09 December 2015

From Beyond The Grave


With all this recent chat about favourite models, my thoughts inevitably found their way to Rackham – creators of Confrontation and purveyors of some of the finest models ever seen.

They punched above their weight due to employing incredibly talented individuals and kept an excellent attention to detail throughout the miniature-making process (I can't comment on the game itself as I never played it). They were ahead of their time. When the company was resigned to history back in 2008, it signalled a great loss to the gaming community and proved that nobody was safe from the recession. As a fan of their work I was simply devastated.


I have spent time since then trying to collect the odd model here and there off Ebay, but prices are creeping up to the point where it's not really a viable option. I still have a lot of their models but I had come to terms with the fact that there were some models on my wish list I just wasn't going to get my hands on.


A chance internet search the other day led me to a website called Cadwallon.com which blew my mind (Cadwallon was Rackham's RPG and is now a board game by FFG). It appeared to sell a large proportion of models from Rackham's back catalogue. Not only that, but there were links to a Confrontation community that is alive and kicking and ready to release the next version of the rules (the website's in Italian so you'll have to translate). The community website has access to lots of Confrontation and Hybrid stat cards and copies of Cry Havoc (Rackham's quarterly magazine). Wow.



Well, I couldn't let this one go without testing it out, so I ordered the miniature I've been after for years… Misericord. I placed my order and an hour later got a Paypal invoice. Once I'd paid and received confirmation I waited patiently to see if it was all a scam. Yesterday I got confirmation that a package was on its way from Ukraine, so I'm starting to get a little excited.

If this turns out to be a sure fire way of getting old Rackham models then I am going to be over the moon. This could become my favourite website ever.

Stay tuned.




15 comments:

  1. Oooooh dammit. I'd managed to resist getting into Confrontation when it was originally available. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to resist again as the pirate goblins were always a favourite.

    Their world was always great as well.

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    1. It really is a great loss not having Rackham around, but if this offers the next best thing then I'll take it.

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  2. Some marvellous miniatures such characterful sculpts.

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    1. At the time they were so far ahead of everyone else, especially GW, in terms of characterful sculpts it was a revelation. The models were so delicate to compared to everything else I'd seen, it took me a while to be able to handle and paint them!

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    2. Last night I went back and read one of their magazines... their writing was so much better than anything we get from anyone now too. Their small pieces of fluff make Mantic's offerings look like they were written by a small child :/

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  3. I have seen this site before, but was always wary to order from them. Prices seem to be too good to be true, and I suspect they might be recasts though.. but will watch what you get and react accordingly ;)

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    1. I'm not sure. There was a company a few years back that bought at least some of the molds from Rackham's new owners, including a load of unreleased ones. There are some models on that site that I'd not seen before, though I did stop paying attention when they went prepainted plastic.

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    2. I too was very suspicious, but this was too good a thing to not test out.

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  4. they are all recasts from them. the company that bought all the rights to rackham stoped making minis because of them because being in the ukrane they do not have to follow copyright laws. all th unrealsed minis they sell are sculpted from artwork that was made for the game. Sad ending to it all.

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    1. Interesting stuff indeed. I saw the old Rackham stuff on CMoN and they don't have much on offer, which is a shame.

      I'll see what the mini I ordered looks like when it turns up and report the results.

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  5. Yep. They are unfortunately recasts.
    I saw the site a while ago and was happy as a puppy... until I did a search and found out the sad truth.
    I will still have to scour the market for some minis I really want.

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    1. Yep, looks like we'll have to keep paying over the odds on Ebay!

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  6. Still have a lot of unopened packets of these models ... somewhere .....

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