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Drew just posted this on the Confrontation KS comments:

I learned a few more details after speaking with someone at Reapercon about this.

- The French investigation team saw through the shenanigans that SD was trying to pull with Stellar Licensing, and broke up Stellar as well.

- Due to legal strangeness, the rights to Confrontation reverted to Cyanide- which had been purchased by another software company. Basically, Confrontation was now owned by a company that had no idea that they owned it and no interest in tabletop miniatures games. (I think this is the summary version- the rights trail is kind of strange).

Taking advantage of this, a small American company called Temple of the West has purchased the rights to Confrontation and are working to update bring a new edition of the game to market.

The person I spoke with is the owner of Temple of the West and he was wearing a shirt that said "Confrontation Continuum" in that delightful font we all know and love.

He also said that he had tracked down a number of unreleased miniature sculpts from the days of Rackham.

So- that seems to be the hope for Confrontation having a future.

Looking up Temple of the West on FB found this July 29th post (and follow-up comment):

Our newest project is called Confrontation Continuum... follow along as we release an amazing new miniatures range and an eventual rulebook and follow up scenario/ campaign books for playing in the amazing world of Aarklash. We are excited for these first releases concepted by illustrator Gary Chalk. ... There's a reason we are funding this out of pocket and not on kickstarter. A lot of trust to build back in the community. I was personally taken by SD in their kickstarter too... here to CONTINUE the story and world! Really excited about the future of Aarklash.

https://www.facebook.com/templewest.co/

TotW posted some concept art for miniatures they're releasing, including this one:



Haven't heard of these guys, myself, but they're located in TX and are an existing retail company, afaik.
https://www.templewest.co

Also, here's the Confrontation Fanatics FB group if you want to follow closer: https://www.facebook.com/groups/223642128106666/permalink/1246968065774062/

I see Confrontation is joining Warzone in the unholy cycle of perpetual rebirth and (very likely quick and painful) demise.

Ignoring the old story of small company trying to fill big shoes, the concept shown looks fine.

For Cadwallon, that is.

I wish them all the best, but as HMV said, I fully expect it to end up like every other reboot of a dead tabletop franchise.

The company has been releasing a lot of the characters from the relic blade card sets that don’t have miniatures. I have had nothing but good experiences with them so far with my multiple orders. The owner is pretty active on Lead adventure forum and he seems to be really excited and enthusiastic and realy seems to love Confrontation. I think they just started play testing the new rules. I wish them luck and look forward to them reviving my favorite games.

Good to know!

" These will be our first releases (NOT A KICKSTARTER)... many of these concepts have sat on the shelf of Gary's office and never seen the day of light. He has a LARGE stack of work he did for Rackham that was never used before they folded. ... Yes, Gary supplied an amazing amount of Art for the Cadwallon RPG books and a few of the Cry Havoc Magazines. I was really happy when he enthusiastically jumped on board with the project. He was REALLY upset to see how the Kickstarter went as he loves the Aarklash universe. We have a lot of great things planned. ...

Skirmish! The new rules will use 3.5 as a familiar engine, but have a lot of changes to gear it more towards a narrative/story/campaign based system.

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=132597.0

Will be following with interest - very fond memories of my Devourers!

Very confused to what belongs to who.

Isn't there like some kind of a store selling the things now?

I have seen this handled by so many different people and none seemed to do it right. Maybe this time around they will.

The minis deserve a more serious and competent handling.

Very happy to see this is making a comeback, and from people relatively close to me in Texas no less! Time to dig out the Skirmish books again for a refresher before the updates start coming!

And definitely all in for anything Ophidian, Devourer, Drune or Griffon.

> Very confused to what belongs to who.
> Isn't there like some kind of a store selling the things now?

Temple of the West has licensed the rights to make Confrontation rules and miniatures from the owners of Cyanide, who (apparently) owns the rights.
Cadwallon did not have the rights to make miniatures for Confrontation, but sells illegal recasts. Cadwallon has their own Legend of Signum game line.

It's possible that, since TotW wants to make new miniatures and, since it's retail and not KS, can only release a few miniatures at a time, they'd rather focus on the new miniatures than force Cadwallon to stop making old ones. From the LA thread: "BUT, the other issue is the Cadwallon.com guys in the ukraine are already pumping them out in metal and resin... So, 1. I don't think anyone else is going to buy the sculpts to make since there's already a company making them (illegally)..." Yeah, I'm sure there's a risk of not enforcing ownership of the IP, but Cadwallon's already been making recasts for a long time.

Cyanide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide_(company)

> I have seen this handled by so many different people and none seemed to do it right. Maybe this time around they will.
> The minis deserve a more serious and competent handling.

Yep! TotW has a Confrontation 3.5 set of rules in beta and I haven't heard of the company either, so we'll see!

Great miniatures, if it makes it easier to get some of them that's good news to me.

I was following the Lead Adventure thread a bit, sounds like it'll mostly be revised rules using 3.5 base and new miniatures going forward.

The old miniatures line is a mess because SD sold a lot of the masters coupled with the Russian recasters that have been keeping pretty much the entire line in production for over a decade. Temple West says it would be pretty much impossible for a small company like his to reproduce the line AND force the recasters to stop, so they're mostly concerned with releasing a new rules edition and making new figures in the same style, using the same artists and sculptors that used to work for Rackham

As for the rules/models, he mentioned the new rules will be base agnostic, written so you can either use quare or round bases.

Was a huge confrontation fan, but it seems to me that that ship has sailed.

Wish I'm wrong though

I wish them the best of luck.

I saw this a few weeks ago when a few of the old people from Dragon Painting (use to be a confrontation painting forum) that I know were discussing it. Decided against posting anything about it as until somethings released I don't see another company getting the rights as any real news sadly.

Thanks for the clarification guys. The old range is really a licensed minefield.

I was wondering how they intend to make the game work if they don't sell the range of minis that goes with it?
I welcome new minis from the old team since I hold them as some of my favourite artists, but fleshing out new factions and minis will be quite the challenge.

I would love to see these guys and Cadwallon.com collaborate on updating profiles, rules etc. A pipe dream, I know, but still...

Or maybe a Signum/Confrontation crossover? I have hundreds of Confrontation metals from back in the day, and about eighty of the Signum minis...would be nice to have options.

Just a pipe dream.

Doesn't sound like there's any chance of teaming up with Signum/Cadwallon. From the LA posts:

Interesting. Will you be making the old miniatures?

No, Sadly the masters are still in the hands of Stellar Licensing (the Kickstarter guys) and they have no plans for them. I've heard they are trying to piecemeal them out to different manufacturers.... BUT, the other issue is the Cadwallon.com guys in the ukraine are already pumping them out in metal and resin... So, 1. I don't think anyone else is going to buy the sculpts to make since there's already a company making them (illegally)... 2. Nobody is wanting to deal with Stellar after all of the fraud they were involved in with several crowdfunding campaigns. Again, that's why we are calling it Continuum... to more everything forward from here with respect and recognition of the past. If there was a clean way to get the old line, I would have loved to.

So, only new models going forward, but he also stated all the old cards and stats will work with the new rules, which are already written and have been in beta testing since Augest. If you have old stuff (or illegally produced new-old stuff) then it'll work. How balanced the old stuff vs new stuff will be is anybody's guess, but Confrontation was never especially well balanced to begin with so the focus on narrative based gameplay is probably for the best.

re-linking more concept artwork and hand sculpted greens for the new stuff:

Honestly, actually treating this like a new game and starting from scratch (keeping the lore/style) seems like a better option than anything else.

Backgrond was really cool and interesting to hugely intrigued by this..

> I was wondering how they intend to make the game work if they don't sell the range of minis that goes with it?

As Kalamadea sorta said it looks like TotW will release new figures and an updated rules set (which supports old figures), while Cadwallon.com (and other illegal recasters) will still sell old product (EDIT: albeit illegally, since they still don't have the rights). It's an unusual business model, but allows a small company like TotW to focus on new content, rather than have to support all the old content. Again, the "new" content is actually content that Rackham was not able to release when it owned Confrontation. We'll see how it goes...!

Not crowdfunding it is probably the smartest decision they could make. I was already mentally preparing a suitably snarky quip about that funding method and was pleasantly surprised to see them call out that they were NOT using it.

So they have miniatures coming now, rather than at some distant point in the future. That's encouraging.

I still think what they've shown looks more Cadwallon than Confrontation, but hey, maybe new Dirz are just around the corner.

> I still think what they've shown looks more Cadwallon than Confrontation, but hey, maybe new Dirz are just around the corner.

Well, these are based on Gary Chalk's designs before Rackham folded. (Or maybe he changed his art styles towards Rackham's last days?)

From the LA thread "We are currently working with Gary Chalk to bring many of his amazing illustrations to light in miniature form. We have hired ex-Rackham sculptors, ex-Rackham Illustrators, and ex-Rackham painters to realize this project. We are also working on a new Rulebook which will give a nod to the 3.5 edition, but be a much more playable version focused on story and narrative and take out some of the more clunky and dated mechanics. All existing miniatures and factions will work with the new rules, and the existing cards will also work. We wanted to make sure of that! Anyway.. These will be our first releases (NOT A KICKSTARTER)... many of these concepts have sat on the shelf of Gary's office and never seen the day of light. He has a LARGE stack of work he did for Rackham that was never used before they folded..."

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=132597.0

 ced1106 wrote:
> I still think what they've shown looks more Cadwallon than Confrontation, but hey, maybe new Dirz are just around the corner.

Well, these are based on Gary Chalk's designs before Rackham folded. (Or maybe he changed his art styles towards Rackham's last days?)

From the LA thread "We are currently working with Gary Chalk to bring many of his amazing illustrations to light in miniature form. We have hired ex-Rackham sculptors, ex-Rackham Illustrators, and ex-Rackham painters to realize this project. We are also working on a new Rulebook which will give a nod to the 3.5 edition, but be a much more playable version focused on story and narrative and take out some of the more clunky and dated mechanics. All existing miniatures and factions will work with the new rules, and the existing cards will also work. We wanted to make sure of that! Anyway.. These will be our first releases (NOT A KICKSTARTER)... many of these concepts have sat on the shelf of Gary's office and never seen the day of light. He has a LARGE stack of work he did for Rackham that was never used before they folded..."

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=132597.0

I'm going to be honest, I think that approach is really clever and fresh. Its a bit like picking up where Rackham stopped and expanding it, taking the universe and minis further with the same team of talent. This could be something very special.

Its a different business model since it doesn't fight for the huge old range ( if thats even possible). It just creates more content.
Keeping my eyes on this for sure.

Well that's mighty interesting. Might as well get to painting the Lions on my shelf, if the rules turn out any good. 3.5 was great, but suffered from some horrid writing that obfuscated the core ideas. Streamlining it a bit would be welcome.

 Sherrypie wrote:
Well that's mighty interesting. Might as well get to painting the Lions on my shelf, if the rules turn out any good. 3.5 was great, but suffered from some horrid writing that obfuscated the core ideas. Streamlining it a bit would be welcome.

Played from 2nd edition but mostly 3/3.5 and loved it except for the terrible balancing of the character stats and points values. This sounds like the rules will be a complete revamp with very little similarity to 3.5. The removal of facing dose not give me much optimism that the ruleset will be for me (i have plenty of skirmish games already, most of which dont use facing except Vanguard and Umbra Turris, both are great).

Temple of the West have been posting images of one of concept art and upcoming sculpts

I hope they can figure out how to get better photographs.

Okay, okay, okay, those models actually look like they belong in Confrontation.

Dare I hope?

I see the three skeleton guys and think "That's a neat looking unit". Never having played Confrontation in any form, I might be wrong. Then thinking in my GW mindset "I wonder which of the three is the best loadout for games " Different weapons must mean completely different units Right? Right???

 Theophony wrote:
I see the three skeleton guys and think "That's a neat looking unit". Never having played Confrontation in any form, I might be wrong. Then thinking in my GW mindset "I wonder which of the three is the best loadout for games " Different weapons must mean completely different units Right? Right???

From what I see, they each have a double-headed sword and shield. And I see quite a lot of lore implied from that loadout:

They have all three attempted combat with a doubleheaded single handed sword, disemboweled themselves and were raised from the dead so that they can further perfect self disembowelment fighting style.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 His Master's Voice wrote:
Okay, okay, okay, those models actually look like they belong in Confrontation.

Dare I hope?

I agree very much.

I think that Temple of the West got some of the unreleased stuff that Rackham had made, but it looks like they're also working with Gary Chalk- one of Rackham's old artists. I don't know if they have any other Rackham alums with them, but that can definitely help.

I do think that Confrontation has influenced the direction that miniatures art has gone in the decades since its first release, so it isn't nearly as unique as it once was.