Battle for Zycanthus - First batch baked

I thought I would paint up the more generic "grunt" type units of the boxset.

This will leave the more interesting droid and alien units to paint up at some later date. I did this entirely contrary to my original intentions, which were to plug those big robots into some ruleset or other. That is still some vague intention down the road...

For anyone that was on the fence over this game I have to say I don't think you missed much. Construction was a pain, and the overall look is "chonky" in the extreme. Maybe I can use these chaps as some sort of "space engineers", technicians of some sort or another - that's the look they capture for me.

I far prefer these characters - they're a little more lithe and throw some more interesting silhouettes than the other 'team'. Fine for some hi-tech random-son-of-a-bitch baddies in Five Parsecs. 

Maelstrom's Edge: Battle for Zycanthus: miniatures assembled.

 This is another of those ebay "rescues" that I've become prone to.

It was the full game and had been languishing for some time on the site at a very low price. Given that it contains a fair amount of miniatures

and that I like and need generic sci-fi chaps for games like "Five Parsec from Home" it had to be worth a punt for 40-odd miniatures.

The game itself had been a project of some of the "dakka-dakka" site members - but I knew nothing of it before spotting it for auction. I think if it picked up a following anywhere that it might be in the US, there's precious little on UK sites. I did ask and was told by a forum goer that it felt like "a game that had been designed by someone that had only ever played 40k." Can't say that that is very enticing.

It is safe to say that the miniature assembly is arduous. Even biceps and forearms need gluing on certain models, and even those with a monopose as the end result. Some very odd choices made over all of the models that turned a couple of days gluing into the best part of a week's work.

Very little cleanup for once though. That's good.

I quite like the end results. The "alien dude" faction especially have some good poses. The other faction have solid mechs/drones and pretty fighters, looking to me something like high end site security teams. Frankly, painting them will be less of a chore than putting them together. There's something very 'off' about the proportions of  some units, but for less than EM4 money I'm not whining.

There are just one of each type of mini pictured, the actual full teams contain multiple figures of the grunt type characters. I'd recommend it if you could find it cheaply, perhaps? Especially if pre-built. There is a great variety there, for the kind of purposes I have lined up for it.