mathieu

I'll be very, very impressed if the book comes out at the end of the month: - as of the end of January the final version wasn't quite ready to go to the printer yet; - Cipher (and everybody else it seems) prints in China and February isn't a good month to get anything reliably done there; - the whole process of printing + shipping back to the US + clearing customs is a solid 2+ months... I for one wouldn't expect the book to show up before May. And that's assuming the book was indeed "almost ready" back in January. Which I (cynically) wouldn't bet on given the numerous typos and mistakes in the quick start rules, the book preview pages, and the cards they've put on their website over the past couple of weeks. Still I'm very happy about their (slowly) rebooting the game.

That rackham model is among the ones that are still relatively easy to find (e.g. on ludikbazar). I think Damien is a pretty good choice too, though.

Definitely get into it with somebody who's been playing it for a little while. The background is great, the rules are innovative and rather elegant (as of the 1st book at least)... but not well organized. Your first few games can get very discouraging if you're on your own. If you find somebody to show you the ropes and play a handful of games with you, it'll be a lot smoother and less painful.

I don't think the hooded rider is that nice, but I'm surprised people would use Darragh's horse as a conversion base. To me that model is way worse in pretty much every way! That said I think you did a really nice job on the horse's head. Removing that blade makes the model a lot better already, and the tentacle thingies work well with it. If I may offer a suggestion, people over on the PP boards have come up with that conversion of Darragh's horse to make it look a lot less stocky. A simple extension of the hind legs.

Cool! What do you call beta sculpts though? The moulds thing is the kind of story that seems to confuse a lot of people. Moulds wear out very fast and have to be replaced often, so discarding (or "destroying" for added theatrics) is nothing special. In particular it doesn't prevent future production of the model at all. Had they destroyed the greens and the masters, then that would mean they cannot generate moulds any longer, and therefore cannot cast the miniatures ever again. However this is not something they'll ever do given how valuable greens and masters are (even now for them since they convert some of the old masters to produce new PPP models). As for the foundry story, I'd be curious to hear more about it. Rackham had their own foundry, and, like I said above, it wouldn't matter nor mean anything if the guys working there had "destroyed" moulds. But since they were Rackham employees, I don't get the costs and negotiation issue. My understanding is that it was just a part of Rackham that got shut down (for the most part) when money started to run low.

The moulds' being destroyed is the kind of hollow statement Rackham's been known to make for years (apparently adding an -E. to their name didn't change that). They probably threw it at the old fans in a hissy fit to make it clear they had moved on from quality, metal models. The fact of the matter is that moulds (for metal models in particular) wear out rather fast and need to be replaced often. Or "destroyed" and replaced if you want to make it a bit more dramatic . Since Rackham certainly kept the masters, they could make some more moulds any time they'd like. Or sell said masters.

Did they really advertise it as a "fate deck-like" system? I didn't really get into this Aarklash Warpack thing, but it didn't seem to me that they were doing anything even close to a fate deck. That's quite possible, but as Breten pointed out, using of diminutive voodoo-type dolls versions of characters in a miniature game is also a Rackham "invention". They have been (or had been) a big part of the MidNor army for many years, with quite a few models coming with a "canopic doll" more or less in their effigy (completely useless in game terms, just as cool vanity pets for the miniature) So as far as that is concerned, there could indeed be companies tapping into the theme, but Wyrd would definitely be one of them.

And I'm pretty sure Confrontation predated both WM and DDM (I was at their first public demo in 1995). I remember Jean Bey throwing hissy fits later on when WM "came up" with stat cards for WM. I guess that'd close the circle of Rackham "stealing" stuff from Wyrd. Really? Do you have examples off the top of your head?

Those legs look amazing. Very Alien-like, as Rasmus pointed out. Your paintjob might actually end up make me like the model!

I remember seeing a video of Thomas using his zenithal highlighting technique and being blown away by the idea and how easy he made it looks. Years after I almost always use that technique, and it really is as easy as it seems

Cool, thanks for the clarification. That's quite possible, I haven't seen that green you're talking about (is it publicly available?). This is a good thing as I am excited about this model but a little disappointed by the wip shots (as far as the sculpt goes -- the paint job is top notch). Does that comment pertain to my post?

That's an odd decision. Isn't this model you're painting supposed to end up being the official paintjob? In which case the official paintjob wouldn't be that of the stock model? Anyway, I don't think the model is nearly as threatening and powerful looking than the concept suggested. Something is just missing. However I love to see your step by step painting, that dark skintone is pretty amazing. Thanks for sharing.

I'm not as impressed by the model as I was expecting from the concept. Probably because his being less hunched than on the art makes the model a lot less menacing.

The recently released version is the only existing version of the complete game. Up until now, people were playing with booklets available in some blisters. I cannot say if the booklet also had a horrible translation, a friend was teaching me the rules and I never had to read them. However I have a hard time thinking it was worse than what it is now, so my guess would be that there hasn't been any improvement.

Anima Tactics predates Malifaux by a few years, I don't see how it could rip it off I've played the game a few times before the book came out. I can't honestly say I had a strong opinion one way or another. The game was fast (depite my not knowing anything about it), and didn't coast me a whole lot of money. I like some of the models alright, but overall I find their poses rather stiff, and most of the faces lack any sort of expression. Not a huge fan. I purchased the book to see if it would re-ignite my interest. The backstory is cool, and the art on par with everything they've done before. I still haven't read through the whole rule section, so I can't tell if it's as poorly organized as Malifaux yet . The main thing that might prevent me from getting into it is how poorly the book is translated. There clearly was no proper proofreading as I know for a fact that any half-decent text editing software would have picked up quite a few of the mistakes.