one rifle w/ underslung grenade launcher type on the Epirian sprue?

 Manchu wrote:
So far, the minnow is my favorite. I love the heaviness of the design for a flying creature, indicating (to me at least) that it is actually swimming rather than flying -- maybe on the currents of transdimensional aether? These guys are definitely fauna from some kind of nightmare psychic ocean.

I totally get that vibe, too. It sounds like the background will fit in with that, so they are a successful representation. However, there are a lot of people who dislike the minnows, and I can also completely see why. Like campy old Adam West Batman, you either go with it or you hate it.

 judgedoug wrote:
There have been any number of manufacturers that have pulled off near-truescale weapons that don't require getting close nor are easily breakable.

Indeed. The Dreamforge guns are a great example of this.

I think we might have to agree to disagree on that one judgedoug - even on screen I did not immediately notice that the second row of your image there has three different types of gun, let alone from across the table.

If you make some more interesting guns with grenade launchers, scopes, combi-weapons, and everything else in a typical sci-fi game in that size you'll run into the size issue very very quickly.

Finally, those guns have much more length - make them all the size of that MP40 relative to the body like a modern AR and you'll also have more trouble identifying them across a 4 foot distance.

 Commander Cain wrote:


Regarding the art I quite like it. While I am not a big fan of the heavily photoshopped stuff normally. It does seem to match with the setting from what I can gather from it. As the game progresses however, I would like to see more pencil and paintbrush art. It just looks far more edgy and portrays war and violence far more effectively.

I noticed that GW used a computer created piece of art for their Skitarii codex and I personally thought it was awful. Everything seemed too washed out and it looked like a bad poster for an old video game.

You captured what makes the art seem weak. It does seem too washed out, whereas something that was drawn and then painted by hand would have more room for the artist to emphasize certain areas or add visual weight and technique to enhance the picture.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 judgedoug wrote:

I think my US Marine buddy sums up the Epirians rather well

"I'm tired of sci fi guns. Why can't rifles be designed like, you know, rifles?

Also anything other than armor across the torso back and sides is unnecessary in modern warfare. Tired of seeing shoulder pads and what not.

No one aims at your shoulder or your leg or arm. They aim center mass."

Which is the same way I feel about ridiculous shoulder armor. WHY.

So then the Defiance Games UAMC were perfect for you.

I'm not knocking them. The UAMC are very underrated in my view. They remind me a lot of the Colonial Marines Technical Manual in their design choices; small rifles, no shoulder pads, knee and shin guards so they can take cover and move comfortably, and a bulky helmet presumably full of sophisticated hardware.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You captured what makes the art seem weak. It does seem too washed out, whereas something that was drawn and then painted by hand would have more room for the artist to emphasize certain areas or add visual weight and technique to enhance the picture.

Your screen gamma and contrast has a much bigger effect on this than anything else - you dont have pure black on your monitor unless you have an amazing OLED display and everything configured correctly, so images are always going to look washed out on a screen compared to print. We'll have some printed images at Salute to show (including lots of exclusives), but until you see things printed in proper CMYK it is unfair to judge how washed out something is by what's on a screen... look at this washed out image:



The main battle image is designed to be zoomed in, but I chose to share the unfiltered, zoomed out version to aid in clarity of the content rather than pure artistic style. Check out the box cover image when the kickstarter launches on Friday to see how it looks cropped and surrounded by the appropriate filters and masking

Large spaces are also used for logos, book cover names, subtitles, etc. If you see a big gap you can guess what we intend to use the image for!

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
So far, the minnow is my favorite. I love the heaviness of the design for a flying creature, indicating (to me at least) that it is actually swimming rather than flying -- maybe on the currents of transdimensional aether? These guys are definitely fauna from some kind of nightmare psychic ocean.

I totally get that vibe, too. It sounds like the background will fit in with that, so they are a successful representation. However, there are a lot of people who dislike the minnows, and I can also completely see why. Like campy old Adam West Batman, you either go with it or you hate it.

Yeah, like I like a harder flavor of sci-fi, and flying Piranha IV: In Space batfish are firmly fantasy space opera.

I mean, I'll probably get some because they're so weird.

Fair enough. I look forward to the final image.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

So then the Defiance Games UAMC were perfect for you.

I'm not knocking them. The UAMC are very underrated in my view. They remind me a lot of the Colonial Marines Technical Manual in their design choices; small rifles, no shoulder pads, knee and shin guards so they can take cover and move comfortably, and a bulky helmet presumably full of sophisticated hardware.

The biggest problem with them was mushy leg detail and Tony Reidy; as they REALLY could have shone as a product line if a support set was released. I do have a box of them but a second box with shoulder-firing AT-4 or Javelin style weaponry, mortars, and MMGs would have made them perfect.

 judgedoug wrote:
... T**y R**dy...

Dude, dont use that name in a thread related to our game, that's like saying MacBeth in the theatre!

 legoburner wrote:
I think we might have to agree to disagree on that one judgedoug

To be fair, let's compare painted to painted



An obvious LMG, and obvious SMG, and the rest obvious rifles.

 judgedoug wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

So then the Defiance Games UAMC were perfect for you.

I'm not knocking them. The UAMC are very underrated in my view. They remind me a lot of the Colonial Marines Technical Manual in their design choices; small rifles, no shoulder pads, knee and shin guards so they can take cover and move comfortably, and a bulky helmet presumably full of sophisticated hardware.

The biggest problem with them was mushy leg detail and Tara Reid; as they REALLY could have shone as a product line if a support set was released. I do have a box of them but a second box with shoulder-firing AT-4 or Javelin style weaponry, mortars, and MMGs would have made them perfect.

I have half a box left that I plan to use for conversions with arms and weapons from WGF's WW2 American and Russian sets. They seem like they would work well to add more weapons and posed to the kit, but then the sleeves wouldn't be rolled up.

 judgedoug wrote:

 legoburner wrote:
I think we might have to agree to disagree on that one judgedoug

To be fair, let's compare painted to painted

An obvious LMG, and obvious SMG, and the rest obvious rifles.

I honestly don't think I would see that across the table.

The perils of wrist angles was covered by Judgedoug in the N&R thread but I'd like to bring up something similar:



Why is every 3rd contractor ready to play rock paper scissors at a moment's notice but can only apparently choose rock as per corporate policy? I realize a few other modern companies do something similar (like Infinity's RAGEfist!) but they're also criticized for doing it. It feels like a leftover from the 1990's and 2nd edition space marines with the little arm sprues where you always had that one hand that was either balled up into a fist or you tacked on a tiny combat knife to just put something/anything there. Is there any way that hand can be opened up or alternate hands? It contributes to the retro sculpting feel of these human models (which isn't the case with the other faction's humanoids) and I'm not sure if that style was by design, necessity, or accident.

The draw angle in plastics requires that you have each element be possible to create in a 2 part mould. Having an open hand in plastic requires the interior detail of the hand to be flush or close to flush which obviously looks pretty rubbish. If you can do a top/bottom mould then you can get it to work by having flat edges to the hand, but then the arm cant have much of a bend or the bicep area will need to be flat.

Models can get around that by having very simplistic arms (like space marines do with nothing notable above the elbow).

Fists can be fudged in to working by leaving the top and bottom of the fist flat, and allowing pooled washes/paint to create the effect of a closed hand instead of blunt hand.

The other pose that works sometimes is a finger pointing, but it is dependent on detail on the arm and is more restrictive in its use on multipose models.

We are past this point now and can do sliding cores which would let us get the best of both worlds, but these are our earlier miniatures before we learned such magic.

You'll note the karists have the exact same posed arm (balled fist)