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I wouldn't mind seeing a return of Confrontation.

Let it die already .

If Poalo owns the rights and brings it back it will have cheesecake boobs on everything....even the dwarves and goblins

The old metals were pretty damn gorgeous (if a bit...specific in their aesthetic). I remember collecting some back in college. I'd be happy to see a proper line of miniatures again - the pre-painted stuff was pretty poor by comparison.

I wouldn't mind a return of Confrontation, i liked it, some gorgeous miniatures

Some new Wolfen and Devourers would be awesome!

Confrontation was the game that brought me back into miniature games (after I quit during my teens and early adulthood). The rules were great and the minis (usually) stunning. Though, it did seem to suffer quite a bit from power creepness were new releases would blow out old ones out of the water, and, like current 40K, it was overbloated and hard to keep up with all the new releases. Their solution (4th Ed Age of Ragnarok, mmm, that sound pretty familiar :s ) was simply a disaster. The rules super messy and worst of all, the pre-painted plastic minis, not only overpriced, but plain awful.

Yes, the last edition of the game - Confragnarok - and the Pre-Painted Minis were certainly the death blow for the Confrontation brand and for Rackham.

Yeah that was a mindboggling decision. A thousdand time worse than AOS introduction

English announcement flyer is up: http://www.sans-detour.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/communique-confresurrection-EN.pdf

What is interesting is that "Stellar Licensing & Consulting Limited" is listed as trademark owner of "Confrontation, Cadwallon and Aarklash" on the flyer while my searches still show Cyanide as trademark holder for the EU and US.

I would kill for a relaunch of the prepainted plastics. They are still some of the best sculpted plastic models ever released by any manufacturer - the Lion and Ram, especially, and the best prepaints ever, putting most average-skilled painters to shame.

Plus, the game was absolutely fun.

It's a shame the steel molds are rusting in a warehouse in China somewhere.

These abominations are not coming back any time soon

I'm just glad that we don't seem to be talking about the return of the pre-painted plastic stuff here though.

Maybe you saw some great stuff somewhere?

But I never did - especially compared to the brilliance that was their metals.

I always wondered how the Rackham sculptors felt when they produced work that was orders of magnitude superior to the metal sculpts only to have a handful of vocal people claim they were 'abominations'

Yet no one has produced better undead models before or since the plastic Ram..


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 Alpharius wrote:
I'm just glad that we don't seem to be talking about the return of the pre-painted plastic stuff here though.

Maybe you saw some great stuff somewhere?

But I never did - especially compared to the brilliance that was their metals.

I just did. The Lion and the Ram armies were beautiful. Superior sculpts to the metals and painted better than the vast majority of painters.

The metals were great for late 90's and early 2000's, but most of them needed an update, which the same sculptors then provided for C4, outshining their earlier brilliant work.

They probably just figured that 'all sorts of people have all sorts of opinions' and that the pre-paints really let down the sculpting, maybe?

 Alpharius wrote:
They probably just figured that 'all sorts of people have all sorts of opinions' and that the pre-paints really let down the sculpting, maybe?

Sure, and those opinions are wrong. Especially when the evidence of, say, the Lion Chimera, handily proves the point. The original sculpt is pretty great for 1998, the resculpt (and prepaint) is like an order of magnitude better. Same goes for the rest of the Lion range, honestly.

But of course, nearly everyone is wrong except you

 judgedoug wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
They probably just figured that 'all sorts of people have all sorts of opinions' and that the pre-paints really let down the sculpting, maybe?

Sure, and those opinions are wrong. Especially when the evidence of, say, the Lion Chimera, handily proves the point. The original sculpt is pretty great for 1998, the resculpt (and prepaint) is like an order of magnitude better. Same goes for the rest of the Lion range, honestly.

That might be one of the most hilariously ridiculous things you've ever typed, anywhere!

But it will at least get me to go look for pics of these minis again!

I have a bunch of wolfen prep Anita that I can field a kings of war army with (ogres or undead using them as werewolves). Between Miniaturemarket having them on clearance all the time and wrath of kings using the same sculptor (I think), there is plenty of variety. Plus more and more wolfen keep showing up in Kickstarters like massive darkness, zombicide Black Plague and others. I never played confrontation, back then the looks were not appealing to me, and the gryphon are definitely not to my liking in the prepaints, but they are great models from the time period.

No mini line inspired me more to learn to paint that perfect NMM, and the dreams still lingers.
Reading the Cry Havoc magazine painting guide and their awesome terrain building guides.
The hobby is a big part of it all. Nobody wanted those pre-paints thats why you still can buy them for bargain prices and the metals sell for premium on ebay.

I'm finding I can't form any sort of coherent reaction to the sentiment that the plastics were 'orders of magnitude' superior to the metals. My brain just can't seem to resolve that into anything making a lick of sense, sorry.

If what we're going to end up with here is a reissue of those plastics then I think a lot of people will be instantly out, much as they were 7-8 years ago!

Also, I've seen somewhere that the people behind this are releasing more info tomorrow, I think in the form of a video. Third hand information though so could be well off.

I thought the prepaints were pretty good for the time.

I have to agree on the Chimera too- if you compare that thing to what Wiz Kids and WOTC were doing at the time, its way beyond what else was on the market.

Of course sculpt-wise most of the plastics didn't even come close to the quality of the metals, but its a bit of an apples to oranges comparison these days.
In hindsight it would have been cool to see both lines coexist, as there were certainly demands for both types of figures.

I'll throw another thumbs up for the poor maligned pre-paints. The whole lions range is pretty nice as is most of the wolfen stuff and the gunpowder guys. I've never seen the undead in person so can't comment.

One of the problems I noticed with the wolves was that there seemed to be 2 version of the same models, one with lots of painted detail and the same model (starter set maybe?) that only came with 2 or 3 colors. I've repainted those and the white Vestals that I didn't like and got nice results.

Obviously the move from boutique unpainted metal to prepainted plastics was not what a lot of fans wanted to see. But looking back at those models - never having the brand-love bias - they ARE really nice models. The sculpt as good or far better than anything of that time and miles better than any prepaint of that era.

There's a difference between saying the prepainted minis were decen or even good (which I think they were, the AT 43 ones were good also), and saying that they were much better than the metal ones (which amount to fishing for attention)

haha, that's why a C4 Ram army box sells for upwards of $400 alone, and $100+ for a unit of Vamphyrs.

It's not fishing for attention, it's a compliment to the sculptors. They did a much, much better job.

I think there's some weird groupthink going on where rose-tinted glasses somehow think this sculpt, which would be laughable if Mantic released it,






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Cryptek of Awesome wrote:
One of the problems I noticed with the wolves was that there seemed to be 2 version of the same models, one with lots of painted detail and the same model (starter set maybe?) that only came with 2 or 3 colors. I've repainted those and the white Vestals that I didn't like and got nice results.

Yes, this is the one that most of the C4 haters remember. Rackham released the starter sets with like 4 color paint jobs. Rackham-E then released starter sets with full paint jobs. Unfortunately, the Wolfen army box was the one that got into the wild. The sculpts are still fantastic, though, the same sculptor as the metal Wolfen range, really able to let his talent go wild as he was able to work with larger models without the limitations of the metal medium. By the time Rackham reorganized as Rackham-E and made the smart decision to include the fully painted models in the army boxes for Lion and Ram - with shading and higlighting and decals applied - it was too late.

Nice boobs!

 judgedoug wrote:
haha, that's why a C4 Ram army box sells for upwards of $400 alone, and $100+ for a unit of Vamphyrs.

Really? Hmmm, I should look at selling mine. When Rackham went under, I spent the next year picking up one of every SKU from AT-43 and C4. I remember ordering a C4 rulebook from MM for $1 and they just sent me a starter set. Was hoping maybe they would get resurrected somewhere along the line, but that's pretty good coin for something that's just collecting dust.

 Alpharius wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
They probably just figured that 'all sorts of people have all sorts of opinions' and that the pre-paints really let down the sculpting, maybe?

Sure, and those opinions are wrong. Especially when the evidence of, say, the Lion Chimera, handily proves the point. The original sculpt is pretty great for 1998, the resculpt (and prepaint) is like an order of magnitude better. Same goes for the rest of the Lion range, honestly.

That might be one of the most hilariously ridiculous things you've ever typed, anywhere!

But it will at least get me to go look for pics of these minis again!

It's funny cuz it's true! On any subject you can have a myriad of opinions - but it doesn't mean they're all valid or correct. Especially in this case. A huge, huge portion of the Confrontation range was aging, and really showing the signs. The rage today is as humorous as the rage when R and R-E were releasing them, as it was the same sculptors redoing their earlier efforts, making better models, working in a superior medium that allowed them to make larger and more complex models with far more dynamic sculpts, but because it wasn't super precious metals, there were tears shed everywhere in every direction.

Personally I can't even stand the look of the C3 Lion of Alahan or Ram of Acheron models anymore, they're so.. .bad, goofy, awkward sculpts that would be fine for lowest-bidder Reaper Bones releases nowadays. The plastics are just better. Even the Wolfen plastics are overall superior to the metal C3 sculpts, with the exception of a few characters and the Worgs. It's a pity they never got to the Devourers! Stephan Simon's best work for Rackham were his plastic sculpts (and his metal ones are probably the only ones from the C3 range that still hold up to this day)


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Triple9 wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
haha, that's why a C4 Ram army box sells for upwards of $400 alone, and $100+ for a unit of Vamphyrs.

Really? Hmmm, I should look at selling mine. When Rackham went under, I spent the next year picking up one of every SKU from AT-43 and C4. I remember ordering a C4 rulebook from MM for $1 and they just sent me a starter set. Was hoping maybe they would get resurrected somewhere along the line, but that's pretty good coin for something that's just collecting dust.

If you have the RAM, then yes, definitely, But they sold so fast that only the first production wave made it to stores before R-E went under. I'd double check if I were you.
I actually sold 2 starter boxes, a unit of Wamphyrs, and one or two extra sets, for $900 a couple years ago. They are highly valued as the plastic C4 Ram range is often considered the best sculpts that Rackham ever released.


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DanceOfSlaanesh wrote:
Nice boobs!

I used Confrontation Lion of Alahan plastic prepaints as the bulk of this Kings of War army here - https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/558282.page

 judgedoug wrote:
haha, that's why a C4 Ram army box sells for upwards of $400 alone, and $100+ for a unit of Vamphyrs.

It's not fishing for attention, it's a compliment to the sculptors. They did a much, much better job.

I think there's some weird groupthink going on where rose-tinted glasses somehow think this sculpt, which would be laughable if Mantic released it,

Spoiler:

is somehow on the same level as this sculpt

.

That's not a good argument. Them selling for that much is not a proof of the quality of the sculpts. Some hero quest expansions and OOP citadel minis are selling at almost a 1000$. Doesn't means that the sculpts are high quality (I have them and they are rather poor). As you said, the reason that the Ram box are going for so much is due to their scarcity.

And I can understand defending the sculpt, but defending the material leaves me completely thunderstrcuk. The plastic they used was soft as butter. I usually prefer plastic to metal, bit no way was THAT plastic superior to metal.

I dont know, its been a while and interests shifted.
I for one will let the hundreds of posts and opinions about the fiasco that PPP was for R, RIP in the long forgotten Rackham forums…
Dont care about it anymore. Its dead.

On the other hand I care about the minis and those are forever some of the best in the industry.

Main question would be if I will jump on board again collecting them like a mad man like I did back then. Not today.
I still have my Uraken and to be honest dont need more.

The plastic minis were good sculpts. Not as detailed, perhaps, as the metals, but good nonetheless, and they worked well alongside one another.

The problem was the painting - nowhere near the standard of AT-43, and they made the sculpts look worse than they were.

Also, Rackham changed from square to round bases before it was cool.