Confrontation: Resurrection-Skirimsh and board game confirmed.

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**Coenus Scaldingus**

This delay is costing Sans-Détour operating costs, fees, salaries, etc. And we now have to work out expenses linked to fabrication (purchase of large quantities of metal for DTR, fabrication of the boxes, then, when the time comes, shipping, etc.), which clearly risks further stretching out the announced shipping delays. We will unfortunately not deliver for the end of this year, but all avenues are being explored so that you can get your first Classic models as soon as possible.

We’re also continuing the development of side projects, in order to not keep Confrontation Classic from having to bear all of Sans-Détour’s operating costs and so that we can keep moving forward.

I was under the impression that's what the Kickstarter money was for. It covers the costs, ideally including some extra for unforseen circumstances, of doing the things they told backers they would do. I know this particular Kickstarter was a mess with the amazing dream of producing plastic versions of these models, but now it sounds like they barely made any budget plans at all - "just get some free money and see what we can do with it". Also sounds like they're laying the groundwork for the quite potential moment down the road where they say: sorry, we're (supposedly) out of money, those things we shipped out so far are all we will be able to get done because of the X and Y we told you about earlier.

**Overread**

Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
This delay is costing Sans-Détour operating costs, fees, salaries, etc. And we now have to work out expenses linked to fabrication (purchase of large quantities of metal for DTR, fabrication of the boxes, then, when the time comes, shipping, etc.), which clearly risks further stretching out the announced shipping delays. We will unfortunately not deliver for the end of this year, but all avenues are being explored so that you can get your first Classic models as soon as possible.

We’re also continuing the development of side projects, in order to not keep Confrontation Classic from having to bear all of Sans-Détour’s operating costs and so that we can keep moving forward.

I was under the impression that's what the Kickstarter money was for. It covers the costs, ideally including some extra for unforseen circumstances, of doing the things they told backers they would do. I know this particular Kickstarter was a mess with the amazing dream of producing plastic versions of these models, but now it sounds like they barely made any budget plans at all - "just get some free money and see what we can do with it". Also sounds like they're laying the groundwork for the quite potential moment down the road where they say: sorry, we're (supposedly) out of money, those things we shipped out so far are all we will be able to get done because of the X and Y we told you about earlier.

It's a story you read often with failed KS that the actual material and production machinery/development are often not the issue (barring this KS because SD appeared to not even have the most basic understanding of the price of plastics*); but the actual wages, rent and utilities of keeping the company going; esp when the company hasn't got other revenue streams and can't put its models into commercial release. The problem is its one thing to plan for a delay, but when that delay can turn from weeks into months very fast that's a big chunk of money.
SD though are in a special league all of their own because even after funding no one could foresee how they'd deliver. There's also the issue that their whole KS is a vanity casting project and not linked to the new game they want to release which is the new version of Confrontation with totally new sculpts. This raises huge problems because even if they get into choppy waters they, in theory, shouldn't want to put these models onto commercial sale. So the whole KS hasn't even got the back-up of producing and shipping in waves and then putting those waves on commercial sale to help overcome short term cashflow issues.

IT also raises the question how long they will support a KS which is essentially losing them money and has no future profits in it when they already want to make a totally different game and product line. Of course if the KS fails and they fail to deliver then they can kiss their marketing on the new game goodbye because they will burn so many critical bridges.

*Or they do and were using it as a false claim to try and get more money knowing that they'd switch over to metal in the end.

**Sacredroach**

@Overread, I am amused in that they were so loud to trumpet the plastics...but that is why I only pledged 1 Euro. Confrontation, like Warmachine, should be metal. Had they gone forward with metal from the start, I know of several others who would have jumped in immediately...and probably dozens or hundreds of others were in the same situation. Now seeing how poorly they have managed...EVERYTHING...when they announced the metal upgrade (and for me, that is exactly what it is) I no longer had faith they could deliver even half of what they pledged. And with the Chaosium debacle, well, things still look grim.

Gloom and doom aside, I do hope I am horribly wrong. I hope that SD delivers, that all who pledged are satisfied, and that Confrontation remains a living, viable product line.

But as they say in 40k, "Hope is the denial of reality."

**Samko**

About the switch to metal, I asked Joss at Octogone (french gaming convention 1 week ago) if it was because they raised less money than planned during the KS.

What he answered me is that the plan before the KS was that SD would add funds for the production on top of what the KS would raise, but the delays of their others chtulu crowdfunding ate some of that money, and as they lost the licence when they received the books, they couldn't sell them which was another income loss.
And so without that additional money they had to switch to metal to reduce the production costs.

**Overread**

Samko wrote:
About the switch to metal, I asked Joss at Octogone (french gaming convention 1 week ago) if it was because they raised less money than planned during the KS.

What he answered me is that the plan before the KS was that SD would add funds for the production on top of what the KS would raise, but the delays of their others chtulu crowdfunding ate some of that money, and as they lost the licence when they received the books, they couldn't sell them which was another income loss.
And so without that additional money they had to switch to metal to reduce the production costs.

Eh they knew they were going to lose that licence anyway as they'd not paid the royalties for using the licence. To say that their plan was to use profits from licence sales that they'd not paid for to support another product line (that was going to need a LOT of money for plastic moulds) actually sounds worse!

**JonWebb**

I hope these guys work it out, because it would suck for the backers if it doesn’t, and on a personal note I’d love to get my hands on one of the minis to see how they handle.

I’ve done some work with DTR in the past and they are great guys and I own and have owned a lot of the rackham range in the past.

Recently I built a few Ophidians and was reminded about how irritating rackham lead pewter or whatever it was, was. Bits snapped out of the box, no way the thin poles will hold up other elements etc.

If DTR can make the casts work in their harder metal, I’d love to pick up some of what I sold off.

There were a lot of red flags on this one so I didn’t back (still waiting for my conf rules from the old CMoN board game KS so I guess I’m wary every time someone tries to bring this gem of a universe back).

Still, seeing metal being poured gives some hope right? Just hope they can get enough cash together to finish the job.

**Sarouan**

News from the facebook page of Sans Détour : https://www.facebook.com/EditionsSansDetour/

Bonjour à toutes et à tous,

En cette fin d'année, nous faisons un point sur nos divers projets.

Sans détour traverse une période très difficile. Notre société essaie de se restructurer et de lancer son activité.

Les premières actions seront l’arrêt de la vente directe et la fermeture prochaine de notre dépôt de Villeurbanne. A l'avenir, notre logistique sera entièrement sous traitée.

Il vous reste jusqu’au 31 décembre pour passer des commandes sur notre site en ligne. Nous continuons à livrer toutes les commandes.

Après cette date, nous retirerons la plupart des titres du catalogue.

Concernant nos autres licences et dossiers en cours, les fêtes et les grèves ne nous permettent pas d’avancer aussi vite que nous le souhaitons. Nos projets sont au ralenti, mais pas abandonnés. De nombreuses discussions sont en cours pour la relance de Sans Détour.

Les bureaux seront fermés du 23 décembre au 6 janvier.

Nous vous donnons rendez vous après les fêtes et notre déménagement pour plus d’informations.

Nous vous souhaitons de très belles fêtes de fin d'année.

Sans-Détour

Which gives in english :

"Hello everyone,

At the end of the year, we are taking stock of our various projects.

Sans Détour is going through a very difficult period. Our company is trying to restructure and launch its activity.

The first actions will be to stop direct selling and the immediate closure of our Villeurbanne depot. In the future, our logistics will be entirely outsourced.

You have until December 31 to place orders on our online site. We continue to deliver all orders.

After this date, we will remove most titles from the catalog.

Regarding our other licenses and pending files, end year holidays and strikes do not allow us to advance as quickly as we wish. Our projects are idling, but not abandoned. Many discussions are underway for the relaunch of Sans Détour.

The offices will be closed from December 23 to January 6.

We will meet you after the holidays and our move for more information.

We wish you a very happy holiday season.

Sans Détour"

It never smelled good before, now it becomes crappier.

**bubber**

i only went in for the core box which, at the time, seemed good value as i had many of the models already. annoys me still though.

**Overread**

I'm sad to see it happen, as I am with any company closing doors; but yeah this isn't a huge shock to me. Though shutting their store is a death-nail. Almost all the Ks I see fail tend to fail because of the end of cash to keep basic operations going; shutting down their store front is clearly going to shut off any income they might otherwise be getting in. That means running it on reserves only and if they are in a bad position where they can't hire one more staff member to cast fresh orders then that's a sign that things are really bad.

Who knows they might pull through; but I can't see them funding a whole new slew of Confrontation models for the Resurrection game if they are in this bad a financial position. Their best bet would honestly be to egt the KS models out and then scrap the idea of new models and just go into full production of the old models with a new game bolted onto them.

**warboss**

Everyone who backed their kickstarter got their rewards already, right? I'd hate to see all those dastardly doom and gloom naysayers proven right yet again with their warnings.

**SnotlingPimpWagon**

warboss wrote:
Everyone who backed their kickstarter got their rewards already, right? I'd hate to see all those dastardly doom and gloom naysayers proven right yet again with their warnings.

*laughs in prodos games*

**Shrapnelsmile**

My buddy cancelled this as things got fishy. Glad he has cash for our other obsessions. KS is a rough ride these days.

**bubber**

warboss wrote:
Everyone who backed their kickstarter got their rewards already, right? I'd hate to see all those dastardly doom and gloom naysayers proven right yet again with their warnings.

er - no.
i think those who ordered the whole range in metal may have had theirs but not sure.

**ced1106**

fwiw, I found this comment about CMON and Confrontation:

Luke Wilson Moises Irizarry Well it did have a great chance to come out when CMON had it. They contacted me to redo the rules I brought two great guys in and we as a team proceeded to 'fix' everything that was wrong with Conf. And then without a word all of a sudden CMON without proper communication pulled out and gave it to some company called blackball games. Luckily I got to the dropbox first and pulled all our hard work so BB Games couldn't take it as theirs. Guess what, it never came out. It was a shame as we were ready to go with the agreed booklet for Gen Con that year!
Wrong move by CMON, but that history now!

https://www.facebook.com/confrontationresurrection/

**TwilightSparkles**

Saying they are outsourcing logistics is a clear death knell. You cannot effectively outsource something like that unless you deal in big numbers, because ultimately you are paying someone to pay someone else rather than just directly paying someone.

My guess is when those doors closed on 23rd that was it.

**Elbows**

Is there a short version or bullets of this whole debacle?

**ScarletRose**

Elbows wrote:
Is there a short version or bullets of this whole debacle?

An offer seemed too good to be true, turned out it was.

Or slightly longer:

-company said they could produce all the Confrontation minis in plastic, had a huge KS
-red flags sprung up like crazy as they couldn't pin down details or production, material, etc
-KS still funded
-company backslid because you can't make that many minis for the pledge price
-company said they'd make metals instead/in addition to try to stay afloat
-now the company is closing down without having produced anything

**warboss**

bubber wrote:
warboss wrote:
Everyone who backed their kickstarter got their rewards already, right? I'd hate to see all those dastardly doom and gloom naysayers proven right yet again with their warnings.

er - no.
i think those who ordered the whole range in metal may have had theirs but not sure.

Your sarcasm filter is set too high. Bazinga.

**Sarouan**

ScarletRose wrote:

-now the company is closing down without having produced anything

To be fair, they have produced a first wave in resin, and some backers who pledged for these very specific pieces got them.

**Overread**

Yeah it sounds like they've tried and failed. Furthermore doesn't the parent company have a history of being attached to firms that go into liquidation and then die whilst the core of the company survives under a new name.

"outsourcing" to them might mean that they are opening/using another internal firm of their own (not on paper, but by association and likely the same or some of the same staff) and just sending them all the gear; leaving the company making the KS to hold very little in assets. If everything fails they bankrupt it; lose very little because its not holding very much and continue under a new flag.

Whilst that's all guesswork, I do recall in the eariler days of this thread that they had had several or at least one other company headed up close down in a sort of similar fashion.

**ced1106**

Yep!

Lead Adventurers has a Confrontation thread with a summary about Sans Detour. Poke around here. : http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=108765.msg1430070#msg1430070

Christophe Ammirati:

If someone holds the keys to the financial mystery, this is this guy.

Unless there is a recent change; he is the financial director of Sans Détour. (his Linkedin profile does not mention this responsibility, but the site of Sans Détour yes).

So it is this man who should have signed checks to Chaosium, who also could have provided a sales statement for Chaosium.

But he is also a leader of Stellar Licensing and Consulting , the owner of Hong Kong-based Confrontation's intellectual property, and therefore, head of the company that needs to earn royalties for the Confrontation Classic's Kickstarter and the possible future Confrontation Resurrection.
The "team" page of Stellar Licensing unfortunately returns to an error 404: impossible to confirm it there, but on Linkedin it is clear.

Honestly, I would not want to be in the shoes of a man who may find himself in a position to choose between paying royalties to Chaosium and paying a return on investment for the Confrontation license (which must have been quite expensive).

Here again do not necessarily see malice. I believe there are strong business and friendship ties between these two men and that they seek to get out of trouble in one way or another rather than voluntarily shutting down the world. Only when you play the tightrope, the slightest accident of course can be fatal.

Another proof of this proximity, the company Way of Gamers / Smart Trading Limited, located at the same address as the warehouses of Sans Détour also belongs to Mr. Ammirati.Stock liquid that looks very much like that of Ludikbazar ...

While formerly Way of Gamers was known only for a site of collaborative work and crowdfunding for creators geeks to the uncertain success ( 1 only unfunded project ).

It is these appearances of conflicts of interest, combined with a certain amateurism, and the news of Chaosium leaving a doubt about the finances of Sans Détour that lend at this moment to all possible theories in the absence of answers to these questions :

-What was the actual financial situation of Sans Detour when launching the kickstarter of Confrontation Classic?
- If the little hands and the project manager were probably unaware of it: who knew about the dealings with Chaosium regarding the royalties?
- Has Stellar Licensing received her royalties?
- What exact role does Christophe Ammirati and his companies play in the partnership, what are the interests of each other?
- Will the current finances of Sans Détour and its concerns of rights allow you to deliver The Masks, and, while having lost this cash cow, especially, in the long term, to deliver the KS Confrontation Classic?
- Who will eventually take over the resin casts of Confrontation? Who is in charge of standard plastic production?
- Where is the production planning of the big figurines?

BGG has an entire thread worth wading through. Mebbe start here. : https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1943716/new-edition-coming-kickstarter/page/5

Regarding Ludikbay/Ludikbazaar - who were stated as "logistics contractor for Sans Detour" and share an owner (Stellar does not share the owner as far as I know, Christophe Ammirati is listed as the director) Joss, one of the SD employees said this in the comments yesterday:

"About Ludikbay : This company is closing... even if we wanted to use it for logistics (And we won't, because we have other contacts with worldwide Hubs who already deal with KS projects), we couldn't. Just because its activity is over and now controlled by a liquidator."

Christophe AMMIRATI, CFE (external), IFP (ORIAS registered), 22 years as a Financial Manager & Accountant / Auditor,
(this is his Sans Detour Profile)
So he licensed the property to a company he is the CFO of? So if this Kickstarter goes under and SD loses the licensing SD didn't really lose the licensing. Too many conflicts of interest here. Too many people with hands in the same pots in different companies.

**bubber**

warboss wrote:
bubber wrote:
warboss wrote:
Everyone who backed their kickstarter got their rewards already, right? I'd hate to see all those dastardly doom and gloom naysayers proven right yet again with their warnings.

er - no.
i think those who ordered the whole range in metal may have had theirs but not sure.

Your sarcasm filter is set too high. Bazinga.

sorry - autism + non-verbal communication = misunderstandings at my end...
(no offense meant or taken btw!!)

**warboss**

bubber wrote:

(no offense meant or taken btw!!)

No worries and none here either.

**Monkeysloth**

ced1106 wrote:
fwiw, I found this comment about CMON and Confrontation:

Luke Wilson Moises Irizarry Well it did have a great chance to come out when CMON had it. They contacted me to redo the rules I brought two great guys in and we as a team proceeded to 'fix' everything that was wrong with Conf. And then without a word all of a sudden CMON without proper communication pulled out and gave it to some company called blackball games. Luckily I got to the dropbox first and pulled all our hard work so BB Games couldn't take it as theirs. Guess what, it never came out. It was a shame as we were ready to go with the agreed booklet for Gen Con that year!
Wrong move by CMON, but that history now!

https://www.facebook.com/confrontationresurrection/

I was a regular on the Dragon Painting forum (old confrontation fan forum) back when that happened and I remember Luke working on it. It was rather abrupt when they moved to Blackball and CMoN really hurt the game's chances there as the burned some bridges with the French community at the time as well. I was also at Gencon that year as they had annoced it as Confrontation Phoenix or something like that. I'm pretty sure the game is so sullied now there's no way anyone would give it a 3rd shot to revive.

Should probably add a bit more about what I remember. Luke was working on the unit cards as he had the more complete collection of unit/figure stats including unreleased stuff. We figured he was working on the rules but at the time he couldn't say outside of he was providing data and helping with what should be on the cards. It was billed, at first, being like a 3.75 version of the game but then CMoN switched to BB -- who had done the rules for Wrath of Kings -- and stated they were making a new game from scratch that wouldn't really resemble Confrontation of past. That's what got a lot of people soured on what CMoN was doing. That and them releasing resin packs, expensive ones too, of models that were very common to find originals of on ebay and complaining that the game wouldn't be viable as no one was buying their over priced resin of common figures.

**Coenus Scaldingus**

Sarouan wrote:
ScarletRose wrote:

-now the company is closing down without having produced anything

To be fair, they have produced a first wave in resin, and some backers who pledged for these very specific pieces got them.

But was that just to string people along and get new people hooked in (think they re-opened for new pledges at some point(s)?), or because they genuinely tried to get people what they paid for?

That's my biggest question in this debacle: are they incredibly incompetent (they should have known they didn't know what they were doing, did no research before setting pledge levels or making promises, had no realistic outlook on what or how to produce, in any material), or simply malicious? Leaning towards the latter, but wonder if that's because I'm a terrible cynic. Regardless, best to avoid these people and any (shell) companies they are associated with.

**Overread**

It's hard to say but the longer they go on doing the same things the more I think it leans toward malicious. As a company into the casting world they had to have had full understanding of the costs of doing plastics - even the most casual market inspection of that process would have given them rough prices to work with.

They also ran off with all the royalties from the Cuthulu Mythos release.

I think that they survive by finding niche products that have enough fanbase to turn profit, but not enough to start legal proceedings. Furthermore they seem to scatter a whole company between multiple smaller ones with only one or two of the core team in charge of them - so it doesn't always appear obvious to the outside casual consumer.

I'd honestly be surprised if they don't get the police after them at some point. You can't keep opening and closing sub-companies and bankrupting them whilst taking the money made and also hiding the assets (machines, moulds etc...) into other firms.

**Monkeysloth**

Makes me wonder what Miniature Market's investment in this was? Both companies announced some type of pre-order but I think people here were uncertain if any money changed hand. At the very least Miniature Market was allowing them to use their Gencon booth to show off the resins.

Also seams the were using money from one project to pay for another which is why they didn't pay Peterson games and others. They had to get the money for the Confrontation license some how.

**BigDaddio**

Monkeysloth wrote:
Also seams the were using money from one project to pay for another which is why they didn't pay Peterson games and others. They had to get the money for the Confrontation license some how.

I think this is probably happening more often on KS than some people realize. Yet it seems when a backer on KS raises a concern over this possibility, the white knights come out of the woodwork espousing how great the project creator/company has been with other (not necessarily KS) products, calling anyone that raises such concerns a "troll". And I'm not just referring to Sans Detour or this project. Some of the most heated portions from the horribleness known as the KS comments section, that I have seen, center on this conflict between concerned backers and the pie-in-the-sky white knights (fun fact: there are companies one can pay to openly and anonymously support a KS project in the comments).

**ced1106**

> Makes me wonder what Miniature Market's investment in this was?

Yep. The update only says that MM "reserved" 500 boxes. What does *that* mean?? Typically, when a retailer takes a pre-order, the product has already been made. (Also, you'll see retailers pay suppliers *after* product is delivered.) So my guess is "not much".

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/996665814/confrontation-classic-the-legendary-skirmish-game/posts/2540914?fbclid=IwAR25cWqnp7s33_UeoIZqlWOvDq4JpezdhUUEX9etfyAuy4J-qhjtp7e-B3U

> They had to get the money for the Confrontation license some how.

Well, Stellar owns the license, and San Detour is the licensee but both companies are, more or less, owned / operated by the same people. Or are you referring to how Stellar originally got the license from Rakham?

As for maliciousness vs. incompetence, aka. scam vs. mismanagement, I'm going to go with the latter. That's because, if a KS goes bankrupt, it's almost always because of mismanagement resulting in lack of funds. The usual culprits are delays that result in cost overruns and not enough funds from KS to pay for the project, including when a previously unrevealed investor pulls out.

If you want to see an actual KS scam, go search on the "Ice Age Miniatures" KS, which not only took backer money, but money from the game designer as well, and used pictures of the sculptor during the campaign (for free, which is common) then did not purchase the sculpts after the campaign was over.

Still, that being said, I've seen twice the company shell game, in which the owner of a company creates another company for the sole reason of transferring assets without liabilities. The first was during the Up Front KS with Rik Falch, and the second with Prodos / Archon, during the LOAD KS. Rik left the country or something (and got away with it), while Prodos made amends, after five years, with their Aliens vs. Predator backers, and continues to run KS projects.

**Bossk_Hogg**

Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
Sarouan wrote:
ScarletRose wrote:

-now the company is closing down without having produced anything

To be fair, they have produced a first wave in resin, and some backers who pledged for these very specific pieces got them.

But was that just to string people along and get new people hooked in (think they re-opened for new pledges at some point(s)?), or because they genuinely tried to get people what they paid for?

That's my biggest question in this debacle: are they incredibly incompetent (they should have known they didn't know what they were doing, did no research before setting pledge levels or making promises, had no realistic outlook on what or how to produce, in any material), or simply malicious? Leaning towards the latter, but wonder if that's because I'm a terrible cynic. Regardless, best to avoid these people and any (shell) companies they are associated with.

I'm pretty sure it was just to string people along. Wasn't it all just the stuff that CMON had already produced, tried to sell, and then clearanced? I got the titan dragon for like $30 during that sale, so maybe SD just picked up all they could in preparation for the scam lol.

As I suspected from the beginning, the Cadwallon recasters were more legit than this gak show. Hopefully they start selling again.