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I hope you don't mind panic, but would love to see what your contractors look like all "Doomed" up. I think I'll hold off buying the heads until I see if what you come up with fits my vision. Which blog of your's should I sub so I can see how you get on?

yeah,
I'll start a new blog once I get started.
I'll post a link here

Panic...

From Kickstarter update 56

It has been a long time coming (and thanks for your patience!) but we are finally in a position to share some images of the models which fill out the Maelstrom's Edge box set which anyone who pledged at $90+ is getting.

The Kaddar Nova


While the Kaddar Nova is a member of the Karist Enclave priesthood, they are often granted operational control on the battlefield due to their experience and their revered status amongst members of the Enclave. Kaddar Novae have been exposing themselves to na-cybel energy for significant periods of time, and their bodies are ravaged by it. Towards the end of their careers, they become able to tolerate much larger doses of all kinds of cybel energy, resistant after so much time seeking apotheosis and communion with the Maelstrom.

Kaddar Novae are seen as courageous seers by the Enclave, their intense na-cybel exposure sometimes granting visions, and they are fervent believers in becoming one with the Maelstrom. There is an odd juxtaposition of character for these priests. On the one hand, they believe in destroying themselves slowly for great reward later, yet most treat their fellow cultists with love and respect. They do not seek suffering for its own sake but believe in the sacrifice of their bodies for a better existence after ascension.

A Kaddar Nova carries a large and unwieldy back- mounted cybel reactor, a device their unusual tolerance level to cybel energy uniquely enables them to bear. This reactor pack allows a Kaddar Nova to function on the battlefield in a number of different roles dependent upon the needs of that particular battle. They can use their kinetic shield to protect nearby allies, suddenly leap forward with a kinetic boost and catch the enemy by surprise, or they can overcharge their Kinetic Gauntlet to destroy a powerful enemy unit or knock down whole swathes of enemy troops.

In the most desperate of times, a Kaddar Nova will even detonate their cybel reactor, immolating themselves in a conflagration of cybel energy and real matter to swing the course of a battle and inspire their forces. In the view of most Karists, complete destruction of one’s body all but guarantees that person cannot ascend. Yet a Kaddar Nova that chooses to obliterate themselves shows not only their utter dedication to the Karist way, but also a supreme belief that they are so prepared for ascension that not even the total loss of their body will prevent them from doing so.



Karist Shadow Walkers





Shadow Walkers are a mysterious sub-sect, even inside the Karist Enclave itself. Seeming to be neither military nor priesthood, the Shadow Walkers answer only to the Heirarchs, and are a deadly mix of assassin and battlefield intelligence agent. Gifted with unique and terrifying abilities via their lightweight and highly advanced Veil-suits, a Shadow Walker has peerless mobility and infiltration capabilities. The rift technology in their suits is able to tear small tunnels into cybel space, allowing a form of teleportation colloquially referred to as ‘rifting’. Shorter jumps can be made with relative ease and rapidity, but attempting to rift over greater distances takes a toll on the Shadow Walker’s body, requiring them to spend precious moments to recover after re-emerging.

Shadow Walkers are deployed to target worlds by the Heirarchs decades in advance of the main Karist vanguard. Trained to blend into society, Shadow Walkers ascend to roles of responsibility within the enemy planet’s military and political structure, using their influence to hide the arrival of the Enclave’s missionaries and soldiers. During the infiltration phase of Karist operations, Shadow Walkers provide intelligence and resources to the hidden Karist forces, and even perform assassinations to eliminate suspicious or obstructive officials.

On the battlefield, Shadow Walkers use their unparallelled mobility to capture important objectives, but also to identify and attack vulnerable enemy units with close quarters fighting.

It is here the Shadow Walkers put their cybel-edged blades and deadly Nox Pistols to devastating use, ripping apart the enemy battle plan with careful executions of enemy leadership, before disappearing once more. Sometimes just the rumour of Shadow Walkers present on a planet can be enough to sow fear amongst the enemy lines.



Epirian Handlers





Epirian Handlers are highly valued employees of the Foundation and the image of a Handler controlling a group of robots is one of the most iconic representations of the Epirian Foundation’s technological prowess. Whether it be piloting starships or making minute adjustments to a terraforming auto-processor by feel alone, Bot Handlers enhance the productivity of any technology they link to. A series of probes and sensors in their helmet directly tracks the Handler’s brainwaves and processes them through a cognitive buffer before sending code packets to the recipient robots. The level of control of the linked robot is largely related to the cognitive capacity and multi-tasking threshold of the individual Handler.

The title of Journeyman represents the second major rank of the Handler trade, signifying that the individual has moved beyond the rudimentary tactile interface of an Apprentice and onto the neural interface that Epirian Handlers are synonymous for. This neural interface allows them to control several bot units at once, potentially turning even a diminutive Epirian Force into a very real threat. Journeyman Handlers are therefore deployed either leading a force of their own, or given charge over a detachment of robotic units while under the command of a more senior Foundation associate, such as a Prospector or Master Handler.

Journeyman Handlers prefer to fulfil their role from the back of the battlefield, directing their robotic minions while also communicating with orbital and remote assets to call down targeted airstrikes at critical moments. Although not known for their combat prowess, Handlers are armed with a modified Maglock pistol, which utilises rudimentary micro drone ammunition, allowing the bullet to make minor course corrections during flight. This specialised ammunition vastly improves the pistol’s range and lethality over the standard Maglock Guardian pistol upon which it was originally based.

As a Handler’s skill improves, they invariably reinvest their earnings back into upgrading their technology suite, often in the form of expensive, personalised micro drones. These insect-sized robots come in a wide variety of dedicated forms: drones that aid the Handler’s visual assessment of the battlefield, those that improve the Handler’s aim, or even a swarm of personal attack drones capable of overwhelming a foe at close range with thousands of cuts from their bullet-like bodies.



The Completed Karist Forces

Here's what comes in the Battle for Zycanthus box set. Our awesome backers get an entire extra mature Angel on top of this:



and a top view to show the size of the minnows a bit more effectively:



The Completed Epirian Forces

Everything you see in each image below comes in one battle for zycanthus box set as well!








Thanks everyone! It has been very hard work getting to this point


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's a big picture of what comes in one standard Maelstrom's Edge $90 / £60 box set:



and a slightly raised angle:

Woot!

Really, really love those bot handlers.

The left desert colour journeyman handler gives me a total Dredd vibe

The Kaddar Nova is my favorite of the bunch. He looks like quite the badass leader. Is that the sprue that comes with 2 of everything except heads?

The Shadow Walker is cool, but that was expected. Think I might chop the elbow blade off of mine.

The Bot Handlers look like Calvin imagining himself as a Veritech pilot, so naturally I love them. Very stylish minis.

Very tasty. Can't wait to see it hit the shelves.

Those bot handlers look awesome! Well done.

The pics of the painted boxed set forces look brilliant. For some reason, I thought the Scarecrows were much taller! The bot handlers are my favorite sculpts of the bunch.

I'm really liking the photos of all the painted minis. I was sceptical of the Kaddar Nova based on the original KS artwork but the mini looks fantastic so well done to who ever sculpted that one.

Thanks everyone!

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The Kaddar Nova is my favorite of the bunch. He looks like quite the badass leader. Is that the sprue that comes with 2 of everything except heads?

The shadow walker sprue comes with 2 of everything except heads. The Kaddar Nova sprue comes with 3 sets of legs, 5 arm options, 2 head options and 1 torso/backpack configuration. You can see the pointing arm kaddar has straight facing legs, whereas the other kaddar has is leaning towards its left leg.

I'm really liking the photos of all the painted minis. I was sceptical of the Kaddar Nova based on the original KS artwork but the mini looks fantastic so well done to who ever sculpted that one.

The Kaddar was a very challenging model to sculpt. The artwork was used as the main basis of course, but the bend of the legs in the artwork, when converted to the model, resulted in it looking like it was defecating. This lead to the internal sculpter reference for the model being 'poopy pants guy', to the point where a number of filenames got that note in them! Understandably, with that being the initial reaction to the first sculpt, we notably reduced the bend in the legs to give it strength and poise, but not look like a pooping child! Just a simple thing like changing the leg bend had a massive knock on effect for the sculpting as it changed the height of the model to a moderate degree, which meant we had to do a bunch more proportion tests and checks to know what we could scale and what had to be resculpted to get the final height at the level fitting the command model for the force.

Here are the sprue images for those who missed them before. The sprue images below are not the final sprues - the end sprues are higher quality, better sharpness and have part labels to make it easy to figure out which leg pairs with which robe, etc.

Handler


Kaddar


Shadow Walker

The bot handler do look nice!

Gah I miss so much stuff in stupid god threads.

It'll be easy enough to make a second Shadow Walker from that sprue using some of tbe helmetless Karist heads. Does the Bot Handler sprue make two guys? And is one of those Handler heads wearing a fully enclosed helmet?

 Barzam wrote:
It'll be easy enough to make a second Shadow Walker from that sprue using some of tbe helmetless Karist heads. Does the Bot Handler sprue make two guys? And is one of those Handler heads wearing a fully enclosed helmet?

Yes, the bot handler sprue makes two guys, leaving a load of spare arms and legs. There are three helmets for the handler - open, visor and fully enclosed. The Kaddar Nova has a cool crown/mask head which is an extremely detailed bit of plastic and is next in the painting queue

These really turned out very nice, I can't wait to get my hands on the new characters/solos!

Notification in my inbox told me that my copy of ME is on its way. Awesome!

I keep on forgetting to fill out my pledge manager. I see the reminder everytime I go to work, but the site is blocked here and I forget about it when I get home.

I got my books this week. Haven't had a chance to read them, but they will probably be reading fodder on my upcoming trip to Japan. Here's hoping that the game itself is shipping soon.

 Nicorex wrote:
Notification in my inbox told me that my copy of ME is on its way. Awesome!

Just to clarify, if you check your order at maelstromsedge.com, you'll see it is just the terrain sprues that shipped so far - the rest is coming in December at best estimate

Why do you have to break my heart Lego????

 Nicorex wrote:
Why do you have to break my heart Lego????

No, that's a good thing... Gives you time to get some terrain assembled, so that's out of the way when your models arrive

Really looking forward to getting my hands on the rules soon. The pages shown in the latest e-mail update are very reminiscent of GW's older style of demonstrating game mechanics and I like the look.

Edit: Ha! My post count is 1337

With the release of the rules PDF and unit cards on the website, is there a chance of release of a weapons table? Not asking for 100% of them, but the weapons the unit cards on the website list would be good so that people cold demo the game out and see if they want to buy into it or not. I know our groups interested but would like weapons so we could try ito ut

Hi str00dles1, we are indeed working on summary sheets at the moment as they are certainly helpful for everybody.

The full details of the weapons can be found in pretty condensed form in the rulebook right now as well - certainly printable over a couple of pages. Check the back of the Epirian and Karist unit sections to see them.

Thanks!

Great to know, and thanks for the reply!

Love rules summery pages so looking forward to it. A friend got the digital rulebook so I ended up making 2 reference weapon pages in excel for each faction.

From the latest kickstarter update - anyone can pre-order maelstrom's edge products right now and still make it in to the first wave of shipping!

Everything is on track for Maelstrom's Edge to begin shipping in the middle of this month, and we are getting to the point where we have to finalise our shipping numbers and book in our packing teams. This means that the deadline for completing the pledge manager, if you want to be in the first wave of shipping, is NOON GMT on December 8th! Not long at all! If you have not completed the pledge manager by this time, your order will not be sent until the next batch go out in the new year.

If you are not a kickstarter backer, you can also get in on the first wave of shipping if you are fast and use the pledge manager on maelstromsedge.com by the same deadline. If you've got friends who have been on the fence about picking up a box set, then give them a poke as they wont ever get a better deal on Maelstrom's Edge than this one!

If you have already used the pledge manager, then please take a moment to view your address on the Maelstrom's Edge website to make sure it is correct and up to date so that your order arrives without any issues! Now is the time to add any last minute extras with additional orders as well - good timing if friends and family are struggling with Christmas present ideas for you!

When completing the pledge manager, a few users have reported errors or declined credit cards. All outstanding issues on our end have now been fixed as far as we know, so if you have been rejected before, please try again. The vast majority of declined cards are due to your bank randomly blocking the transaction, so if you see a decline, please call your bank and get them to allow the transaction, then try once more. We are tracking all failed transactions, so if you've tried to complete the pledge manager, and have re-tried your card between now and the 8th but have another declined transaction, we'll get in touch with you directly on the 8th to help resolve any issues and ensure that you dont miss out.

We are extremely excited to be so close to getting Maelstrom's Edge shipped out and into your hands. Thank you once again for your wonderful support!

Spiral Arm Studios

Looks like we won't get that free extra Hunter after all.


Guess I'd better add one to my order...

Hold on a minute, SAS. You're going to deliver this Kickstarter on time? I'm so disappointed in you. I really thought you understood the way these things work.

"By gamers for gamers," "we love our wonderful backers," and so on are supposed to be treacly, insincere sales pitches, with no reflection on actual service or customer satisfaction. Do you even know what insincere means? It means, "NOT sincere." As in, lying to customers to sell a product. Duh.

You'd better really let us down on the quality of your sprues, or switch your casting material to bendy PVC at the last minute, or forget to put drones in all the boxed sets. At the very least, make the game available in stores before we get our pledge rewards, and make sure it's selling at a lower price than we paid for it.

Something.

We wargame Kickstarter backers expect a certain standard to be upheld, after all.

Vermontermales some good points: this is unlike other kick starters... Maybe there will be secret scale issues between models later? Or they will just run off with the money? There must be something!

Ps just cracked and ordered more stuff...