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Wait. Weren't their Cuthulu wars crowd funding just the french print? All the minis are just what was in the English version done by a completly different company.

 Sarouan wrote:

HaleysRedComet wrote:
I'm confused. The PVC minis in Cthulhu Wars are listed as being done by Ludikbay, which Sans Detour was adamant about being distinct from. Also did they just use the molds from the first run of Cthulhu Wars?

Yep, that project was really a messed up one. But I guess the blind defenders don't dig too deep when they're talking about SD's previous experiences in crowdfunding.

In other news, we have resin add on collectors for Confrontation Classic :

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/996665814/confrontation-classic-the-legendary-skirmish-game/posts/2172588

...that aren't part of the Celebration Box pledge and thus invite to the 1$ Pledge. Funds go up, but I suspect only until time backers understand that they usually don't need to put the pledge of the addon right now, they can just stay with 1$ and give the money when the pledge manager opens later...

So who is doing their resin casting?
Do the molds for them already exist? Are the pictures old or new? Isn't the shown Chimera the Rackham pre-painted one?

This campaign becomes more and more unfocused by the day.

Not recasting per se but Cadwallon.com were producing miniatures from the original moldes. It looks like three have ceased trading their ex-rakham range now as it is all listed as out-of-stock all of a sudden

SD seems to have asked them to stop recasting.

And somehow I do not really know if SD can handle the casting of big resin miniatures...

I think there was a post made somewhere that Cadwallon were going to work with SD officially?

 Overread wrote:
I think there was a post made somewhere that Cadwallon were going to work with SD officially?

I haven't seen where SD has said this. If they did, however, I don't think it is reassuring seeing that Cadwallon largely worked in metal models. If SD had stated this somewhere, I would love to see a link though.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Wait. Weren't their Cuthulu wars crowd funding just the french print? All the minis are just what was in the English version done by a completly different company.

Yeah Sandy Petersons game company "Peterson Games" and the minis were done in China by Panda, i own a copy and imo they are junk(apparently the minis in Cuthulu Wars Onslaught 2 & onwards are better as Panda has improved) like someone else mentioned they are a bit like "Bones" material just slightly more harder but still softer than CMONs PVC.

 Original Timmy wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Wait. Weren't their Cuthulu wars crowd funding just the french print? All the minis are just what was in the English version done by a completly different company.

Yeah Sandy Petersons game company "Peterson Games" and the minis were done in China by Panda, i own a copy and imo they are junk(apparently the minis in Cuthulu Wars Onslaught 2 & onwards are better as Panda has improved) like someone else mentioned they are a bit like "Bones" material just slightly more harder but still softer than CMONs PVC.

That's what I thought yet people are saying that Cuthulu wars shows that SD has experience with PVC miniature production when they weren't involved during the production stages at all.

Panda also produced some VERY disappointing miniatures for the Incursion Kickstarter too. This was some 3 or 4 years ago, so maybe they're a lot better...now?

The 'resin add-ons' seems to have stopped the bleeding - for now.

I know I'm tempted to add on for that Dwarf Golem.

I might still drop down to just that.

 Mysterio wrote:
Panda also produced some VERY disappointing miniatures for the Incursion Kickstarter too. This was some 3 or 4 years ago, so maybe they're a lot better...now?

The 'resin add-ons' seems to have stopped the bleeding - for now.

I know I'm tempted to add on for that Dwarf Golem.

I might still drop down to just that.

The same issues arise with the resin as there were without them - how are they making them and why haven't we seen them do it yet? Why are these all old pictures with one exception? This issue is even a little bit more ridiculous when you compare the cost and time it takes to make a resin mini compared to a PVC one.

 Mysterio wrote:
Panda also produced some VERY disappointing miniatures for the Incursion Kickstarter too. This was some 3 or 4 years ago, so maybe they're a lot better...now?

The 'resin add-ons' seems to have stopped the bleeding - for now.

I know I'm tempted to add on for that Dwarf Golem.

I might still drop down to just that.

You might be better off paying $149.00 to coolminiornot for that same model and getting it now instead of possibly getting it later. Seems they have a few of those add-one in stock still over there.
https://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/miniatures/confrontation-miniatures/confrontation-dwarf-golem-1-1.html
BeliL at least is also on the webstore.

Not a bad idea, actually!

Thanks for the reminder - and the link!

 Monkeysloth wrote:

 Original Timmy wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Wait. Weren't their Cuthulu wars crowd funding just the french print? All the minis are just what was in the English version done by a completly different company.

Yeah Sandy Petersons game company "Peterson Games" and the minis were done in China by Panda, i own a copy and imo they are junk(apparently the minis in Cuthulu Wars Onslaught 2 & onwards are better as Panda has improved) like someone else mentioned they are a bit like "Bones" material just slightly more harder but still softer than CMONs PVC.

That's what I thought yet people are saying that Cuthulu wars shows that SD has experience with PVC miniature production when they weren't involved during the production stages at all.

Not sure if it has been mentioned yet as ive not read every comment here but one of the collaborators Joss was part of the team that made the "Alkemy-Blitz" skirmish game that was KS not too long ago, so someone on board does have "experience" of PVC minis to some degree and they are also selling resin minis for the range on their webstore!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/909359300/alkemy-blitz-starter-box/posts/2131887

*Those tabs on those minis remind me of Privateer Press'es tabs with the copyright "C" and date under each foot, i wonder if its the same company making them!

 Original Timmy wrote:

Not sure if it has been mentioned yet as ive not read every comment here but one of the collaborators Joss was part of the team that made the "Alkemy-Blitz" skirmish game that was KS not too long ago, so someone on board does have "experience" of PVC minis to some degree and they are also selling resin minis for the range on their webstore!

Yes, he has. Though Alkemy totally isn't on the same scale talking about the numbers and the quality of Confrontation miniatures.

I have some of their resin miniatures. They're fine, no more, no less. Their PVC actually hurted the game the first time it was launched, before it sunk and was bought by fans who managed to resurrect it and handle it to a very small (yet living) market. Indeed, it was considered too "cheap" for a miniature skirmish wargame at the time. Completely different from Confrontation's target market, IMHO.

At the time I did the dakka review for the alkemy box (earlier posts), the PVC in that box works because the miniatures are considerably more simplle than Confrontation ones which I also collect. I cannot see any resin or pvc doing justice to the rackham metals. Even the soft metal that rakham used struggled with the extremely thin parts of the figures and would snap. One thing that Rakham did at the time was the aberration prime kit in a strong pvc but the miniature was huge scale wise and as such not as problematic as smaller ones, the details though were all there.

Was it ever stated why they don‘t just do metal models? I‘ve read that they still have the molds and as the original models were metal people would know what they by would get. The Kickstarter is even called „classic“ and for sure fans of old would mostly prefer to get the exact same models as before. It would be much lower risk and they could more easily provide options to only buy one faction instead of this big box. Never understood why gong this PVC route at all or did they expect to sell so much so that they get a bigger profit than with metal?

All I could find was they thought it would make shipping costs prohibitive due to weight.

Grimzim wrote:
Was it ever stated why they don‘t just do metal models? I‘ve read that they still have the molds and as the original models were metal people would know what they by would get. The Kickstarter is even called „classic“ and for sure fans of old would mostly prefer to get the exact same models as before. It would be much lower risk and they could more easily provide options to only buy one faction instead of this big box. Never understood why gong this PVC route at all or did they expect to sell so much so that they get a bigger profit than with metal?

Cost per figure and they have the molds, but probably don’t have the machines to do the actual metal casting.

I suspect the reason is while metal minis do sell on KS they don't appear in (many/any?) multi million pound projects,

and they don't appeal to a lot of the game in a box backers the frequent ks (One of the biggest I can find that was 'all metal' was Nakamura Tower, and they moved to plastic for their second game)

so if your running a project to go huge you probably feel you need plastic for a broad appeal (getting good contract casting done for metal is pretty straightforward as it is with resin, although capacity is more of an issue)

(it also means counterfit/recast stuff is prohibitively expensive, it will still have the potential to hurt you financially if the show up as metal/resin, but at least you don't have to worry about people complaining about stuff related to them online as you can just say 'nothing to do with us, if it's not plastic it's fake')

Let's just debunk something that I keep hearing circulating in this thread and others.

Cadwallon.com was casting with recasts, they did not have the molds when they were casting, and their models were based off of casts from metal models they purchased. The models they were 'missing' were because they didn't have the metal originals, they would search them out and purchase blisters so they could re-cast from the metals. The quality was good in some instances, questionable in others.

Sans-Detour does not have any molds that I am aware of. The molds were originally purchased by LudikBazar when they purchased all of Rackham's old stock. Ludik, during it's financial struggles, used to sell the molds as 'collector pieces,' others were likely destroyed. SD has masters, though how many and which masters they have is in question. I'm a strong believer (and would bet a sum of money that is significant to me) that they do not have all the masters, and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have the masters for some of the models they're producing.

The concern about this project, to me, is that with the sale, and gifting of masters, combined with the fact that SD will not commit to sell these models after the kickstarter, means that there is a very real chance that we're actually watching the death of confrontation. The removal of the recastor and the sale/destruction of masters (with molds sold or destroyed as well), the ability to revive this game will be non-existent. That may be a conscious choice by SD, so that the ONLY game in town is theirs, Resurrection.

elarquin wrote:
The removal of the recastor and the sale/destruction of masters (with molds sold or destroyed as well), the ability to revive this game will be non-existent. That may be a conscious choice by SD, so that the ONLY game in town is theirs, Resurrection.

Not saying you're wrong, but we don't know what's going on wit Cadwallon.com. Clearly they and SD have come to some kind of agreement, but their web store is still up in place with the only difference being the amounts of Conf minis being 'out of stock. It's almost as if they're not changing the website as they're just waiting for the KS to finish so they can get back in business.

Anyway, good post, thanks for the info.

I'm in total agreement, that we don't know what Cadwallon has in store and if they'll come back or if they're out.

I will say that I would be shocked if SD wants to leave them up and making models that will likely be more beloved than the resurrection stuff, and produced in the same or higher quality than the stuff SD is producing. We'll see.

The more sound financial decision for SD was really to scan the masters, and send those files to Cadwallon, having the recastor gain legitimacy and pay a continual licensing fee to SD.

Well, Cadwallon is gonna have their own KS 8th of may...Legends of Signum. So they are kinda competing in same niche.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2034410916/319726173?ref=445132&token=ceea4041

This will bleed Conf KS even more I think when it goes up.

Thing is at least Cadwallon has some casting experience and products on the market. For them cutting their illegitimate casting and going legit might be all there is for them. Ergo they were going to drop the Rackham anyway since it would harm their chances of securing further distributors outside of their own website for their new game investment.

We won't see metal at the PVC prices, that's because of a couple of factors:
1.) Production doesn't scale well as it isn't automated and a mold can only do a limited number of models in high quality (still far more then resin). So selling more doesn't really decrease total cost.
2.) Metal prices are very high compared to 15 years ago:
http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/tin/all/
3.) Weight, transport costs, etc.

elarquin wrote:

The concern about this project, to me, is that with the sale, and gifting of masters, combined with the fact that SD will not commit to sell these models after the kickstarter, means that there is a very real chance that we're actually watching the death of confrontation. The removal of the recastor and the sale/destruction of masters (with molds sold or destroyed as well), the ability to revive this game will be non-existent. That may be a conscious choice by SD, so that the ONLY game in town is theirs, Resurrection.

Yep, my biggest fear is that SD and this kickstarter will mean the ultimate end for Rackham and their models. It'd be a horrible way to lose some of the best and lively minis in gaming history.

 Fafnir wrote:


Yep, my biggest fear is that SD and this kickstarter will mean the ultimate end for Rackham and their models. It'd be a horrible way to lose some of the best and lively minis in gaming history.

It was in their time. Now, it's not really true anymore. You can see at the miniatures on the Confrontation Classic Kickstarter that some aged badly.

Mostly it's talking to veterans who knew the whole range and are pretty nostalgic to these days. The newcomers aren't really that much at a loss.

Don't worry, if Sans Détour crashes, it will be because of their horrible management. There will be plenty of room for others, be it recasters or someone serious at last.

Speaking of management, the latest update has an intro to the project team. Not only should this info have been on the KS page on the first day, but (or because of it) there's no mention of miniatures experience.
Joss, who teased (dunno if he actually said) during the Discourse chats he had miniatures experience is only the "game designer and author of the game Alkemy".
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/996665814/confrontation-classic-the-legendary-skirmish-game/posts/2174347

I thought they ran this campaign to create miniatures for the Confrontation boardgame? Well, whatever.

Dropping nearly 67k US in the last 8 days is pretty crazy. I mean, reasonable given the red flags but still crazy.

Regarding miniature quality - I am still painting old Rackham stuff. Pretty much anything they did after 2006 or 2007 absolutely holds up to today's stuff. The edges are sharp, the detail is there, and (personally) I like the art design.

https://i.imgur.com/kaOIGhe.jpg

That orc right there holds up, quality wise, to anything I am painting today from Corvus Belli, Kingdom Death, or Steamforged.