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People should post this to KS page in comments sections, so folks up there know the situation...more red flags on top of forrest of red flags there out there.

If you want to talk to them, you can contact them through facebook, they respond fairly fast (Though slightly aggressive).

A quick update about the rules.
In the Celebration Box, will be included two booklets (in english and in french) with "Quick Start Rules" for you to be able to explore quickly the gameplay of Confrontation.
If you want to go deeper into the game with some advanced rules then jump into the complete rules of Confrontation 3-3.5 !

You can now download those for free on our website (www.confrontation-universe.com) and they are available in french, english, italian, german and spanish.
The QSR (Quick Start Rules) will also be available on the website later.

Sounds like backers won't even get a printed copy of the full rule set, but only the QSR?

And they always just direct the backers to the community. At least they should have prepared some stuff to share.

ced1106 wrote:
Good work, Duncan and Fenriswolf!

Well, that's another IP wasted. So far, only Mantic, Monolith, and possibly Mythic I can trust.

Yeah same from me, I had no idea about the Ludik Bazaar connection. You've saved a lot of people a lot of money!

Anybody knows how molds are made for pvc miniatures?
As they will have 178 unique minis that's a lot of molds. Usually all other kickstarters have lots of duplicates.
For hard plastic I know they cut in the mold in a big piece of steel. And for metal miniatures they use a big piece of rubber which it is pressed into.
But how are pvc made?



Automatically Appended Next Post:
And one curious thing, ludik bazaar sold some of the old molds for metal confrontation miniatures before. How come they had them? Kinda weird.

So sad.

As mentioned before, not a good use for a fantastic IP, with gorgeous miniatures and fun gameplay...

Odds are that this one will probably not ship at all, and if it somehow manages to pull it off, the quality of the PVC minis will be...not good. At all.

1. create a digital file,

that can be done via digital sculpting or scanning a traditional sculpt (and tidying up any bits that don't look right via digital sculpting)

1a. 'Cut' up the digital sculpt for casting you need lots of skill here, lots of little bits are easier but tend not to please gamers, and aesthetics are important too eg no cuts down the middle of a face even if it is easier

a good example of this is Adam from Kingdom Death personally reviewing the cuts on all his sculpts as despite their skill and experience the factory he uses still makes odd choices as to where cuts go sometimes (Adam doesn't mind lots of small pieces, but does draw the line as those messing up the look of the final piece

2. Tool a mould on a CNC machine using the digital file

the material chosen is based on how many 'pulls' you want, steel is more long lasting but takes longer = more expensive, something like aluminium makes can be used for mould needing less 'pulls'

3. attempt a test shot with your material of choice to make sure the mould fills properly, if the plastic doesn't reach all parts reliably or if the finished article is damaged being extracted back to the digital sculpt & tooling machine to refine the mould

repeat as needed (likely to be multiple passes as you refine the fit and 'pull')

4. There may be a stage of refining the material used, if you've got a tricky undercut you want to keep you could choose a softer version of the PVC that will pull out of the mould ok (some reaper bones are like this with one part done in a softer PVC than the rest), if you've got something thin that keeps bending maybe a harder version of the PVC will keep it straight

5. Send a sample to the client to ok (another tricky step as they should send random stuff off the line, but it's not uncommon to have the 'best' casts selected for the sharpest detail, minimal mould lines etc made on their most well maintained machine by their most skilled operators)

As you can see from the description above you better know what you do and that´s were I have my doubts with SD and plastic production.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
As you can see from the description above you better know what you do and that´s were I have my doubts with SD and plastic production.

You either need experience or an unreasonable amount of dedication to your product (which Poots of Kingdom Death has). SD doesn't have casting experience. SD also has not shown much dedication to the game so far. They haven't produced anything new except some terrain renders.

To add to Orlando, here's an article about undercuts. You should get an idea why it can be hard to convert a metal figure with undercuts to plastic from it, but, if you don't, please ask. It's possible that SD has been fully assured by Chinese manufacturers that they can translate metal to plastic through scanning, but haven't been told the details so overlooked them (bad idea) because they don't have miniatures experience. SD doesn't seem to even be aware of the differences in plastics, since they didn't have an answer at the beginning of the campaign.

http://spyglassasylum.blogspot.com/2011/05/undercuts-and-what-hell-they-are.html

fyi, You can just click on a collaborator's name and click comments to see what comments they've written. Here's a shortcut to two of the collaborator comments. Not seeing answers about the plastics yet.

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/926092477/comments
https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1940786035/comments

Man, what a downer. Looks like another attempt to revive Confrontation could really go to pot. I sincerely hope that despite all these warning signs that it goes ok for the backers.

May be wait more than 2 days for more infos they have a mouth to give more.

...wait a month for info that should have been available at launch?

And then wonder why people are asking questions?

Combined with all of the other concerns brought up here?

Sure!

Part of the issue concerning timing is that they announced this project back in Feb of 2017. In over one year, they have pushed back the start date of the KS (originally slated for sometime in 2017) and produced -nothing- original except the terrain.

Interesting information about production.

http://www.sans-detour.com/public/Aarklash%20Post/Aarklash%20Post%20%239%20EN.pdf

• Make the “bodies” of the miniatures from PVC plastic, which allows for the optimal restitution of details.

• Make the finer parts, such as arms or weapons, from ABS, which insures that these parts will remain straight and solid.

Also says they're working with Dust, Ludofact and JX who do stuff for FFG, Steamforge and Mythic.

Also they're stating that if the campaign does well enough they'll switch to HIPS.

grefven wrote:
Interesting information about production.

http://www.sans-detour.com/public/Aarklash%20Post/Aarklash%20Post%20%239%20EN.pdf

• Make the “bodies” of the miniatures from PVC plastic, which allows for the optimal restitution of details.

• Make the finer parts, such as arms or weapons, from ABS, which insures that these parts will remain straight and solid.

So the CMoN Wrath of Kings route. Which would be good if we could trust them to do it.

Also I feel like they are throwing random things out to keep people invested at this point. Potentially going HIPS? Lulz....

How much does a single mold for HIPS cost to make? Because I thought it was in the 10K+ range and could fit maybe 5-8 minis on there depending on size.

Edit: They keep referring to "later" when talking about HIPS. I don't believe they are looking at this Kickstarter when referring to using HIPS, but to their next project.

This won't be HIPs - no chance.

IF the went the Wrath of Kings route, it *could* work, but as Hulk says, can we trust them to do it?

Probably not?

I don't know what it would take now to convince me to stay in, but whatever it is, I don't think S-D can, or will, do it.

Well, I was about to mention how Mythic Battles was planned to combine PVC with ABS (not sure if they ended up doing so), but Sweet beat me to it...

"I do know a lot of old Rackham sculptors have worked for a lot of kickstarters, and other companies. I also know that they sculpted work specifically for use in the material, in the case of Mythic Battles: PVC. Even then those pieces did not hold the same detail as many of the Rackham figures. I'm not saying your product will be bad. I think you can achieve something, but I don't think it will be the same as the original metals. I know you'll try."

So you guys have told me there are thousands of Confrontation miniatures, which means that this may not be the last time you'll be able to get these mini's. Mebbe SD will have another KS for more Confrontation mini's, and allow you to add-on the mini's in this KS as add-ons.

The PDF says their prices are low because the sculpts have already been paid for. But the molds have not, and they're not going to be cheap with multi-piece figures.

Also, keep refereshing to see if anyone drops their EB. KickTraq shows a drop-off in pledges starting on the third day. http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/996665814/confrontation-classic-the-legendary-skirmish-game/#chart-daily

And even the terrain won`t look like depicted... but quite some in the comments think this.

The combination of plastics has been done with Panteon and works there, but no way it will catch the detail of Confrontation.


I also know directly from the source that some of the companies they mentioned have been asked to give them quotes but that there is no further contract.
So I would take the working with with a grain of salt.

Well theyre saying the right things, if they manage to get the CMON factory (or the Mythic one if it was a different place) to do PVC + ABD the minis should be decent (if not quite as good as the originals)

and if you want all of them the value should be ok

but as has been said plans are not final contracts, but it's certainly promising compared to what's gone before

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
.


I also know directly from the source that some of the companies they mentioned have been asked to give them quotes but that there is no further contract.

Links, please.

There are no links and you will not find such information on the internet.

So you can't back you claims up. Interesting.

Duncan_Idaho's been working with gaming companies for at least a decade as far as I'm aware.
He has more credibility to me than whoever is behind this Confrontation project.

If he's credible he'll be able to tell us the names of these companies then.

 .Mikes. wrote:

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
.I also know directly from the source that some of the companies they mentioned have been asked to give them quotes but that there is no further contract.

Links, please.

I thought this was (sometimes) SOP with KS. You don't know how many units you'll make, you don't know how much funding you will have, so you can't write an actual contract.

You get quotes, you rely on the quotes to determine what materials you can use and the rest of your project, and you pray your manufacturer doesn't have a Death Star and change the terms.

That's part of the risk of a KS, and I've seen KS creators get screwed over by a manufacturer who increases the quote after funds have been collected. Or delays the project because the first run didn't pass QA. Or had some other altercation with the creator.

AFAIK, It's the creator's ability to get on the overseas manufacturer's arse and make sure they do the job they promised. If you backed Cthulhu Wars, you've read their updates with problems they had with overseas manufacturing.

And SD hasn't shown they have experience with this. Even Reaper Miniatures has problems with their overseas manufacturers ("Everything is okay until it isn't."). That's one of my concerns with SD.

 .Mikes. wrote:
If he's credible he'll be able to tell us the names of these companies then.

Why? Honestly all he's done is provide some reasons to be wary and advised against backing this. The red flags are so riddled thru on this project that nothing surprises me about it but he's just pointed out concerns. If Duncan likely has nda's and contacts and why would he risk them for you. What honestly makes you that special?