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 yakface wrote:
However, like I've said a few times, I hope some or all of you might be able to make it out to Salute to see our models in person. Because I know that my reaction to seeing them in the flesh was very different to when I originally saw the pictures of them online, and I'd be willing to wager that more than a few of you might have a similar reaction to me when you actually see the models.

For the vast majority of us, though - Salute is obviously not going to be any kind of option, just the same as Adepticon. What this means is we really only have photographs to go on until either KS fulfilment or retail. "It looks better in hand" is a pretty common thing that's said about all kinds of products, after all.

Are there plans for distribution past kickstarter?

The problem i have with the eperians is that they have no shoulders it looks like the biceps are attached to the torso

 mikhaila wrote:
Are there plans for distribution past kickstarter?

There's been a bit of discussion on tournaments, etc in the other thread - and they started the project before KS was really a thing, so I assume the firm plan is to sell at retail via as many kinds of retailers/distribution channels as they can.

It says they plan on getting it to a retail version in the first post of the other thread. No dates though.

 yakface wrote:
On another site, I saw someone commenting on the MEdge models saying that heroic scale was a holdover from the 80's when sculptors sucked and is now something that is dated and has no place in the current marketplace. The thing is, heroic scale was not created because the sculptors were unable to properly represent human anatomy at 28mm. I think we can all agree that sculptors have been able to properly represent the human body at much smaller scales than that for many, many years.

Instead, the sculptors purposely exaggerate certain parts of the body knowing full well that we don't typically look at our models 6 inches from our face. We look at them from 3-5 feet away on the table, or 6-8 feet away if across the table. From that distance, 28mm models scaled proportionately tend to have spindly limbs, tiny heads, and tiny guns.

Sure, I think most people agree on this aspect. However, There's not just one "heroic 28mm". Heroic 28mm from the late 80's featured slightly exaggerated heads, weapons, and poses. During the 90's, the heroic proportions went insane - melon heads and ham-fists and the total removal of the waist. This was a specific "GW style" brought on by certain sculptors such as Gary Morley, and copied by other companies at the time for games such as Chronopia, Warzone, Void 1.1, and saturated the market in the late 90's.

In the last decade or so there has been a renewed interest by all non-GW companies to head back towards the normal-sized "heroic 28", going to normal proportions.

One can compare the GW 28 (GW, Chronopia, Warzone, Void 1.1, Maelstrom's Edge) to something like this, which is a great illustration between Truescale 28 (the HAT and Fife and Drum Figure) versus heroic 28 (the Perry dragoon, in the middle)



Truescale 28mm HAT, Heroic 28mm Perry, and Truescale 28mm Fife and Drum

And clearly this isn't the direction they chose to go. I think we get your complaints about the models, they aren't your cup of tea. But clearly they are someone's cup of tea so repeating the same thing isn't really getting any of us anywhere.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
The problem i have with the eperians is that they have no shoulders it looks like the biceps are attached to the torso

From the back, it looks like the shoulder pads sit almost entirely on the upper arm. That might be throwing off their proportions. The shoulders don't look nearly so wide from the back.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ozymandias wrote:
And clearly this isn't the direction they chose to go. I think we get your complaints about the models, they aren't your cup of tea. But clearly they are someone's cup of tea so repeating the same thing isn't really getting any of us anywhere.

There are a couple reasons I feel we should keep discussing them.

1. This is the thread for it. The other thread drowns out any discussion of the minis, and there is already a large pushback from hardcore fans here, which means we need to reiterate our concerns to make sure they are heard and understood. You don't make the best products by only listening to rave reviews. Some of us feel the game would be better suited if the threads didn't become echo chambers.

2. The more we can elaborate on where specifically the models went wrong and work out the fine points, the more information Spiral Arm has to improve the next wave. They must care about how many people don't like the minis, why, and how much. Based on their positive and negative voting system, they are clearly interested in trying to minimize the negatives while increasing the positives. Their next line of humans could be 28mm heroic and still be much more successful if they learn what specific cues are throwing off a lot of potential customers. As Judgedoug pointed out, there is more than one way to do 28mm heroic. Many of the flaws that turn people off of the Epicurians are avoidable and not inherent in the scale or overall design.

 Ozymandias wrote:
And clearly this isn't the direction they chose to go. I think we get your complaints about the models, they aren't your cup of tea. But clearly they are someone's cup of tea so repeating the same thing isn't really getting any of us anywhere.

I was responding to the history of heroic scale 28mm figures and how ME's figures aren't normal "heroic 28mm" but are of the particular proportional style adopted by GW in the mid-late 90's.

However, please feel free to continue to police all of my posts and let me know when I have overstepped the Ozymandias standards of what should be discussed.

Okay, this picture, the Red guy is a Karist Tempest right?

He looks BAD-ARSE.

I honestly like him more than the white and purple even though that's the canon appearance of the karist, due to cybel and maelstrom energies being purple and such. I definitely will be painting my Karist in a similar scheme although I can't at all hope for them to turn out that way, if one of the studio artists wants to share how he did that (even for profit ) I would be on top of that.

The regular Karist and the maskless "sergeant" also look pretty phenomenal and I'll be happy to model/paint those.

and I'll echo the praise of the drone models, they look pretty great. both flying and walking

But I'll also restate what some other posters have said that the minnows and the Epirian contractors are a little polarizing. You either love them or hate them and I was personally pretty turned off by the models. So I will probably be making the other player play them

I'm pretty happy with the current range and what is planned for both factions in that I'll definitely be backing, but what caught my interest the most was the mention of the Broken (Aliens, Pirates and Renegades! yes please! ) and other subfactions, I know you're not even a little bit close to that sculpting/release or even know when that will be, and that you guys are busy with the launch, kickstarter and Salute, but when you have time, can we have some hints please? Maybe concept art? I'm not basing my buying decision on this but I want to know if I should get excited for future releases as I already am

 judgedoug wrote:

 Ozymandias wrote:
And clearly this isn't the direction they chose to go. I think we get your complaints about the models, they aren't your cup of tea. But clearly they are someone's cup of tea so repeating the same thing isn't really getting any of us anywhere.

I was responding to the history of heroic scale 28mm figures and how ME's figures aren't normal "heroic 28mm" but are of the particular proportional style adopted by GW in the mid-late 90's.

However, please feel free to continue to police all of my posts and let me know when I have overstepped the Ozymandias standards of what should be discussed.

I wish I had that kind of time! Alas, you'll have to settle for a snarky comment every now and then.

Now this is a great idea!





It's like an insta-bitz box on a sprue! I can't number the amount of times I have thought "ooh, I just need a long pretty bit of plastic to spruce this up a bit". Seriously guys, this is pretty darn awesome.

I may not be into the minis themselves but I will definitely be getting some of these when they show up for sale. I bet we are going to see some pretty good terrain spring up from this stuff!

I am very excited about what MEdge may have to offer. I do admit there have been some modeling issues that have concern me (namely the wrists on the heavy Karist guys), but everything else has panned out well. The Epicurians look a lot better when paired with their robots (and probably even more so with whatever robots come in the future) and the Karists have a nice, signature look that I think will be very unique with the inclusion of the angel creatures.

The modular terrain is a fantastic solution. I have been impressed with the thought that has obviously gone into the execution of these ideas. It makes good sense, coming from folks who have played a number of different games and taking what works the best from each.

Looking forward to the Kickstarter tomorrow and seeing everything that's going to be available!

Judge, Bob - Just to be clear, where do you stand on the state of the contractor sculpts?

 mikhaila wrote:
Are there plans for distribution past kickstarter?

I asked this earlier and they said yes.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/644194.page#7745671

legoburner wrote:We have complete intention for this to be a full on retail release.

As is traditional in these situations, I have created a piece of concept art showing the kind of thing I'd like to see. The scale is ~6.4 heads tall - nowhere near as stylised as the plastic cadians are, but still a bit exaggerated.



What do you think?

 AlexHolker wrote:
As is traditional in these situations, I have created a piece of concept art showing the kind of thing I'd like to see. The scale is ~6.4 heads tall - nowhere near as stylised as the plastic cadians are, but still a bit exaggerated.



What do you think?

That looks really good! I like the way you've kept the design faithful to the original whilst also adding your own spin. Female figures were something we really wanted to do but we couldn't manage it this time around whilst keeping everything multipart and compatible with each other. We would definitely like to explore the possibility of female sculpts in the future if the Kickstarter and launch allows us the flexibility to do so, although the reality of designing in HIPS means it wouldn't be in the near future.

 monders wrote:
Judge, Bob - Just to be clear, where do you stand on the state of the contractor sculpts?

Oh, I love them! Not only fantastic sculpts but excellent proportions! The equipment shows that a lot of research went into real-life examples and obviously a lot of military personnel were interviewed about what type of equipment would be functional in battle. And the gun is just perfect.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Commander Cain wrote:
Now this is a great idea!

Spoiler:

It's like an insta-bitz box on a sprue! I can't number the amount of times I have thought "ooh, I just need a long pretty bit of plastic to spruce this up a bit". Seriously guys, this is pretty darn awesome.

I may not be into the minis themselves but I will definitely be getting some of these when they show up for sale. I bet we are going to see some pretty good terrain spring up from this stuff!

I agree! This is a great accessories sprue. It's a little overshadowed by Mantic's phenomenal Deadzone plastic terrain (and if this had come out three years ago I'd be ten time as excited), but this sprue (and the many more than I will buy) will get a lot of use over everyone's games tables.

 judgedoug wrote:

 monders wrote:
Judge, Bob - Just to be clear, where do you stand on the state of the contractor sculpts?

Oh, I love them! Not only fantastic sculpts but excellent proportions! The equipment shows that a lot of research went into real-life examples and obviously a lot of military personnel were interviewed about what type of equipment would be functional in battle. And the gun is just perfect.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Commander Cain wrote:
Now this is a great idea!

Spoiler:

It's like an insta-bitz box on a sprue! I can't number the amount of times I have thought "ooh, I just need a long pretty bit of plastic to spruce this up a bit". Seriously guys, this is pretty darn awesome.

I may not be into the minis themselves but I will definitely be getting some of these when they show up for sale. I bet we are going to see some pretty good terrain spring up from this stuff!

I agree! This is a great accessories sprue. It's a little overshadowed by Mantic's phenomenal Deadzone plastic terrain (and if this had come out three years ago I'd be ten time as excited), but this sprue (and the many more than I will buy) will get a lot of use over everyone's games tables.

Heck I can't wait to see what combining them yields.

Jerram wrote:

Heck I can't wait to see what combining them yields.

Along with Proxie's pre-fab building
http://www.proxiemodels.com/store2/index.php?route=product/product&path=18_45&product_id=88

No discussion on the rules yet?! :( I guess I'm one of the few that values rules over models or the universe. A game can look and sound as cool as heck but if it plays like garbage what's the point?

From the Kickstarter page: http://www.maelstromsedge.com/rules.pdf

Seems like the game could have been 5-6 models a side instead of 20-30 since the squad leader is the only one who really matters (for facing, line of sight, etc.), and the grunts are basically wound counters?

I like the movement stat, the VS roll is an interesting idea but also feels like an attempt to do 40k Str vs Toughness without a chart, instead of an original thought?

Sad to see it's D6 with roll to hit, roll to wound ("penetrate")...two rolls for combat resolution always feels tiring. The whole Armor, Mass, and Fortitude seems like one stat too many?

The flagship feature seems to be the suppression tokens, which are neat and remind me (visually) of Epic 40k. Stacking STs to prevent activation seems cool, as does keeping a unit suppressed until you can get in close and finish them off.
Although does the game tend to bog down into both sides "camping"? And then a lot of weight is put on failing activation rolls, and how much effect that can have?

I'd be interested to see a game being played, is there a video or full report anywhere?

How did you get that grunts are wound counters?

bosky, the D6 Generation podcast sat down with yakface for an hour to talk about the rules, you can listen to it starting 1 hour and 24 minutes in at this link:

http://www.thed6generation.com//d6g-ep-165-maelstroms-edge-preview-star-wars-armada-detailed-review

Here's the N&R thread what that podcast was posted, btw, if you want to comment on it where the D6G guys will see:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/645442.page

 Manchu wrote:
How did you get that grunts are wound counters?

Because they don't do anything but soak up wounds? In a squad with 5 grunts and a squad leader the squad leader could have 5x the firepower and it'd function the same. The individual grunt equipment doesn't seem to vary. They aren't used for individual line of sight or facing. All the suppression interaction and activation is done from the squad leader. Or did I miss something?

 RiTides wrote:
bosky, the D6 Generation podcast sat down with yakface for an hour to talk about the rules, you can listen to it starting 1 hour and 24 minutes in at this link:

http://www.thed6generation.com//d6g-ep-165-maelstroms-edge-preview-star-wars-armada-detailed-review

Here's the N&R thread what that podcast was posted, btw, if you want to comment on it where the D6G guys will see:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/645442.page

Awesome thanks for the heads up, I'll check those out right now!

Individual models in a squad can have different weapon loadouts.

There's many games where you can essentially bundle the squad's abilities into a single mini, but we don't, because its more fun with multiple models.

 bosky wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
How did you get that grunts are wound counters?

Because they don't do anything but soak up wounds? In a squad with 5 grunts and a squad leader the squad leader could have 5x the firepower and it'd function the same. The individual grunt equipment doesn't seem to vary. They aren't used for individual line of sight or facing. All the suppression interaction and activation is done from the squad leader. Or did I miss something?

Model-by-model LOS and facing determinations in a squad-based game? Sounds awful. Seems like the models in MEdge contribute to firepower in addition to unit strength.

 Manchu wrote:
Model-by-model LOS and facing determinations in a squad-based game? Sounds awful. Seems like the models in MEdge contribute to firepower in addition to unit strength.

Yes I agree, 28mm is in some ways a bad fit for larger skirmish or mass battle as a result, imho. 15mm combined bases work well for this reason. Basically having five squads of 6 models on the table because they look neat, not because they are functionally needed.

I think 28mm does skirmish really, really well. Bolt Action is my favorite miniatures game.

 Manchu wrote:
I think 28mm does skirmish really, really well. Bolt Action is my favorite miniatures game.

Yes for sure, but I don't think 30 models is skirmish though.

EDIT: Listening to the podcast, developer says it's meant to be a somewhat new niche of "squad based skirmish". So the squads could probably be a single model, but they chose to do squads instead.

Also yakface pointed out that Command Points automatically increase each turn, which I think is a great idea, much like mana crystals in Hearthstone. Sort of lends a tension and escalating conflict feel to the game.

 bosky wrote:
No discussion on the rules yet?! :( I guess I'm one of the few that values rules over models or the universe. A game can look and sound as cool as heck but if it plays like garbage what's the point?

From the Kickstarter page: http://www.maelstromsedge.com/rules.pdf

Seems like the game could have been 5-6 models a side instead of 20-30 since the squad leader is the only one who really matters (for facing, line of sight, etc.), and the grunts are basically wound counters?

I like the movement stat, the VS roll is an interesting idea but also feels like an attempt to do 40k Str vs Toughness without a chart, instead of an original thought?

Sad to see it's D6 with roll to hit, roll to wound ("penetrate")...two rolls for combat resolution always feels tiring. The whole Armor, Mass, and Fortitude seems like one stat too many?

The flagship feature seems to be the suppression tokens, which are neat and remind me (visually) of Epic 40k. Stacking STs to prevent activation seems cool, as does keeping a unit suppressed until you can get in close and finish them off.
Although does the game tend to bog down into both sides "camping"? And then a lot of weight is put on failing activation rolls, and how much effect that can have?

I'd be interested to see a game being played, is there a video or full report anywhere?

Great questions!

Having the models in a unit actually 'matter' vs. streamlining mechanics to keep things simple for squad-based gameplay, but I can assure you that the other members of the unit play a major role in how the unit behaves. Just a few major things about them:

1) Each model can theoretically have its own weapon loadout and those weapons each fire distinctly.
2) The range of the unit is measured from the closest model to whatever you're measuring to (including holding an objective), so the placement of the models changes the range of the unit.
3) Units are in/out of cover based on whether 1/2 of the unit's models are in cover or not. So if you have some models in/out of cover in the unit (like some models in the unit out of cover holding an objective), when it comes time to choose casualties, you have a tough choice of whether to pull the guys in cover (thereby risking the unit no longer being in cover) or pulling the guys out of cover (and risk being out of range of the objective, etc).
4) If a unit leader happens to be killed (which can happen with sniper weapons, etc), you have to pick another model in the unit to become squad leader.
5) When shooting, the offensive characteristics of each model matter (so the SKL characteristic of each firer matters, for example).
6) When being shot at, the most common characteristic across the unit matters...so if you have a unit with split characteristics, the most common amongst the unit is the one that is used.