Rackhams future plans ... open letter

[News Monkey]

First of all I want to say thank you to all of us for your support!

It have been a long day today for Rackham and one of the most important for

the company history, and it's now night time in France, even late, but it's

have been a great day for Rackham and I want to let you know.

As you may know Rackham have been on the French Chapter Eleven since 15

months now, and today I was on the Court explaining my plan for the future

of Rackham. In France, the normal French Chapter Eleven delay is a maximum

period of 6 months + eventually a second 6 months period. No more!

In regards of our incredible capacity of resistance, our capacity to

continue to create and to produce even in a financial perillous situation

and our results, the Court have decide to give us an unusual 3 months

supplementary delay to find some partners to help us to completely recover

all our capacity to be strong enought for the future on the worlwide market.

Unfortunatly we were too fragile. Our global results was good but not

enought to built the future in a strong and calmly way everywhere.

These 3 months I have spend lots of my time to find REAL partners to give us

this opportunity to work on the future calmly for Rackham.

And I find these partners! Today we explain to the Court our strategy and

our goal for Rackham and his Creative Studio.

And the Court have decide to let the company lives from his own, let us to

continue freely!

After 15 months of fights, what it means for us at Rackham is that we are

still alive! we have resist to all the incredible traps of some of our great

friends to recover the company... we have resist to some financial proposal

from some financial sharks. And finally we have resist to those we want to

kill us because we want to stay what we are! Of course unfortunatly we have

loose some of the Team, the Ennemy was at the gates all day, everydays, we

are less than before, but this Team is the heart of Rackham, the most

motivated and the most stronger part of the company, the ones who have

continue every day in this rude months to believe in the company, to believe

in the Team and our games. And to believe in a brightness future.

What it means for us, is that Rackham will no longer exist on next Tuesday.

Rackham will become Rackham Entertainment. Why? simply because since the

beginning we have try to realize more than miniatures and games. We are

Universes makers, we play miniatures games, boardgames, video games. We read

fantasy and SF books, we love fantasy movies... and we have created

universes such Confrontation and AT-43 to be able to do more than miniatures

games, to be able to write some novels for example, doing some great

partnerships with the video games industry, done some boardgames in our

universes but not only. Our partners know this and think that our

miniatures, books, universes have an incredible +. This creativity and this

unique flavour must be protected and having the possibilty to grow. The

Creative Studio must work and grow to become more famous because it is

unique and innovating. These partners are wellknown in the Games and Toys

market, they are big. They have some great licences, but they don't have the

capacity to create and develop some original worlds with all around. They

will give us the capacity to finish to develop our third universe for

example which is on stand by since more than two years now (But I will let

you know more about it in the upcoming months) or to finish our new

boardgame: Rush and Crush, a brutal races boardgame set in the AT-43

universe.

There will be no changes, no changes on the games mechanics or miniatures,

or on the quality, there will be no prices increases and our goal is to

continue to find technical solutions to increase the quality. We will

continue to develop Confrontation and AT-43 miniatures and Army Books in

priority but we will work for example on the packaging of the lines as we

think since a long time that we must change the size of it.

Right now we must work to produce far in advance the more than 6 months new

miniatures armies we have ready to be launch for Confrontation and AT-43 to

show all the new releases to the public and the shops. We must assure the

fluidity of our regular monthly new releases with all the Distributors for

the Retailers, especially in the US. We need to speak to the community and

help the stores. We need to show to the community the positive face of

rackham, the games and all the new things ready and isolated the naysayers.

It's really important as false rumors, intentional or not and negativ

comments break us a lot since several months on lots of forums and blogs.

It's not an easy thing to do, there's a lot, and it become a sport sometimes

to break Rackham... and in the real world, PPP miniatures will be the

standard like miniatures + cards is now our standard using by every others.

Remember confrontation 1 ten year ago...

In the upcoming days we will recover our capacity to produce some great

samples new releases in advance to send it to you before end of December.

Count that we will be completly ready to come back on all front (marketing,

communication and supports at the end of December). With these minis for

example, all of you will be able to show the future releases to the shops

and of course to the players in the shops! Some of them will be paint, some

will be pre-plastic cast in the very first time. But the most important

thing is that you have the products in advance.

We are actually working a dedicaced logo for the Sentinels exclusive and all

of you will have it automatically with their avatar when connecting on our

forums. I hope to finish it for the next week. I will let you know.

In the upcoming months we will create some special free ready to play gaming

tables for all the shops who carry the lines regulary (of course you will be

able to have it for your personnal use too). These gaming tables will be set

with all the necessary miniatures to demoing the games. Not huge games with

lots of miniatures, but for initiate the players or simply to done some

Rackham games on it in the shops.

As I told before, I will be the exclusive in charge of the Sentinels. I have

decide and organize this because I have seen in the past that some of us

from Rackham was very good to promise a lot on internet or in some fair, but

don't do the job in the real life, which means that if I told you that I

will send you this or this, it will be done, The idea is absolutly not that

you stay alone trying doing something from your side waiting for a sign of

us. I want to built a team with you!

Don't be surprise too: on Tuesday night I will be no more the CEO and the

Art Director. I will be the Art Director. What it means for me, nothing it

was the price to pay to the Court in regards of the French Law for the

company in Chapter Eleven and as I create Rackham 10 years ago to create

fantastic universes and great miniatures, because I love miniatures and

games that's great for me. I stay the heart of the new company, ready to

create all we have in minds with the Team and to built a strong community

with all of you!

Stay in alert!

Keep the details of this message for you. The official announcement will be

done next week on wednesday!

Thanks again for all your support and confidence,

Let the battle begin!

With my Best Regards,

Jean.

[thetang22]

Wow, Jean Bey is no longer the top dog. Interesting. Not sure what else to say... Rackham must REALLY be selling out.

[v22TTC]

"What it means for us, is that Rackham will no longer exist on next Tuesday."

Insert ironic and slightly bitter comment here....

[thewartoad]

This is what happens when you try to put all of your eggs in one basket...no matter how you stack them...some are sure to fall out and crack!

[v22TTC]

Sniffyness, bitterness, betrayal and sadness aside, if Rackham Entertainment does get into video games, a Knights of the Old Republic style Cadwallon RPG could be the best thing ever... except for Knights of the Old Republic, of course.

Like how Dawn of War made even this venomous, bile-spitting, ex-GW staff member start to warm back to the 40K Universe....

[supervike]

I fell asleep halfway through.

[thetang22]

I fell asleep halfway through.

Rackham has always been pretty notorious for their bad English.

[supervike]

I've been pretty notorious for my short attention spa............whoa check out that cloud!

[Peterdita]

I would love to get some of their old Legends stuff... Without having to pay like 40 Euros for shipping. Makes me sad because I want them real bad, GOSH!

Any suggestions for a naive collector? Think the restructuring might help me out?

[thetang22]

Peterdita, I have a decent chunk of unpainted Rackham metals that I'm wanting to get rid of. If you are interested lemme know.

Dirz - 3 Dawn Warriors

Dirz Neuromancer

Dirz Ysis

Dirz Sin Assyris

Griffin - 3 Fusiliers

Sessairs - Enoch the Elementalist

Sessairs - Fianna Musician

Cynwall - 3 Akhamials

Cynwall - 3 Khidaryms

Cynwall - 2 Varsyms

Cadwallon - Captain Kelian Durak

Wolfen - 2 Fang Warriors

Wolfen - Predator 2

Wolfen - Onyx the Prowler

Devourer - Voracious Warrior 1

Lions - The Red Lioness Boxed Set

Goblin - Buccaneer

Acheron - Alderan, Crane Warrior

TNB - Fenggar Iron Hand (Brotherhood of Bronze)

TNB - Mechanical Familiar (Brotherhood of Bronze)

TNB - 2 Forge Guardians (Brotherhood of Bronze)

Elementals - Angel of Light

Elementals - 2 Sparklings

As for the restructuring helping you out with your metals - I can only take a guess, but I'd probably say no. From the sound of it, the new CEO is probably a very business-minded person, only concerned with the direction Rackham is going, rather than supporting Rackham's older projects. My personal guess is that metals are probably only going to get harder to find from here on out. They might have metal restocks every great now and again, but I really doubt we'll see anything regular with the metals.

edit: Oh, I also have the full Hybrid boardgame by Rackham with all of the metal minis it came with (1 of which is painted to a pretty solid standard).

[Peterdita]

Cool thanks thetang22. I'll check this list out and PM you if something strikes my fancy.

[Bexley]

I wouldn't expect metals to last terribly long. It was killing them, and truthfully, the only thing that kept them in business was switching to the pre-paints. They will not likely sell of their inventory through their own store, but to a distributor who will then sell them how they see fit. Most likely, to an internet vendor who can afford to warehouse them, sell them deeply discounted, and still make money. Which would, I suppose, help you, if you were aware of who was selling them off like that.

[thetang22]

I wouldn't expect metals to last terribly long. It was killing them, and truthfully, the only thing that kept them in business was switching to the pre-paints.

This statement needs addressed because it is faulty....here is a little bit more detailed report of what actually happened and where the blame should be (not in the metal miniatutres). Here is the argument from the Rackham forums:

Ztrain wrote: Well obviously C3 wasn't working for them or they wouldn't be in financial trouble if it was just flying off the store shelves in droves.

If there is any chance of saving the company with my limited experience it'd be with the new lines that new players may be interested in rather then the old product that was proven to not be financially sound to produce.

Well, I feel I might have to correct you here (and I may be wrong myself since its been some time since I've seen all the threads related to this). C3 wasn't the reason Rackham went into financial trouble. C3 by itself was a sound financial product. It didn't make HUGE amounts of money, but it did well enough to have consistent profits and support itself just fine.

Rackham then went through a series of events that led to their financial problems. I can't remember the exact order of these, but I'll put them in the order I remember them:

1. While Rackham was producing Confrontation and everything was going fine, they decided they wanted to try a new avenue by introducing pre-painted plasitc miniatures in a sci-fi universe and unit-based game (better known as AT-43). This was all fine and dandy as it didn't really directly interfere with Confrontation. It did however, require a very large initial investment to produce. Lots of the profits from Confrontation were directed at funding AT-43's initial costs until AT-43 would start making enough money to support itself. However, AT-43 didn't really do too well overall when it first came out and was a money sink for a while. The profits for Confrontation were still coming in, but not enough to support Confrontation AND AT-43.

2. Rackham stock turned from a privately owned business to a publicly traded business. That meant that the consistent profits from Confrontation weren't enough to satisfy the investors. When a company's stock goes public, the company has to find ways to increase profits, because that is what is in the best interest of the stock holders, and thats who the company now has to cater to. This led to a LOT of crazy things happening in the company that really made long-time loyal customers lose their trust and faith in Rackham.

3. Around the same time as Rackham was struggling to get AT-43 off the ground and the company turned public, they laid down the biggest punch of them all - they were going to re-direct their focus from their traditional Confrontation game to a new unit-based PPP game (CaoR). (This new system would require all the same initial investments that AT-43 did as well). They made this announcement a good 6 months to a year or so before they were able to even release anything CaoR related. In the meantime all the consistent profits the company experienced from Confrontation disappeared. All the loyal gamers that supported Rackham all those years didn't want a new unit-based game to replace their favorite Skirmish game, and with the news that Rackham was going to stop supporting new releases for C3 it made a lot, and I mean a LOT of people stop buying the C3 releases that were supposed to tide the company over during the 6 months to a year before CaoR would be released. This was probably the final straw that put Rackham into Bankruptcy (or whatever the business protection was that they filed for).

So you see....C3 was just fine by itself, it was all the non-C3 stuff that Rackham did that put it in financial jeopardy.

[Bexley]

Well, we'll go with that story, then.

[v22TTC]

I know some folk are sick of chatting about what happened with R, and that the idea of a forum is a place where everyone agrees to disagree, but I'm kind of a relic who considers debate to be healthy, non-threatening and the main engine for achieving understanding and therefore progress.

I guess you, Bexley, are especially fed up with the R conversation - and totally fair enough! - but it seems to me that either your or Thetang22's statement must be correct; just out of interest, since it's been raised and I've read it, I'd like to know which....

Also, if you or anyone else comes across a reliable one of those online sellers of the R metals you mentioned, I'd be really grateful if the info was shared - there're still tens and tens and tens of R minis I need to get....

Yes, I said 'need'.:adore:

EDIT2: Also, does anyone know any more about whether R will release the Cadwallon Secrets 2 book in English? Last I heard was the Jean Bey interview on TGN, and something about a subscription. Don't know why but I'm borderline obssessed with Cadwallon....

Edited November 13, 2008 by v22TTC
For clarity ... well, you never know....

[Bexley]

Yes and no. I'm not really allowed to talk about it much. Sometimes I slip, though, and then I remember I can't back up anything without getting into trouble.

[v22TTC]

Ah - say no more Sir! Cheers for that though.

[thetang22]

I was fairly active on the Rackham boards for a couple of years, and I still lurk their just to keep an eye out for whats going on. The information I provided was the same stuff I said over on the Rackham boards that got agreement from many others long-term forum members. Also....I was present during all that stuff that was going on as well - taking part in all the forum conversation about the stuff, so my own memory serves me decently on the subject. Like I said.....Rackham was doing fine until they decided the profits they had weren't enough to support all the other things they wanted to try out.

It wasn't switching to PPP that saved them.....it was switching to PPP with a terrible transition plan that almost buried them. If Rackham had never done any of the PPP stuff at all, Confrontation 3 would still be pushing along just fine the way it was before all the other crap happened. Confrontation wasn't huge, but it had a very loyal following and a moderate but consistent growth with new players as well.

As for Cadwallon and Secrets 2 - don't hold your breath. Jean Bey said within the last month or so that although he would like to release the English translation, they just don't have the resources to do so right now. He hinted that Secrets (as well as anything Cadwallon related besides the new army book info) has been put on hiatus until further notice.

Cadwallon just wasn't profitable enough for them to keep producing materials for it, but hell - it was Rackham's own fault on that. The game system had a lot of potential, but they released it in a state that felt very disorganized and incomplete. Then when people asked for rules clarifications and a bit of example materials to work from, Rackham was nowhere in site. Rackham probably addressed less than 5% of the questions and concerns all the gamers had regarding Cadwallon-related materials. And on top of that....the few times when they did address something confusing, they published it in their Cry Havoc magazine instead of just telling us straight up on the forums - forcing us to pay for the magazine to get the clarifications to a book that should have had the rules clarified in itself. Why in the world should I have to buy product B just because product A doesn't make sense, even though Product A should be a complete stand-alone product on its own?

Edited November 13, 2008 by thetang22

[Morf]

There are some myths and legends but if I hear from Rackham's ex-employees that the studio sculptors would sculpt one mini a month, doesn't really strike me as odd that they could have overinvested.

Also, skirmish is no way to go for a big company. You can't profit from selling 15 unique models as from selling 15 copies of the same one. All in all I am in debt of Jean Bey since the total collapse of C3 and their "if you don't want to play our game, get out of here" attitude made me research the gaming world better and do something on my own.

Also, I think that he is just in the spot where he can excel - as a great art/creative director. Though I hope the bitterness of last announcements will not translate to miniatures.

[thetang22]

Though I hope the bitterness of last announcements will not translate to miniatures.

It sure looks like its already been translating that way for the past 2 years or so now. The quality of the PPP has been very meh....especially when coming from a company that had the reputation of releasing some of the highest quality 32mm minis on the market.

The AT-43 stuff is consistently higher quality than CaoR. For the CaoR stuff - the final product never looks as good as they display on the web....even when they show pictures that are supposed to be actual factory paint jobs. Some of the big Dirz monsters were getting people excited, then they saw a paint job in person from the factory and it was very disappointing.

They've got a lot of sculpts that make you think...."who the hell approved this to go to prodution?" For instance, the original Griffin Spearmen with their huge monkey arms and hands. Then you've got some others like the new Praetorian Guards for the Griffin that actually look pretty good:

Edited November 13, 2008 by thetang22

[Art-de-Vivre]

the R. story is quite sad; I'm one of those faithful customers of Confrontation figures until they released the 3.5 rules and the PPP.

I totally quit buying the PPP (I still have a mint AT-43 starter set, and will probably sell it for peanuts on ebay) and stopped playing altogether...

Anyway, R. set a very high standard in the miniature world about 10 years ago, and they should be recognized for that : brilliant scuplts and artwork, a steady flow of new monthly releases, a nice magazine etc..).

A similar thing can be said about the now defunct Ilyad Games (I'm selling some on ebay these days- pm me if you are looking for something specific except Vorags) that had beautifully sculpted and original minis, but little business success.

Being French myself, I can easily make fun of the "business savvy" (or lack thereof) of French companies when it comes to marketing, for instance. But in terms of artistry and design, we can still be proud of a number of achievements...

The good news is that R. isn't dead yet, and that the sculptors are all busy working either for R or other companies; (most of the Ilyad sculptors now work on Helldorado, I believe), so as afficionados of nice sculpts (all of us on the Wyrd forum obviously) there is still hope !

Cheers !

[thetang22]

The good news is that R. isn't dead yet

I honestly think Rackham will come out on top financially. However, I think as a result they are going to completely restructure their aims and goals. The are probably going to be very much a casual toy-type company compared to what they once were.

Its kinda sad for the miniature side of things, but at the same time Jean said they were trying to tap into new markets of gaming (such as video games). All I can say is that I think an RPG video game of Cadwallon would possibly be the best thing the Cad fans could hope for. Not necessarily an MMO, but maybe something with the expansiveness and variety of the Elder Scrolls series. I'm generally bitter towards Rackham these days, but I would buy that in an instant if it was done well. They just had too well developed of a universe and storylines not to appreciate what could be done with that.

[Morf]

Not being French, I can only mention that whenever I hear about weird "distribution terms and conditions", it usually does have something to do with a French company.

From the player's perspective, I really like how Kraken Editions treats the fanbase worldwide.

A noticeable exception. Though Rackham's customer service until 2005 was perfect too. At least in my case and I was ordering a package every month!

[v22TTC]

Yeah, the reason all this doesn't bother me as much as it might is that kind of 'circle of life' thing - pretty sure some of my favourite sculpts of all time (Infinity and Anima Tactics) wouldn't have happened if R had carried on being what it was, nor would we have seen such a deluge of innovative, genuinely next-gen skirmish rulesets.

Thetang22: I think it's probably the sheer amount of effort you need to invest into Cadwallon (reading the rulebook three times to make sense of it, an awful lot of thought, extrapolation and deduction, coming up with extensive house rules and reading every post on the forum to see if anyone else has a clue; all with almost zero help from the company) that's given me such an attachment to it ... I suppose it feels more 'mine'/'ours' than the 'theirs' of a more polished and company supported product.

I suppose this is how modders of unfinished games (like KotOR II) must feel - I know a couple of people who started to seriously get into sculpting because of what happened with Cadwallon: 'Well if they won't sculpt any more minis for it, I will!' Pretty sure my first, finished, completely from scratch sculpt will be my Cadwe character....

[Bexley]

pretty sure some of my favourite sculpts of all time (Infinity and Anima Tactics) wouldn't have happened if R had carried on being what it was, nor would we have seen such a deluge of innovative, genuinely next-gen skirmish rulesets.

Especially since most of Anima is sculpted by former Rackham sculptors.