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Also, in WHAT WAY did Rackham screw anyone? did your metal figures turn to DUST when C:AoR came out? Did they shrivel up and vanish? I still use two all metal armies for C:AoR.


If your schtick is "skirmish is better than battle" than play smaller point games. Why should Rackham care that you bought one blister of every army you could get your hands on? It's not like they hid that it was becoming a battle game. Battle game = larger units.

And the reason no one posts on the C:AoR forums is because it's full of stupid-a$$ bull$gak whiners still bitching about C3 TWO YEARS after it died.

Can't you all go find a new game already? Or just support C3 yourselves. Rackham isn't going to. Thank God.

And if you love skirmish Confrontation so much, wait until next year.

Duncan_Idaho wrote:Co3 was already dying when they decided to switch over. Actually they did their best to keep it alive until it was no longer possible to control the rules monster they created.

Skirmish games survive only that long on the market without a drastic change. Normally it´s five years, and there are many dead companies to proof it. Co3 was mostly bought for the nice miniatures and that hurt the sales. Cause people were no longer collecting armys, but picking only some minis.

Co3 was the best try too keep it alive as long as possible to fund a new system. Rackham has a bad reputation for PR, but they all the time cared for the gamers. In the end Co became to complicated, even the designers were not able to grasp the whole system any longer. (Check the Wiki for the Warmachine rules if you want to see how much of a mosnter a Skrimish can become, no matter how good the intentions in the beginning were) They could decide to march on into oblivion or step on quite some toes and survive.

Yes mate I think you nailed some points just right, I strongly believe that if rackham had addressed their fan base explaining things just like you did now, many of the fans that were in most cases mature 25- 30's men would understand it a lot better and leaved or stayed in a more ordelly manner.
But Rackham, even if with best intentions, did a horrible service with so much incomplete and sometimes even imature announcements I do rememeber they adressing fan base calling "petty minded" the concerns and discussions about the decrease in quality that Prepainted plastic is VS metal minis would bring... I remember they saying it was similar quality so we dont need to concern... then we all saw the real deal and felt extremelly frustated with Rackham because it was not only NOT similar but quality was a joke comparing with metal conterparts...
Small lies everywere from R didnt help either...

Scottywan82 wrote:Also, in WHAT WAY did Rackham screw anyone? did your metal figures turn to DUST when C:AoR came out? Did they shrivel up and vanish? I still use two all metal armies for C:AoR.


If your schtick is "skirmish is better than battle" than play smaller point games. Why should Rackham care that you bought one blister of every army you could get your hands on? It's not like they hid that it was becoming a battle game. Battle game = larger units.

And the reason no one posts on the C:AoR forums is because it's full of stupid-a$$ bull$gak whiners still bitching about C3 TWO YEARS after it died.

Can't you all go find a new game already? Or just support C3 yourselves. Rackham isn't going to. Thank God.

I find extremelly insulting calling all the people on the official R forums "stupid-a$$ bull$gak whiners " specially because they are not here to defend themselves and because there they were frontal enough with you to explain their reasons in a civilized way, no wonder everyone considers you the kool aid drink guy. ( I have seen many of your kind and guess what they disapeard as fast as they appeard)
Metals are NOT available like they should ( again another tiny lie from rackham that said No worries we have a huge stock before things get out of stock) and a couple months later shazam tons of items out of stock or sold out... and its getting worse.

And mostly the state of rackham forums ( empty) and their sucess in business or not is 100% rackhams fault and not the fans in the internet... thats another imature rackham comment not long ago... atacking the ex fan base labeling doom sayers or nay sayers.

And i will not drag a converstation with you any further because everything was said, explained, debated to death with you many times before elsewere and you just dont even try to listen, so no need for forum quotes stunts

Platuan4th wrote:And if you love skirmish Confrontation so much, wait until next year.

Ahhhh good... please tell me its some metal or even plastic but unpainted and I will die happy


Someone mentioned negativity... I dont consider having a diferent opinion about someting like a negative behaviour... but i do find the intolerance to accept diferent points of view negative.

Actually, its a natural state of mind of many tabletoppers to whine about everything. Ever seen people NOT whining about how bad GW is.

The problem of most ist, that they still want to have a rogue company and not a company that does business big style. I do understand many decisions GW and Rackham made, because I need to if I want to be furhter successfull in this business. Many gamers don´t and that´s where som friction comes from.

Besides, he´s right, quite some guys (and they look like a majority because others were offenden by their behaviour and left the forums long ago) only whine. They do it to such a degree that it looks mor like a hate crusade than a real grudge. Some of them even went so far to distribute fake information that Jean Bey had died (how low has one to sink to write such things), damaged miniatures with acids and presented them on the net as production quality miniatures or threatend people not sharing their opinion, to beat them up. Sorry that´s no behaviour at all.

Try this on GW or PP and you have lawyers breathing down your neck faster than you can say right of free speech. Rackham is much too nice with regad to such behaviour, in my opinion.

Duncan,
Thats criminal behaviour and should be punished accordingly! I nevertheless believe thats a sad deviation of how the majority behaves... I hope I'm right on this and its a rarity because, nothing justifies such behaviours.

Lets face it as much as I feel disapointed with the current state of things lets not forget Rackham filled my needs for a decade so at least for that it has my respect.
I think also that sometimes people confuse expressing disapointment with hate cruzade or something, lets remember its hard to let go of something you admired for so long and with much more passion than what you see today from anyone... even from kool aid folks

Its like your young brother suddently gets on drugs... You still like him but you condemn his behaviour and choices and you trie to speak to his senses on any oportunity you have.

Now let me speculate a bit... maybe the new format of products, much more open box and use and dont feel connected with the prepainted miniatures appeals to a audience much less interested in the Hobby factor and as such is not prolific on forums? Could that be also one of the reasons people just dont see this game community online?

or hardly if ever actaully see it being played in a store? Can't say I have seen that since it went pre paint.

The reason I liked Confrontation the way it was WAS that it was a skirmish game. I already played Warrior and WHFB, I didn't want yet another game of large armies. It fit the niche, and when they moved on, they moved themselves entirely out of what any of us wanted around here. Prepaints and large armies killed it for me and our group. Our dollar showed that as not a single one has purchased either C:AoR nor AT-43. In fact in this area I only know of one person who buys AT-43, and this is a rather large group of gamers in KC.

If they can survive in another niche or in some kind of chain store environment good for them. But as far as these hobbiests go, it died long ago. We have still played some C3, but without anything new we move on to other things. Now it is like one of those classic games "from the day" that you pull out and play as an aside.

The problem for a publisher who launches a skirmish ruleset and figures is that by their nature skirmish games do not need a lot of figures. Also you don't need to use the publisher's figures.

GW coped with this by (a) making the game bigger than skirmish and (b) only allowing official figures at shops and tournaments.

Infinity copes with it by (a) very expensive figures, (b) special rules for specific figures (e.g. hackers) and (c) financial support from their 15mm Ancients range.

Yes Toreador, I have heard similar experiences with new PPP products collecting dust everywere and the massive abandon of the once numerous rackham fans... also have heard at-43 is doing well. But to be honest I have no idea of the sales numbers of these things.
Last bit of news was that at Spiel there were some stores dumping Rackham miniatures at ridiculous low prices... A thing you have been watching a bit everywere since the Switch to PPP anouncement.

The fragment of reality I have been watching does not look good for Rackham sake and future.

As for the prices of these new products I do find them really expensive for what you get... but Rackham never was low on prices to begin with... Like Infinity I can tolerate them since I do get the money back by having tons of fun painting... The problem starts when you take away the painting.

The skirmish format lures me more and makes me spend a lot more money than big armies games... Most of us in this hobby started with GW and already have big armies, so some warbands from another game is much apreciated.. more than the same big armies thing... A few warbands later and I'm hocked on getting all factions warbands.

And then my wife kills me

Scottywan82 wrote:Also, in WHAT WAY did Rackham screw anyone? did your metal figures turn to DUST when C:AoR came out? Did they shrivel up and vanish? I still use two all metal armies for C:AoR.


If your schtick is "skirmish is better than battle" than play smaller point games. Why should Rackham care that you bought one blister of every army you could get your hands on? It's not like they hid that it was becoming a battle game. Battle game = larger units.

And the reason no one posts on the C:AoR forums is because it's full of stupid-a$$ bull$gak whiners still bitching about C3 TWO YEARS after it died.

Can't you all go find a new game already? Or just support C3 yourselves. Rackham isn't going to. Thank God.

Actually, the way I remember it, it was posts more along the lines of yours that drove many people who actually liked Confrontation away from the official board. You know, the whole "if you don't like it, leave!" line of thinking.

Platuan4th wrote:And if you love skirmish Confrontation so much, wait until next year.

I hope it is a fully realized game, and not a tacked on 'tactics' version. I really do...

Kilkrazy wrote:The problem for a publisher who launches a skirmish ruleset and figures is that by their nature skirmish games do not need a lot of figures. Also you don't need to use the publisher's figures.

GW coped with this by (a) making the game bigger than skirmish and (b) only allowing official figures at shops and tournaments.

Infinity copes with it by (a) very expensive figures, (b) special rules for specific figures (e.g. hackers) and (c) financial support from their 15mm Ancients range.

Indeed. I feel that the scaling up of gaming throughout a games life in close to inevitable.

Lets use GW as an example, as it is one I think we are all familiar with....

So, in the beginning, the range of models, the scope of the game, and gamers collections were all restricted. This is how most games start out (look at Warmachine as a contemporary example of what I'm gibbering about).

However, over a period of time, two of these things push the boundaries of the restriction...these are, of course, the Range of Model, and Games Collections of said models. Eventually, cause and effect kicks in, and you get more and more gamers looking at their collection, wanting to field it all in a single battle, because it would be fun. However, the game rules themselves tend to have a limit of scale.

At this point, GW made the decision to upscale the game, which meant streamlining some rules, rewriting others, and yet more being dropped altogether. Rinse and repeat a few times, and you pretty much end up where we are now in terms of Game Scale.

HOWEVER....GW appear to have made a single mistake in the logic here. Sure, the game plays well enough at smaller points levels (500 for 40k, 750 for Fantasy I find to be the minimums) which means new players and indeed, new armies can involve themselves without having to go straight to 'optimal' size (for me, 1,500 and 2,000 respectively). But, it would certainly appear whether consciosly or not, that they (and Rackham now, from what I read on here) forgot why the original game was so popular, and no longer cater to the detailed skirmish rules that started it all.

Now, reality check, whether or not it is financially viable (remember, they are all companies at the end of the day) to run multiple rule systems for the same models, I do not know. GW arguably tried it with Necromunda and Mordheim (and GorkaMorka) and we know how that went. But I don't want to use that as an absolute reference, because how much was limited appeal and how much was limited support is very much open to opinion!

So, Rackham appear to be following GW's scaling footsteps, but are stumbling somewhat along the way. Will PP do the same? In theory, they will have to (bigger collection - bigger games - faster rules etc) but whether they simply make a scaled up game possible as an alternative remains to be seen.

NAVARRO wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:And if you love skirmish Confrontation so much, wait until next year.

Ahhhh good... please tell me its some metal or even plastic but unpainted and I will die happy

It will use whatever minis you own, there's no new models, just the book, which may or may not just be the Confrontation version of AT-43 Tactics.

Ugh.

Exactly what I thought it might be.

Still, I'll give it a whirl, with whatever minis I have left after the Great Confrontation Sell Off Of '08!

(Probably keep my Dwarves, maybe some Wolfen and a Dirz Warband...)

Alpharius wrote:Ugh.

Exactly what I thought it might be.

Still, I'll give it a whirl, with whatever minis I have left after the Great Confrontation Sell Off Of '08!

(Probably keep my Dwarves, maybe some Wolfen and a Dirz Warband...)

The Great Sell Off wouldn't happen to include any Devourers, would it? I need more.

Platuan4th wrote:

Alpharius wrote:Ugh.

Exactly what I thought it might be.

Still, I'll give it a whirl, with whatever minis I have left after the Great Confrontation Sell Off Of '08!

(Probably keep my Dwarves, maybe some Wolfen and a Dirz Warband...)

The Great Sell Off wouldn't happen to include any Devourers, would it? I need more.

It does!

PM me for details...

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The problem for a publisher who launches a skirmish ruleset and figures is that by their nature skirmish games do not need a lot of figures.

Indeed. I feel that the scaling up of gaming throughout a games life in close to inevitable.

At this point, GW made the decision to upscale the game, which meant streamlining some rules, rewriting others, and yet more being dropped altogether. Rinse and repeat a few times, and you pretty much end up where we are now in terms of Game Scale.

GW arguably tried it with Necromunda and Mordheim (and GorkaMorka) and we know how that went.

So, Rackham appear to be following GW's scaling footsteps, but are stumbling somewhat along the way. Will PP do the same? In theory, they will have to (bigger collection - bigger games - faster rules etc) but whether they simply make a scaled up game possible as an alternative remains to be seen.

If a game company wants to last more than 5 years, they need to scale up the games, or players stop buying and the games collapse & die. That is the nature of any skirmish game. GW has proved this time and again with every skirmish game they have ever created. And it's not just GW. Ogre Miniatures. Heavy Gear. VOR / VOID. And so on.

GW upscaled WFB and 40k long enough ago, had enough non-skirmish board gaming, and kept prices down during the transition allowing them to weather the storm from RT to 2E. They let 2E build up as larger gaming so that 3E was pretty much inevitable, and that transition was still very painful. But once that die was cast, starting with 4E, GW had a solid foundation for *extremely* large games, up to effectively unlimited size Apocalypse games. As of 5E, it's amazing how well the rules work to support Apocalyse-scale games of 10k+ per side. Those are unthinkable game sizes under 2E, much less RT rules. And GW invested in the infrastructure to support minimal-labor / "lights out" mass production with plastics, hence, no pre-paints.

GW seems to have tried pretty hard to relaunch skirmish gaming several times over (AT, TL, Epic, BFG, Nec, Gork, SH, =I=, E:Armag, Nec:Under, Mord, Warbands, Kill Team, etc.) but it's just not working. So instead, GW has downscaled WFB and 40k with BfM, BfSP, AoBR. And those seem to have done quite well.

PP is going to collapse, I think. Based on the GW 3E / Rackahm backlash, the WM/H mass battle conversion is going to see the biggest backlash ever.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

GW seems to have tried pretty hard to relaunch skirmish gaming several times over (AT, TL, Epic, BFG, Nec, Gork, SH, =I=, E:Armag, Nec:Under, Mord, Warbands, Kill Team, etc.) but it's just not working. So instead, GW has downscaled WFB and 40k with BfM, BfSP, AoBR. And those seem to have done quite well.

Some of those aren't even close to skirmish games: AT, TL, Epic and E: Armageddon are just games with smaller scale miniatures, not skirmishes! And yes, I really do miss those games...

JohnHwangDD wrote:
PP is going to collapse, I think. Based on the GW 3E / Rackahm backlash, the WM/H mass battle conversion is going to see the biggest backlash ever.

IF (when?) it happens, I do think you'll be right!

Scottywan82 wrote:Also, in WHAT WAY did Rackham screw anyone? did your metal figures turn to DUST when C:AoR came out? Did they shrivel up and vanish? I still use two all metal armies for C:AoR.


If your schtick is "skirmish is better than battle" than play smaller point games. Why should Rackham care that you bought one blister of every army you could get your hands on? It's not like they hid that it was becoming a battle game. Battle game = larger units.

And the reason no one posts on the C:AoR forums is because it's full of stupid-a$$ bull$gak whiners still bitching about C3 TWO YEARS after it died.

Can't you all go find a new game already? Or just support C3 yourselves. Rackham isn't going to. Thank God.

This is an anecdote I saw about the change from C3 to AoR on another forum and I think it's fairly apt right now.

De Nile is not just a river in Egypt...

The thread is an example of the truly delusional. It runs something like this:

one of 40+ C4 abandoners types, "I'm not interested in a game with 20-30 figures per side. I like 12 or so. C4 is not for me."

One of the 7 or so same fanbois responds, "Stop knee-jerk reacting to rumors that the game will need 20-30 figures."

Abandoner, "Um, here's a photo from Gen Con Paris showing a demo with 20-30 figures per side. I'm not interested."

Fanbois (now not addressing the topic anymore), "But who says 20-30 figures can't be fun?"

Abandoner (now clear he's talking to someone who's lost their mind), "Uh, no one. It's not for me and I'm dissappointed."

Fanbois, "You won't really know that you can't use it as a skirmish game until you buy the new rulebook and try the 20-30 figures per side game. Only after you buy the rulebook, 20-30 more pre-painted miniatures you said you didn't want, and never stop playing, will you really be able to make a decision then."

Abandoner, "See ya."

Fanbois, "We have to lock this thread. Talking of playing games with 12 figures is against copyright laws in France."

Platuan4th wrote:

NAVARRO wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:And if you love skirmish Confrontation so much, wait until next year.

Ahhhh good... please tell me its some metal or even plastic but unpainted and I will die happy

It will use whatever minis you own, there's no new models, just the book, which may or may not just be the Confrontation version of AT-43 Tactics.

Interesting, maybe 2009 is the year I paint my uraken

JohnH: Sorry, I can't agree with your analysis. I don't think Rackham's games are having problems because they are skirmish.

I'd argue they are having problems because of the following:

- Bad inital launch: Operations Damacleas was universally hailed as a total screw up. Even AT-43 fanboi's will argue that box was a mistake.

- Classic Rackham rules writting: They were fuzzy at best. Also, they forgot the first rule of wargame design: NEVER include a smiling monkey in your damage charts.

- No organize play support. FFG made an effort on Rackham's behalf this past summer, but unlike other successful gaming companys (GW, PP, WotC) Rackham never got any kind of organize system going.

- It took a long time for the game to get a variety of miniatures available in the line. i.e. There weren't many faction choices until recently.

- An unproven idea: The BIG news here is that the idea of "pre-painted miniatures" with a real in depth rule set at the level of PP, GW, FoW, etc. has yet to be proven. Mongoose tried it with their modern war game: Fail, now Rackham has tried it with their lines: Apparent Fail. It seems like folks who want pre-painted stuff gravitate toward the smaller games (WotC, Mutant Chronicals, M-Poc) I'd argue that table top war gamers still like to assemble and paint stuff. Even if many of them never get around to it. Just the IDEA that they can build,collect and paint makes it cool. It also may be that selling these products unassembled and unpainted means the companies can afford to manufacture greater variety into their products.

Thoughts?

RussWakelin wrote:
I'd argue they are having problems because of the following:

- Bad inital launch: Operations Damacleas was universally hailed as a total screw up. Even AT-43 fanboi's will argue that box was a mistake.

Really? Then why are people on the official forums still suggesting it to new people interested in buying UNA or Therians?

RussWakelin wrote:
- Classic Rackham rules writting: They were fuzzy at best. Also, they forgot the first rule of wargame design: NEVER include a smiling monkey in your damage charts.

The problem was that the in house translators made it fuzzy. Now that there are no more in house translators, they're outsourcing it to native English speakers to translate, the rules look much better now. Also, that's not a monkey, that's Munchy Munch(ie. Mickey Mouse).

RussWakelin wrote:
- No organize play support. FFG made an effort on Rackham's behalf this past summer, but unlike other successful gaming companys (GW, PP, WotC) Rackham never got any kind of organize system going.

That's going to change big time. Can't go into much detail, but after the November Surprise, find a Sentinel and bug us about Organized Play. That's our job.

RussWakelin wrote:
- It took a long time for the game to get a variety of miniatures available in the line. i.e. There weren't many faction choices until recently.

True, but I think this has alot to do with the limited amounts of staff they're currently working with more than anything else. Next year is looking much better on releases.

RussWakelin wrote:
- An unproven idea: The BIG news here is that the idea of "pre-painted miniatures" with a real in depth rule set at the level of PP, GW, FoW, etc. has yet to be proven. Mongoose tried it with their modern war game: Fail, now Rackham has tried it with their lines: Apparent Fail. It seems like folks who want pre-painted stuff gravitate toward the smaller games (WotC, Mutant Chronicals, M-Poc) I'd argue that table top war gamers still like to assemble and paint stuff. Even if many of them never get around to it. Just the IDEA that they can build,collect and paint makes it cool. It also may be that selling these products unassembled and unpainted means the companies can afford to manufacture greater variety into their products.

Thoughts?

The last one I can't really attest to, as that seems a locality choice thing. People were loving the idea of PPP for larger wargames in Baton Rouge(one of my problems with Baton Rouge gaming other than the PP players: too many unpainted armies straight out of the box), the problem was that the store's manager didn't want to stock the games despite how many people were ordering the models and one of his best employees constantly requesting some regular stock. I've found that to be my biggest roadblock to my Sentinel duties is the stores being wary to stock the games.

Platuan4th wrote:

RussWakelin wrote:


- An unproven idea: The BIG news here is that the idea of "pre-painted miniatures" with a real in depth rule set at the level of PP, GW, FoW, etc. has yet to be proven. Mongoose tried it with their modern war game: Fail, now Rackham has tried it with their lines: Apparent Fail. It seems like folks who want pre-painted stuff gravitate toward the smaller games (WotC, Mutant Chronicals, M-Poc) I'd argue that table top war gamers still like to assemble and paint stuff. Even if many of them never get around to it. Just the IDEA that they can build,collect and paint makes it cool. It also may be that selling these products unassembled and unpainted means the companies can afford to manufacture greater variety into their products.

Thoughts?

The last one I can't really attest to, as that seems a locality choice thing. People were loving the idea of PPP for larger wargames in Baton Rouge(one of my problems with Baton Rouge gaming other than the PP players: too many unpainted armies straight out of the box), the problem was that the store's manager didn't want to stock the games despite how many people were ordering the models and one of his best employees constantly requesting some regular stock. I've found that to be my biggest roadblock to my Sentinel duties is the stores being wary to stock the games.

I never, for a moment, saw a direct cause/effect for confrontation becoming PPP instead of metal due to peoples current tournament armies were unpainted.
The official speech was we will turn into PPP because
a) Metal will become incredibly expensive
b) people want prepainted because most dont paint their armies.

A) Sure it will become more expensive but leaping from metal to plastic is one thing but going from metal to prepainted dubious plastics is a compeltely new ball game. Besides current PPP's are far from cheap!

B)This got to be the most naife justification I ever saw in my hobby life... as you said its probably a local thing but how can anyone at rackhams imagine how many people buy their products exclusively for painting and dont even care showing up on tournaments? And how many just want to game instead of painting... From what I experienced the huge painters community all said bye bye and i dont see online new gamers community filling their shoes.

What I do think that happened is that Rackham drunk with the unespected acceptance and sales of AT-43 ( wich I continuously hear its a US thing and that europe is not that convinced with it) decided to literally dump, trash and kick all painting community and hobby related products.

For my hobby I can say the PPP is the worse thing ever happened and not only I'm not convinced with the " you can still repaint ppp" ( sounds a argument like the anecdote posted before) but im 100% agains it.

- Classic Rackham rules writting: They were fuzzy at best. Also, they forgot the first rule of wargame design: NEVER include a smiling monkey in your damage charts.

Applied only to the english rules, french an german rules were much better. Actually quite some english and french folks have been seen playing with the german edition of the game.

- It took a long time for the game to get a variety of miniatures available in the line. i.e. There weren't many faction choices until recently.

Compared to how long it took 40K and Warmachine to get an equal variety they are all three on par. Don´t compare the actual portfolio of a widely established game with a that of a new game.

RussWakelin wrote:I don't think Rackham's games are having problems because they are skirmish.

I think Rackham has a problem because they aren't managing the growth from small skirmish well, not because they are skirmish.

RussWakelin wrote:The BIG news here is that the idea of "pre-painted miniatures" with a real in depth rule set at the level of PP, GW, FoW, etc. has yet to be proven. Mongoose tried it with their modern war game: Fail, now Rackham has tried it with their lines: Apparent Fail.

Mongoose released crappy, ugly prepaints and set the whole thing back. Rackham's prepaints are better, but the designs are just wierd, being Frenchified. I think the failure lies more with Mongoose and Rackham than the idea of prepaints.

Good points everyone. Two quick clarifications on my stuff:

Operation Damacleas(sp?): The probelm with this wasn't the model content, which probably is a good buy, it was the crazy way they introduced the rules: The full rules weren't in the box. Instead you got a weird "learn by scenario" system that didn't allow advanced gamers any way to immediatly evaluate the full potential of the game. Speaking for myself, this turned me off immediatly. They may have since repackaged it so you now get the full AT-43 rules, but initally it was not impressive on the rules front.

Duncan_Idaho wrote:
Compared to how long it took 40K and Warmachine to get an equal variety they are all three on par. Don´t compare the actual portfolio of a widely established game with a that of a new game.

I was thinking about WM here. Warmachine had 4 playable factions from day one, with models. And PP has (until perhaps next year) always released updates to the game for all 4 factions at a time. I still believe this was one of the reasons Warmachine was able to break into the industry, while so many other games have had problems.

They had a small range back when they began, as every other company starting its range. they did not have four fully fleshed out armies. As with AT-43 now it took them somewhere between 1-2 years to reach a portfolio that serviced what one could call a standard AP-size.

@Duncan: It's true that WM/H too several releases to reach full steam, but each PP range had 4 "complete" starter sets to clearly set the "look" and baselines for each of the armies. IMO, that was a good way to launch.

Right, but creating starters for a skimish ist still easier.

Im looking forward to some good things coming from this game company its got a cool "Underground" fan base right now and is set to do well for a certain gamer fan base, I will say this, it is not the game to be selling or pushing towards a GW fan base.
Rackham, having being restricted by french bankruptcy laws they havnt been able to push as hard as they would have liked and the owner is saddened at the fact FFG didnt put a bigger effort into the organized play and I feel he wanted that to get better support so took it back to due it Justice. The emails he recently sent out did portray a man with a very committed love for the game and its universe and wants his baby to be treated as such so stay tuned for some great positive things happening for this game.
Has a gamer and a retailer Im very excited for the next stage of rackhams development...and be carefull of the witch hunts on the forums even some of the "sentinals" posting dont know all the facts...stay positive beware of nay say have a good game!

anyone know when the next announcment is due from Rackham?