Collection round-up - November 2025

As before, a small note ahead of today's post. New miniature galleries are complete, this time featuring both Orc factions and the Lions of Alahan. I'll have to admit that this journey of investigating and uploading of the galleries has started bearing fruit. The whole process of diving into one specific army and being surrounded by it makes me somehow appreciate it more. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that this would be possible for the Lions, but I've grown somehow more tolerant of them. I've recoiled in disapproval every time I saw their models previously, but now I come to realize that there are some interesting sculpts within their ranks. Miracles do happen! Though I'm fairly certain that my disgust for Dwarves of Tir-Nâ-Bor will remain steadfast. We'll see soon enough!

Now onto the meat and potatoes. Previously when I planned out what I want to post on the blog as far as my collection updates are concerned I just wanted to show what I have from specific armies. Which, I come to realize, in the long run doesn't make much sense since I'd have to repost some armies over and over again as I acquire more, since let's be real, every army I have is not fully complete. So instead, now I decided to group my purchases and do a monthly summary of what I've managed to snag. And oh boy, this month was a big one!

November haul!

Big, beautiful boxes! And I would say a pretty important milestone achieved in my collection. Some would argue that AT-43 and Hybrid are the best things Rackham ever released, rightfully so. I haven't delved into either deeply enough yet to deny or confirm this, but finally holding them in my hands I can definitely say that both are insanely impressive. I plan to do more thorough posts for both games sometimes soon, so stay tuned.

The Damocles purchase came with an extra army book for Therians and the Operation Frostbite campaign book. I was extremely happy with the addition of the army book, since Therians are visually my favorite faction in AT-43. Not only that, but the box itself came with a few extra Therians, namely some Assault Medusae, a few Golem Specialists and two Nano Generators, which I forgot to take out of the box for the photo. Needless to say, a great purchase for yours truly, made even greater by the price tag on the whole lot which was a whooping 30 euros.

Hybrid and Nemesis both came unwrapped, but all the contents have been untouched inside. It was a bit steeper price tag, around 150 euros, but still a great deal considering that just the core box goes for that much at times and not at all in NIB condition in most cases. I think only the French version of the game is still available at Rackham-esque prices, which is extremely commendable thanks to the efforts of the French community.

The two Cry Havoc magazines and the Aarklash world book I picked up for crazy cheap, around 2 euros total. Sure, the CH issues didn't come with the gaming aids booklet and the cards, but just having them on hand for so cheap was worth it. Especially neat in my case is that both of these issues have some terrain building tutorials which I plan on recreating, so these will be workbench copies which might get stained and messy along the way. The extra Aarklash book is nice to have as a reading copy, since I've heard these have notoriously bad spines with pages falling out often if used regularly. 

And that's it for the month of November! As of this post, we're already a few days into December and I've already landed some hefty new purchases, plus I'm already writing several other upcoming articles, so a lot of things are cooking. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

It's a Crôn-mas Miracle! Winter 2025 Painting Competition

Yes, you read that right! There is a new Confrontation painting competition brewing on the 7 Hills server. Technically it is already under way and running only until Christmas, but there's still enough time to join.

You only have to paint one miniature, the almighty Crôn The Undefeated. If you are wondering why that particular character, Crôn will be merciful towards your ignorance this time around. Head on over and read his entry in the Sessair miniature gallery and stop embarrassing yourself.

But enough yapping because we're short on time, here are the rules of the competition as written by Krillion:

***

Welcome to the final painting competition of 2025! 
Hosted by @Jeremy from End of the World
The rules are simple. Paint the best Crôn in all its Crônness glory. 
If you wish to participate please post a picture of your unassembled/assembled but unpainted/primered model no later than December 10th.

Your models will be judged on the overall Crôn-ness they display and how well they are technically executed.
Attempts to detract from the Crônosity of the model via needless conversions or head/weapon swaps may negatively impact your overall score.
This is an attempt to find the Crôntonic ideal of a miniature painted in just over 1 month.
There will be a prize for Best Crôn even though everyone here knows Crôn is already the best.

***

And there you have it. It'll be fast, it'll be brutal, it'll be glorious in the name of our UNDEFEATED champion. And yes, of course, I'm participating. And yes, I am a firm believer that all of us lucky enough to paint Crôn have already won. See you on the battlefield!

"THIS DAY WILL SEE YOUR END!"

Bad luck and garbage bins

Before we begin, another entry to the Miniature Galleries has been added, this time featuring the Wolfen of Yllia, plus I went back and edited some of the previously posted armies. Progress has been slower than what I hoped for because life got a bit chaotic lately, but I'll keep on truckin'!

Back in September in my "Lucky finds and bargain bins" post I touched on a couple of instances in my Confrontation collecting journey which I found inspiring and worthy of sharing. Truth be told, most of my collection is bound to end up on the blog, but these little vignettes are definitely some of the moments which made the journey thrilling. I think I'm lucky enough to say that most of my Confrontation acquisitions have been positive experiences. Sure, I broke some serious bank on several occasions, a mistake I'll definitely make again, but it's still a good hobby investment when you consider factors like the game's age and the inevitable scarcity of NIB product, its sheer rarity and rise of value as a result. 

What I'm trying to say is that this is a hobby after all and as such it is a luxury. True collectors need to be ready to break the bank on occasion, especially when that special rare piece pops up out of nowhere and you just pull the trigger regardless of a potentially outrageous price. In all honesty, I'm currently in such a mood, since I found a truly rare piece hidden in one corner of the internet, but it is three times the amount of what models of that size go for... but that's another story, hopefully.

However, on certain other occasions, contrary to that previous blog post, are those times when you've pulled the trigger and are just out of luck, or you hit a certain collecting frustration that you end up making some mistakes. And in those moments, the luxury feels like a nuisance. So with all that said, this is what this post will be about, thus I welcome you to my shit show.

This is probably a bit too dramatic, as I've never been burned too much. It's more that I've brought myself into situations where I just ended up scratching my head and wondering what the hell I was thinking. One such situation stems from the string of successful local purchases. As you've seen in my first collection post, a series of various blisters, boxes, and card packs randomly popped up on my radar locally, all of which I ended up buying. This kind of became a thing, to the point where I'd see some Confrontation locally and I'd just buy it without question. Which has been fine, up to a point when it wasn't. 

On that occasion, the first of my blunders, I saw an ad for a Dirz Neuromancer for some fraction of a blister price and it seemed to be in order. Listed as "unused", the one photo posted in the ad showed the see-through side of the blister, the miniature definitely seemed unused and the stamp said it was the English version. So far so good. Not so good when it arrived though! The blister was clearly open before, since the sword was already glued to the mini and there was some tiny amount of glue residue elsewhere, the card was missing, and the biggest insult of all was the included round base... Long story short, the seller was kind enough to just return the money back to me and actually let me keep the miniature, as he made it kind of obvious that he doesn't need it back, so I guess a curse also came in the blister but he decided not to disclose this information. Regardless, this hasn't been so damaging since I got my money back but the whole ordeal just made me feel bad.

The longer you stare...

...the more painful it gets.

Didn't learn from the bad experience though! Next time a Confrontation auction popped up I slapped that BID button faster than you could blink... Just thinking about it makes my eye twitch a little. It was this second hand lot of used miniatures featuring some Sessairs and a bit of Cadwallon. Eventually I got it after a small bidding war, so I cashed out some 30 euros for Kelen, Guardians of the Moor, Kelian Durak and the Cadwallon Militia. Which doesn't sound too terrible, but some pieces of the Militia were missing, the bases were terribly treated by the previous owner, there were no cards, and some of the minis had some bent weapons and/or truly bad paint slapped on them... not to mention poor Kelian Durak being so badly set on the base that his weapon had to be bent in order to fit. This auction definitely deflated my spirits at the time and it made me become more aware and hesitant about second hand lots. Maybe it's just me being spoiled by good luck with NIB products previously, but used miniatures really need to be either something truly special, at a very low price per model, or in nigh pristine condition to get me excited. And I definitely learned from this experience, though luckily that specific lesson cost me cheaply.

Send help...

Other times, there are factors which are seemingly out of your control. A while back I stumbled upon a decent stash of items on eBay from a seller in the UK and I ended up winning a few blisters. Since the seller had a bunch of stuff I wrote to them and asked if they have things that have yet to be listed, because chances are that I'd be interested and can offer a reasonable price for any potential items. They said "no". Items arrive some weeks later and then boom, the person puts some more listings up. Bit frustrating, but still interesting, so I bid again, win again, ask again, get a "no" again. Items arrive, they list stuff again. Obviously, they don't owe me anything, nor am I feeling entitled to anything, but this just felt like I'm being strung around to no obvious benefit to either of us... the items I won on the second auction I got at a lower price than what I would offer the seller have they said that they have stuff in their backlog, so the seller lost money, and I had to pay shipping and import taxes, again, so I lost money. Either way, I stopped looking at that particular seller after that second purchase, even though they kept listing stuff. Could be that they were periodically plundering their stash, but still I think this is bad practice for both parties involved and sometimes it is just wiser to step away.

Another "out of my control" situation happened last summer when I purchased quite a hefty used second hand lot of miniatures. I won't cover this story too much here since it is currently sitting in my drafts waiting to be published as one of my Collection Update posts, but that one I list as a "bad" experience since the minis were poorly packaged and various pieces came broken. I don't blame the seller, because they did what they could, but it is one of those situations where you simply have to accept that things can't always go according to plan. I'll take the punches and, if nothing else, it'll be a cool process to salvage that army. But more on that in another post. 

One more "interesting" adventure happened when I stumbled upon a fairly obscure website which had a lot of Rackham product listed. I got in touch with the store and of course it turned out that most of the product was out of stock. For some of the items which they did supposedly have there were some weird communication failures coming from the store, so in the end I backed out of the purchase. Fairly strange encounter, but I guess the depths of the internet hold many a thing best left untouched.

And I guess that's it for my bad experiences. Quite unimpressive, I'll admit. But looking back at collecting Confrontation thus far, as well as collecting many other things in other hobbies, I haven't had any major blunders, nor have I lost lots of money due to poor choices, though I'm not entirely sure why that is. Truth be told, as I've mentioned before, Confrontation is in a very healthy and safe spot. There's a lot of product circulating in a relatively small community, so the chance of a scam is at a minimum. In most cases you don't have to venture far and wide to find models, as even being on the outskirts of the community you are bound to find what you're looking for eventually. I feel like one of the big benefits when collecting Rackham games is that the company is dead and people often decide to give up and sell their collections simply because they aren't playing or interacting with it anymore. And also when you think about it, in the grand scheme of things the years when Rackham was active aren't that far away in the past and there are much older games and products which are still circulating today.

The market is alive, is all I'm saying. And if you do end up being burned a few times, chin up and wise up, because the hunt goes ever on and on.

Kelian Durak preventing me from making further mistakes...

One package flew into the cuckoo's nest

I've been working on a few longer "think piece" posts lately, so while I've been bouncing between some research and contemplation for those I've decided to write a more casual collection update in the meantime. This is also done in the hopes of guilt tripping myself into getting Confrontation back to the painting table via a visual reality check of how many unopened miniatures are still held hostage in my closet. Spoiler alert, it is a lot. But at least, as a result, there will be a lot of content on here, so hopefully you enjoy reading about it all.

Hello eBay, my old friend...

Photo dump coming in, so you know the drill, click "read more" below to see the full post!

Climbing the Monolith (MB:Isfet unboxing)

'twas a rainy day yesterday, pretty gloomy and grim in my part of Scandinavia, but made all the more enjoyable via the simple act of the local courier dropping off 15kg of Monolith goodness on my doorstep. Yes, the long awaited package from the Mythic Battles: Isfet Kickstarter campaign has finally arrived. 

Before I get into the actual meat and potatoes of the post, I'd just like to briefly point out that two more factions have been added to the Miniature Galleries section, namely the Ophidian Alliance and the Devourers of Vile-Tis. It's a bit of a slow process, mostly since Blogger is a bit clunky when it comes to formatting (this post especially was a nightmare to edit!), there's a lot of back and forth in order to make everything perfect and my OCD definitely isn't helping. However, I'm truly enjoying the process, because I am using this chance to get a better understanding of some of the models which I might have overlooked previously, plus not to mention expanding my own knowledge about some of the trivia of certain profiles. I tried adding a bit of extra information on some entries, but I'm still trying to decide what it is that these galleries are supposed to contain, just data regarding the actual models or also some info about the cards as well. Regardless, it's loads of fun and, again, if you've got any kind of feedback then I'll gladly hear you out.

But now, let us get into the review/unboxing! I've used a post break here since this one is long and heavy on images, so unless you actually clicked on the post and are seeing the whole thing, please click "read more" below.