More news, more thoughts, more hype, some caution

It has been less than two months since I posted my thoughts on the initial preview of the Aarklash revival and we're already faced with a bunch of additional information and juicy teases! This will just be a summary of all the things we've gotten, or at least the things that I can remember, and my brief thoughts on all of it, so let us dive in.

Onyx returns!

The legendary Wolfen is coming back, as vital as ever. Based on an interview with Rackham CEO which was done after this preview, more on that below, Onyx has been busy recruiting "younger Wolfen" into his pack which will affect the overall tactics of the bunch, leaning more into agile harassment and less into straightforward aggression, collectively nicknamed "Les Furtifs", the sneaky ones.

It is great to see Onyx back, as he was always a beloved character in previous editions. I love this new version of him, the pose is dynamic and it somehow fits the description of his new pack.

New blood!

Kylliar, as described by Monolith, "a young Wolfen predator carrying the weight of his father Killyox's failures on his back. Now he must prove that a son is never bound by his father's fate."

As stated in the promo image, this will be a gift for anyone following the campaign and pledging once it gets going. And as the saying goes, never look a gift horse wolf in the mouth, but I don't like the sculpt much. The stance is great, but the overall model is just too busy. Chains, beads, spikes, moons, ornaments, there is a few things too many. Also someone on discord pointed out that the blade looks like something Signum made and I fully agree. Maybe my perception changes when we see this model painted, but until then it's just drowning in unnecessary details. Still, it is a gift, and I won't give it too much of a hard time.

We had a lore update for Incarnation which nicely started digging into Aarklash and the overall struggles of its peoples. I'll not bore you too much with my dissection of it, I'll just let you enjoy it yourself.

There was also an update for Depths Of Cadwallon which goes into some of the introductory lore of the iconic city. Same as above, click the link and enjoy the read.

Now, let us move on to the meat and potatoes of this post. First of all, French youtuber Hiigy interviewed Boris, Rackham CEO, and a translated summary has been posted by user JangaMX on Discord, so here are the key points and my thoughts on them:

Scale will formally be 32mm. - To be completely honest, this is the one I hate, but also at the same time it is slightly tolerable. I find the scale creep in games annoying, since the fact that we are playing with "miniatures" is being lost in translation and it is slowly becoming "action figures" almost. Part of why I also get annoyed with this is that companies doing this are just following Games Workshop in their hyper capitalist desire to pander to the consumer base which is too lazy and intimidated by painting "super small" models and it is just so.... ugh. But, if I stop being a grumpy asshole, scale increase usually opens the door for more complex sculpts and intricate details, so at least that is not something to complain about. Unless of course you're feeling like me when it comes to the Kylliar sculpt, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Fewer stats than before. Movement, Attack, Defense, Shooting still exist, others TBC.  Mysticism now one shared stat for all mystics. - It was to be expected that we will see changes to the overall system and unit profiles, but without knowing other accompanying details it is difficult to give an opinion on this statement. My only hope is that the new system is similar enough that old profiles can easily be ported (and vice versa!) and to not dumb down the system too much from what it was.

"Divine Favour" is a new resource that models accumulate when rolling crit fails and can be used later for effects including rerolls. - This sounds boardgamey on face value, but I actually love game systems which award you in moments when you fail terribly. Most notably, the most fun I had was while playing an RPG called "Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth", where rolling a 1 grants you "grudge tokens" which you can later spend to make the GM (or even other players) reroll a successful die roll. Great fun, especially since it gives a dopamine hit once you critically fail, which is a bit of a weird sensation, but it also doesn't completely remove the fact that you indeed have failed. Either way, excited for this one, curious to see if they'll just use it for rerolls or something else as well.

The other 2 factions beyond the launch set are already fully designed, being sculpted soon. - Not much to say about this one except to be hyped based on all the reveals thus far. (EDIT: as I was wrapping this post up an update dropped on the Incarnation GF page asking followers to vote for their favorite faction, since Monolith decided to increase the number of factions for the initial release from 4 to 6, so check out the update and cast your vote here)

Competitive play and narrative play to be supported including one International Open tournament. - To get it out of the way immediately, I'll be honest and say that "narrative play" provides a massive amount of arousal in me. I've always been a fan of games which lean into their lore and actually do something with it, instead of just having it as a backdrop. The original Rackham knew what it was doing across all of its products when it comes to story, lore, and narrative play, so I am more than happy to see that Monolith is picking up that torch and carrying it onward. Similarly, "competitive play" and an "international open tournament" signal a desire for maintaining a live game with an active scene, which is a thing needed desperately in today's climate in order to keep your product alive and fresh. 

Aiming to add / add profiles to "several factions each year". - This is something I appreciate a lot and in fact something I wanted to write about in a new "Monolithic Expectations" article. Ever since the initial reveal that Monolith acquired the Rackham rights, I hoped that they won't make this a one-and-done campaign, but instead have a steady stream of releases over a prolonged period of time and provide continuous support for the game. It will make the world alive and thriving, not to mention the hype of the consumers having a steady heartbeat. So this point and the one above regarding competitive play and tournaments is exactly what I was hoping for. Great news! 

Rumored/mentioned (?) campaign in Q1 2027 - I'm not entirely sure where and when, if at all, was this mentioned in an official capacity, but the first quarter of next year has been circling around as the initial campaign launch for Incarnation. Makes sense, as half a year is enough to polish the game and warm up the crowd.

In addition to the above, a streamer named GregauryC got to play one demo game and has since shared several key points:

Units will be cross compatible between skirmish game Incarnation and dungeon crawler game Depths of Cadwallon. - As expected, it is good that Monolith will trail the same paths as Rackham did, where all the releases for different sub-games are entwined and can be used together. I would hope however that there won't be a faction released ONLY via DoC, meaning for example Dirz get released only in DoC in pre-assembled plastic and not get an Incarnation HIPS release (this will make more sense when you read the point below) 

Models will be in HIPS plastic (like GW), assembly needed for Incarnation, but pre-assembled for Depths of Cadwallon. - YES!!! God damn it feels good to be right! Though to be completely fair, I was only half right, since I nailed the HIPS part. As I've written before in my second Monolithic Expectations article, my preferred material would definitely be metal, but I believe it simply isn't possible in this day and age (economy much?) so HIPS is the absolute next best option. HIPS will enable so many dynamic and detail rich sculpts to come to life, it will do wonders where previously metal failed to do justice (Kaeliss I'm looking at you). I had a lot of opinions in that article, so definitely check it out, though it remains to be seen whether or not I was also right about Archon stepping into the spotlight. When it comes to DoC being pre-assembled, it makes so much sense it simply blows my mind and the only reason I haven't considered this as an option is because I believed that DoC would actually be Hybrid 2.0, aka also come as HIPS. But pre-assembled models is the winner for the dungeon crawler part of Aarklash, since anyone who even remotely spent time around hardcore board gamers will know that a lot of them get instantly butthurt the second someone mentions the possibility of them having to assemble models. "USE GLUE?! ME!? MYSELF!? I BEG YOUR PARDON!!"

Board size is 24x24inch / 60x60cm. - Love this honestly. Of course, one will hope that the board size scales up with army size, but 60x60cm being the default is amazing. I've played some other skirmish games with this board size (Bushido, primarily) and I always enjoyed the compactness of the playing field in those. Smaller board means more impact given to terrain means more tactical movement means more thrilling actions sequences means... the list goes on and on. Naturally people will be worried about the smaller playing area and without previous experiences rightfully so, but honestly I am yet to see a game where things like movement or board control were an issue on limited table spaces. This is especially true if we get game rules where table elevation is important, which I would love as it opens up a whole new level (pun intended) of table design. I've spent a lot of time playing Infinity, where scatter terrain, building floors, and corners are important, so having something like that in Incarnation would be a welcome addition in my book. Excited about this one, it opens up a lot of room for speculation and hype, but with an important caveat that the actual rules of the game need to be properly designed and synced in order for things to truly work out. (EDIT: I was very close to expanding this section even further because I have a lot of opinions on it and because a new interview with more details also dropped while I was writing this article, but I will hold that desire in check for now and write about it some time soon) 

Bases are 32mm for human infantry, 40mm for Wolfen infantry, and looking like c. 50mm for cavalry, and larger base size bring certain bonuses in-game. - Kind of covered the scale increase, so won't bother you more with my rambling.

Alternating activations, activation order determined by players setting unit cards in a certain order in an activation deck, set after the initiative roll. - Smart to stay close to the classic, don't think anyone will complain about this one!

Each model has 2 actions except the incarnated who have 3. - Without knowing other rules or what constitutes as an "action", type of actions, etc. it is hard to comment on this one. It does seem a little bit like a step towards boardgame-ification of the original Confrontation rules, but I'll refrain from theorizing about this for now.

Each action is resolved by rolling 3D10 against a relevant stat (roll under ie 10s are fails). Bonuses and minuses add dice rather than change the stat. Examples are larger base size, charging, plunging fire etc. - I am split on this one. On one hand the D6 is somewhat iconic for Confrontation and I like the regular dice for their old-school feel, but mathematically speaking D10s are way better for a broader range of numerical values which add more nuance and minimize the dreaded fail/crit chances. I am extremely glad that they decided not to go with some custom dice bullshit since that rarely works for non-boardgames, so that is a sigh of relief. However, this plus the above mentioned reduction of stat categories for unit profiles signals huge overhauls of the game system which makes me a bit sad. I hope they retain the DNA of Confrontation as somewhat tangible, but time will tell.

Concept of "tactical movement": one attack dice or defense dice can be used to disengage or push enemy models 3 inches. Can create fall damage. - This is interesting, but again, without knowing other details it is hard to comment, though it looks like the actual engagements will be more dynamic and tactical which I definitely approve of.

One last bit of info which I will use in my closing statement for this post. I can't remember where this was mentioned exactly, I was just eager to publish this so didn't have time to research, but it was mentioned that Incarnation will be using inches instead of centimeters and that, somewhat obviously from the playtest pictures we've seen, the bases will be round instead of square. Both of these are fairly controversial points, along with the scale creep mentioned above, so I will give my take on the thing. You can, of course, list a number of pros and cons for these decisions, but what irks me about them is the sheer capitalist mindset of trying to pander to the consumer. 

"Inches are a standard in wargaming, everybody uses it!" 

"Round bases are a must in skirmish games!"

"It'll be easier to get people into the game if they are familiar with some of the concepts!"

To that, and much more nonsense that you are probably going to throw my way, I'll say:

... and a solid, stoic "no". I live for the day when companies will try something new and, gods forbid, dare to step out of standardized norms. Be unique, damn it! Do things that others don't have the balls to do! Stop being so afraid of your current and potential future consumers. Design your games how you feel you should, not how others expect you to design them. The outside world is full of life and chaos, stop being so timid and boring. 

Things like this piss me off, but I'll end it here. Thank you for reading, damn it.

Painting Hybrid - Templars of Hod

Another post in the painting category so soon after the previous one seems like a small miracle. This year I've been sorely behind on my planned Confrontation painting, but I'm slowly turning that around. I started out pretty strong with Cron and his diorama, but then it all somehow stopped in its tracks. In all honesty, the biggest blocker to my painting sessions, aside from real life which does fully intend to keep screwing up with me, was this Templar box. For some reason almost everything about it was a pain and instead of this being a quick and fun project it ended out being dragged out for months, so that was an additional motivator to sit down and sort my thoughts regarding the whole ordeal.

The kind of naiveté never seen before...

To begin with, assembly was a nightmare. The comment above was posted when I completed only the  Seneschal who was the easiest of the four Templars. These guys were like the greatest hits of painful assembly, they had it all: mould lines in all the wrong and hard to reach places, excess surfaces which simply didn't want to fit together, tiny joints which sadistically beg for pinning... just all of it. They all collectively made me question my sanity, sans Ambrosius who is a real chad. Pinning especially was a horrid experience due to the amount of excess metal that needed to be removed in order for the pieces to fit properly. In a couple of places I naturally managed to remove even more than needed, but luckily a proper amount of glue managed to hide my mistakes. Also since the tiny limbs really require a lot of precision and careful execution, which was hell in its own way, I'm starting to think that it might be a good decision to invest in one of those electric pen drill tools.

Work-in-progress photo doesn't begin to portray the horror...

This guy was the absolutely biggest offender since the placement of his arms just doesn't make sense physically. He looks like he is in the throes of challenging the Predator to a duel near the end of the movie of the same name, but he lacks muscle mass and his adversary already broke his limbs at the shoulder. Seriously Rackham, what even is this? The left arm in the photo especially was so bent backwards that it took me quite a few attempts of plain dry-fitting his limbs just to make sure that that was what Rackham wanted me to do. I should have taken a photo while I was trying to assemble him, but I was way too enraged to think about that...

So, when the painting was done this was the final product and it was a rather long road until I got there. They took ages to complete and for some reason I didn't enjoy the process at all. One of the things I find nice when painting a whole unit of dudes is that the unit is usually uniform, so using the same painting recipe for each one is somewhat easy on the brain. However, halfway through painting the Templars I realized that I don't really like my recipe for the blue coats. That particular recipe worked really well on some other non-Confrontation miniatures I painted a few years ago, but here I'm not too pleased with it, so instead of the aforementioned relaxation I was rather stressed, torn between redoing them or just plowing through. I ended up going with the latter. The more I look at them now, the more content I am with them, but I think this could have been better and I definitely want to try to find a better, more striking blue fabric recipe. Not to mention that one of the paints used, Deep Sky Blue from Vallejo probably due to age, ended up being too watery, which I didn't pay attention to, so highlights ended up more like glazes than sharp highlights like I intended to do.

The leather was fun to paint as usual. It is painted the same way as I did my Sessairs, only a tad bit less ivory stippling, while the smaller leather bits like the pouches I painted slightly different using Chocolate Brown, Flat Earth, and Old Wood, all from Vallejo. Unlike the leather, I'm still massively struggling with NMM. I think that my choice of paints is bad to begin with, but also I felt like the design of these blades was a bit too unnecessarily complex which makes it hell for an unskilled painter. Regardless, still figuring out how to do it and with some newly ordered paints and newfound guides I'll see how I fare on the next miniatures.

The Venerable Ambrosius, on the other hand, was an absolute joy to paint, so much so that I've managed to finish him in some record time... if I'm not mistaken two sessions with only a handful of hours. The sculpt itself is interesting to me, especially the flag/cloak part which gives you a nice blank canvas to play with. I believe this is the first time I tried some freehand with the lettering and it was pretty intimidating, not gonna lie. I went back and forth a few times to align the text, it could definitely be done way better, but overall it was fun to try something new. Also the whole process of making the cloth dirty and worn was my favorite part of the whole thing.

Speaking of making things dirty and worn, I immensely enjoyed working on the sandy cobblestone. Working on anything scenery or terrain related is always such a relaxing experience to me, it makes me wonder why I don't work more on terrain pieces... This is actually something I plan to change in the coming months, as I need to start setting up my Confrontation terrain. But anyways, the idea with these bases was for them to represent the sandy halls of the Dirz laboratory being investigated by the Templar. In hindsight I think I made them just a tad bit too light, but I reckon it is an easy fix if I decide to make them darker.

Also on the topic of the bases, I spent quite some time thinking what I want to do for the bases and in the end decided to try out Spellcrow. This is their "Pavement v.2" resin kit, I bought three of these for 3 quid a pop and honestly couldn't be happier. The details are crisp and it is designed in such a way that there are some clear paths for easy cutting, so depending on how you decide to carve them you could easily fit one block on roughly sixteen 25mm bases. For this Griffin box it worked like a charm, especially since there is nice difference in elevation of the stones, so the bases and mini poses end up being quite dynamic. I'll try the pavement on a 40mm base soon, so I'm curious how that will look like. But overall, highly recommended if you want an easy cobblestone basing kit!

For all the whining I did in this post and the amount of time I invested in this wretched box, I'm actually satisfied with how the minis came out. Taking these photos on the Hybrid tiles also kind of fixed my perception of the bases, so I think I'll postpone the thoughts of darkening them and just wait and see how it is when they actually hit the table. Soon enough I plan on tackling the Dirz box and then you can expect some Hybrid session reports around here, which makes me extremely excited. Until then, thank you for reading, see you in the next one!

Collection round-up - February to May 2026 and a painted Earth Elemental

It has been a while since I posted a collection update, mostly because up to this previous month the purchases have been rather miniscule and unimpressive. Not for lack of trying, mind you! The fervor and desire to collect all things Rackham is still very much omnipresent, but it seems like we've reached a point where the market well has gone dry. Rare things seldomly drop, sometimes when they do they are region specific (curse you, the seller who doesn't want my money when I'm not from your home country), and overall it is becoming a challenge. The hunt continues though, I suspect we'll see a surge of things coming from people's attics and basements once Monolith starts making the revival more and more imminent. 

The solitary box up until May was Cardinal Aerth. It landed in my lap while visiting a random online store in search for some miniature paints and they had the good cardinal for dirt cheap. I love these boxes which have two versions of the same character and Aerth himself is an interesting chap. The sculpt is a bit cartoony with its unreasonably large sword, but the whole miniature is just full of life and grandeur somehow. It's a fine addition to my small, but increasing, Griffin collection.

Like the Mounted Standard Bearer, Sardar Tillius is one of the rare Alahan designs I really like and just looking at it makes me want to paint just so that it can be on display at all times. The sculpt has a lot going on, but it is all so subtly done and it doesn't seem overwhelming. I particularly love the armor design and the lion.

The Master of Carnage I was so excited about, especially since he was a very cheap pickup from the same seller that had Tillius... up until the point when upon delivery I realized that I already own this particular MoC version... I was absolutely convinced that I own the other one, but my apparently poor collection management got the better of me. I'll probably offer this one for trade on 7 Hills.

One other Confrontation blister crept in along with some other online store purchase and this one is rather special. A humble Familiars of Air blister which happens to be my very first mispack! Yes sir! It's rather funny, since I was making a big purchase of some other miniature related stuff and the store happened to have the familiars for 2 euros, so I just tossed it in there. The image just showed the card side and although it arrived NIB the blister contains only two minis, missing the little guy holding the book. Not so tragic as it was a cheap purchase and this particular blister is still fairly common, plus I guess mispacks are themselves a rarity... it makes an interesting story, at the very least! It is funny to me how many times in the past I heard stories of terrible Rackham quality control and how pieces were often missing from blisters and boxes, but this is the first time I notice it in all my purchases so far. Probably jinxed it now!

Speaking of random bits and pieces, I came across this local sale featuring various loose bits of Confrontation models, primarily containing banners of all sorts. It was cheap and I think this lot will be useful for a couple of conversion ideas I have, so I just went for it. Surprisingly, it also features one complete Bregan, an incomplete Apostate of Darkness, and a Galhyan missing an arm and sword, all of which weren't even listed in the lot.

All of the above mentioned pick-ups were between February and April, but then May came along and a big boy dropped... 

...one of the biggest boys, in fact. The Cynwäll Dragon finally landed into my hands! I've been eyeing and dancing around it for months on end, but the English versions have been relatively hard to find, either not complete, too expensive, or not in Europe, aka not cheap. This one however I found for around 80e, which is quite on the cheaper side by today's standards, so it was time to pull the trigger. I didn't realize how huge the Dragon is, just the fact that the box is bigger than the usual Confrontation boxes made me squeal. Similarly, happy to add the Construct Warrior to my collection, both for the expansion of my Cynwäll roster and for use in Hybrid.

I was also very excited to get the version of Phidias which I was missing, primarily because I plan to use both incarnations for the bingo "character" challenge. Aside from that I love the sculpt, as it continues the Griffin vibe inspired by "Brotherhood of the Wolf". It is crazy to me how minimalistic the design is, but so evocative and effective, displaying that recognizable Rackham charm.

Last but definitely not the least, I've gotten another Kurujai, this one finally in English. This one was eluding me for quite some time. More than a year ago I ordered one from a seller expertly hidden in some backwater parts of eBay, but it turned out the person couldn't actually find where they stored the blister and so had to cancel the order to my great dismay. Then some time ago I found a French one on the cheap elsewhere, but it always bugged me that I don't have the card in English, a similar pain I'm still experiencing with my Erhyl who I also own in French.

A minor side note when it comes to Daikinee, people who know me also know by now that they are my favorite army and that I have a wild ambition and dedication to collecting them. I've purposely so far omitted writing about many Daikinee purchases I've made in the past year or so, but soon enough I plan to make a dedicated post for all of those as part of a bigger blog project. More on that later.

Also, I've used this bigger purchase as fuel for completing one bingo entry, namely I've painted the Earth Elemental for the "paint a mini within 48 hours of receiving it" and I've actually managed to pull it off.

Technically it is a bit of a cheat since stone and earth are very easy to paint, but then again it was fast and fun and thus a win! Such an amazing and underappreciated miniature, so many nice details and bits on it. Painted it all in one sitting and then decided to play around with some pigments and moss. Could have went a bit darker with the pigments and I still need to figure out how to more effectively do the moss effects (this one was the AK Interactive Moss Deposits and some White Spirits), but overall I'm pleased at the outcome especially considering the invested time. The pigment fixer stench obliterated me, next time I'm tempted to just do it on the balcony as it was truly horrendous. In any case, a great addition to the painted miniature cabinet.

And that is all for today, hope you enjoyed the read, see you in the next one!

Initial thoughts on the return of a legend

The Legend returns because Legends never die!

We all knew it was coming, but now it is official and we got to see little snippets and breadcrumbs of what the future looks like for Aarklash. Monolith sent out an email along with the trailer drop, so lets see how they broke it down.

This will be a string of products, as Monolith puts it "an ambitious new transmedia range of games, stories and roleplaying adventures", all interconnected and tying up in our beloved Aarklash. The projects so far unveiled are:

• Incarnation: A tactical fantasy skirmish miniatures game set in the reborn world of Aarklash. 
• Depths of Cadwallon: A fantasy dungeon crawler adventure game exploring the dangers of the Free City. 
• The Book of Aarklash: A premium definitive lorebook exploring the peoples, factions, kingdoms, wars and forgotten history of the universe. 
• Cadwallon Roleplaying Game: A new roleplaying experience developed with Modiphius. 
• Stories of Aarklash: New comics and graphic stories developed with Astrolabe. 

Along with these, they have already put up Gamefound preview pages for Incarnation, with a "coming soon" tag, and Depths of Cadwallon, tagged as "yet to come". I think it is safe to assume that Incarnation will be the first on the production line.

So right off the bat, let us get one thing out of the way. Yes, these projects will be crowdfunded. A bold move by Monolith and a big mental hurdle for many fans who were previously burned by Sans-Detour, but a wise choice. Monolith is a crowdfunding company with an established pedigree and it is a smart choice for them to continue this trend for such a monolithic project. It will provide them with a needed jump off point and to once again prove why all their previous campaigns were successful and why so many people put their trust in them over the years. I wrote extensively about my experience with Monolith in the article where I did an unboxing of Mythic Battles: Isfet, so definitely check it out if you're still feeling uneasy. 

There is one thing which I believe will set this upcoming Incarnation campaign apart from all the previous ones and that is that I don't believe this will be a "one and done" kind of thing. All the previous projects we had a crowdfunding campaign, the game would be released and then that is simply it until Monolith does an updated version of the game or a new expansion. I believe now we will see the initial crowdfunding campaign and then somehow continued support of the project as a live game, ideally through retail. I touched briefly on that in my previous article where I also discuss the potential material used for miniatures and Monolith's desire for Aarklash to be the next step in the company's evolution, which you can read here.

So, Incarnation will essentially be the new incarnation of Confrontation. Along with the trailer and what was written in the email, we also got to see a miniature preview. You can briefly see a Wolfen, what I assume is a new rendition of the Prowler, and then the miniature dropped on the new Rackham Community discord server. Worth noting is that on the server it has been explained that this miniature is going to be used for demos and is not the official studio paintjob since it has been painted by someone local on the French CORD, so keep that in mind. 

Wolfen painted by Damien

More pictures from various angles of the miniature can be found on the Rackham Community server. Mini painted by Damien, who you can also check out on Instagram here.

Whether or not this ends up being a released miniature or not, the sculpting direction for the updated Wolfen is fantastic and I truly love this sculpt. I'll spout some heresy and say that I was never a hardcore fan of the original Prowler, somehow the whole "leg on a stick" gimmick killed it for me and I know people tend to consider it a cult Rackham sculpt, so this new version is a nice refresh for me. It is also exceptionally nice to see the community embracing the new sculpt and all the news with open arms, since the previous response to the initially revealed Wolfen was cringe worthy. Glad to see all the positivity about the reveals and I can only hope that some of my articles helped motivate the community at least a little bit towards lightheartedness.

What is really interesting as well is the inclusion of the round base which is bound to be a bit of a controversy in the community. Personally, I dislike round bases and truly hope that Monolith will give us the option of using either round or square... otherwise, I'll just continue using square bases myself.

Depths of Cadwallon will be the new dungeon crawler or what I previously believed will be Hybrid 2.0. I was actually in the process of writing a follow-up to that article to discuss what we might actually see in the an updated Hybrid, but now I will have to rethink this! On first glance I actually love that they decided to set the dungeon crawler under Cadwallon as it opens the game up for the inclusion of literally all factions, unlike Hybrid which might be more restrictive fluff-wise. For example, it might be a bit of a stretch to see my beloved Daikinee introduced into the arid deserts of Syharhalna, but now that we're in the depths of the most famous city in Aarklash there is a chance!

Also a thing that drew my attention instantly was that Depths of Cadwallon is marked as a "cooperative" and as a "1-5" player game, signaling up front that this will also be a game for solo players, which is huge! Obviously you could play any game solo with a little bit of adaptation, but actually having an officially supported rules system for that is something I'm very excited about.

Overall, a great little teaser for "Depths..." and I expect this to shape up into an interesting game. I love the choice of the preview art for this, as it immediately sets the mood for something dark and atmospheric without the need for a lot of words to back it up.

The other 3 products (the RPG, the comic books, and the lore book) we don't have any additional info for, aside from the collaborators on the RPG and comic book being Modiphius and Astrolabe, respectively. Personally, I am not the biggest of fans when it comes to Modiphius, primarily because I am heavily invested in other RPG games, but there is no denying that they create stellar products and are top contenders in the industry for quite some time now. It is amazing that Monolith managed to strike a deal with them, since the sheer enormity of Modiphius' platform alone will be an amazing way to spread the word about Aarklash and we will surely get a product on par with the beloved original Cadwallon RPG.

The Book of Aarklash, aka the lore book, is featured on both preview pages for Incarnation and Depths of Cadwallon, so I guess it is safe to assume that it will be part of both crowdfunding campaigns, possibly as an add-on. The comic book is not shown anywhere yet however.

I'll stop here and let you go back to enjoying all these lovely new previews. I am certainly more motivated than ever to keep walking on through Aarklash and continue documenting all these things as they transpire. It is honestly such a joy to witness a beloved franchise come back to life and I hope many more new folks join us along the way. Rackham never truly died, it was simply hibernating all these years, coming back stronger than ever! Thank you for reading, see you soon.

Monolithic expectations #2 - Long-term sustenance

Like I wrote near the end of my previous article, I felt like I was opening a can of worms with some of my statements.

It seems to me, based on the kind of response, or lack there of, to these kinds of posts and on the blog stats alone that these topics don't provoke almost any kind of discussion at large, at least on the English side of the community. And it is quite a shame that most of the community decides to keep on getting more and more jaded instead of trying to spark up some healthy discussion in preparation for, hopefully, a steady revitalization of the scene. But oh well, to each their own, I will sleep better at night knowing I at least tried keeping it positive.

I've stopped my previous Monolith-related article at an interesting juncture. There was so much more written in the draft of that post before I decided to chop it all up and split it into numerous articles, hopefully creating a series that will prove true or false as time goes on. I left it adjacent to one of the most important topics regarding the revival of Aarklash, the questions surrounding miniatures in whatever kind of product we get from Monolith first. Word of warning though, when I say Monolith I also semi-adjacently refer to the new Rackham team since they are operating under their wing and it is effectively now Monolith's IP.

Curiously enough, since I wrote the previous article an interesting post popped up on the 7 Hills server:

This was essentially an unofficial additional response to a rather lukewarm and vague statement from Rackham Games about the current progress and future™ plans. While I do always consider these corporate statements an exercise in patience on behalf of the fans, Monolith would be wise to learn from these kinds of "mistakes". The history of the IP is heavy and "fans" are largely annoyed, thus vague statements are bound to provoke a response, which most of the times is best left unsaid. Of course, many a discord user failed to do just that and instead reactively responded with unwarranted outrage formulated into walls of text of senseless and baseless drivel. 

But, I digress. Let us just consider the statement from Frédéric Henry on its own and let us consider for a moment that this is a genuine response and not a reaction to put out a fire. I personally believe that plans like these, shifting focus to a long-term perspective, impact not only the amount of care that will be paid to the product, but a fundamental change to how things are going to be done and a completely new incarnation of Monolith. If you think about it rationally, if Monolith indeed wanted to get an easy "win", no matter how small, we would probably have some kind of Aarklash related product in our hands by now. 

What my gut is telling me is that this restructuring is largely focused on two things: different approach to miniature production and figuring out how to maintain a non-boardgame, living product. This time around I'll focus on the miniature angle. 

The biggest question suggested in my previous article is just what kind of material will be used to produce miniatures. In relation to the above statement from Frédéric, the answer to that question will largely also answer just how serious Monolith is about this IP succeeding. There is simply no avoiding the fact that the original Rackham managed to impact the industry in so many ways that still resonate to this day, decades after its demise. In my eyes it would be quite sad to not at least try to honor that legacy, a thing other IP holders utterly failed.

I still firmly believe that metal miniatures are out of the question, if anything just for the production costs associated with metal. The roads to metal lead either through owning your own production plant, which I would not like to see from Monolith investments since that money could be used elsewhere more effectively, or having a much lower production scale and producing at a third party, which I also don't consider good. Unless, of course, Monolith wants to take it slow and have slow and steady scalability over time, which on the flipside might be a safe thing to do. Personally, I would love to see metal miniatures, but there are so many factors going against that that I simply doubt it will happen. Ready to be pleasantly surprised though!

Resin would be a terrible choice, as no sane person who plans on actually playing with their miniatures likes resin in this day and age. Yes, it can give decent results as far as details go, but the hassle of assembly, the brittleness of material, and the score of other annoying things coming along with it, resin is just a bad choice. 3D prints are largely laughable and still leave a bad taste in my mouth (metaphorically speaking, stop eating miniatures), no matter how much progress there has been with 3D printing technology. Just look at what Trench Crusade went through and it makes me not want to touch a 3D printed miniature ever again. 

The harsh reality is that the thus far established Monolith miniature line featuring a mix of ABS and PVC plastic is simply not up to par for anything above simple board game quality. Meaning, it is amazing for MB-esque board games, but those same models standing on the table with other skirmish wargames is just not good enough. Not only this, but those production plants are based in China and despite their current Berserk and L5R minis being produced there I suspect that a lot of board game companies will be focused on either slimming down their games or moving away from China altogether, due to the current state of the world which I simply don't see getting any better any time soon sadly. It is, I suspect, not at all profitable anymore as much as it was back in a pre-pandemic world and the zenith period of huge games and Kickstarter companies. Lucky for us at least that Monolith managed to hold their ship afloat and come out of the decline of the bombastic KS craze as winners.

Which leaves us with HIPS, in my opinion the only proper and feasible way to move into the wargaming world. This type of plastic production technology could do a wonderful job at materializing many concepts from original Rackham designs which simply weren't possible to do with metals back in the day and the only other feasible material solution that can cater to the hobby side of the consumer base in a professional enough way. 

If all of this rambling of mine isn't enough, give me a few moments to put my tinfoil hat on and provide you with a solution of how I think Monolith could get into HIPS plastics. Without further ado, let me introduce you to Archon Studio.

So in case you don't know, Archon Studio is a company based in Poland and founded in 2014. I'm not gonna go too deep into their history, but as any other company it had its rocky start, namely some issues working with Prodos on their AvP game, but have since learned from their mistakes and grew into one of the best and my personally favorite European company. Over time they grew as a competent game design studio, but have also expanded into becoming a manufacturer, investing into their own plastic injection machinery to produce miniatures. This was initially to produce their own Dungeons & Lasers and Rampart lines of terrain, but they have since started producing for other companies and games, such as Trench Crusade and Conquest from Para Bellum. They worked on scores of other games which they acquired license for, such as Masters of the Universe, Heroes of Might and Magic, and the most recent StarCraft miniatures game. An overall great company that has been on an upward trajectory for years now and it doesn't seem like it is going to slow down any time soon. 

Chance would have it that I've recently picked up a warband box set for Conquest, since my colleagues at work wanted to get into a miniature game and Para-Bellum's larger scale was appealing to them. Why is this important in the context of the article? Well, as mentioned above, Conquest uses Archon for the production of its miniatures. 

I've picked up the Old Dominion faction, mostly because I wanted to use them as an excuse to practice painting rust effects and old bronze, plus the combination of Roman/Orthodox/Byzantine aesthetics is pleasing to me. You can browse the miniatures on Para Bellum's faction gallery, but here I will post a few photos I took of the actual plastic sprues. 

Keep in mind that these miniatures are larger scale, 38mm, so by extension some of the details of the sculpts will be much easier to create. For the purposes of this article, the first two images posted above are of a mounted character, while the rest are infantry sized models. All of these are fantastic, especially some of the faces and pieces of armor which already have that rusted ancient metal detailing sculpted.

Anecdotally I also have Archon's "Masters of the Universe: Battleground" skirmish game, which might be an even better example to look into since the miniature scale is more on par with Confrontation, assuming of course that Monolith keeps with the original scale. Also keep in mind that in this project Archon worked on its own designs, unlike for Conquest which is obviously just producing Para Bellum's designs, but of course restrained by the original MOTU guidelines. 

All of the photographed models are infantry sized. Honestly, the level of details and how crisp and clean they are is astounding. Upon inspection there is minimal cleanup required, essentially aside from the sprue mold lines there is not much left to remove. Almost no details have been lost in the process of producing these sculpts, from the clean facial expressions to the minute armor engravings and tiny details. Also, I personally love that they are doing differently colored plastics, as it is a great addition to any kind of box that features more than one faction. 

Here's a few photos of some of the terrain and bases that come with the MOTU core box, mostly because some of these could easily pass as parts of an abandoned Dirz laboratory! Just beautiful. 

That's all fine and dandy, but I hear you thinking and asking: "Stefan, you beautiful smart man, what does this have to do with Monolith?"

Aside from the amazing quality and selection of products under their wing, Archon vastly grew in popularity thanks to their regular AMA streams, being completely transparent with fans and supporters with how they do business, what their plans are, and what their overall thought process is. So with that being said, let me just...

In those Archon AMA streams, there are nuggets of information one can pluck along the way. I usually keep up with their streams, though I've been lagging behind a couple of latest ones due to life, but Archon is definitely one of my favorite currently active bigger companies to follow and keep tabs on. Even though I am personally invested in only a few of their wide range of products, notably some are extremely uninteresting to me, it is always amusing to keep up with their growth as a company. What I find absolutely fascinating about Archon is that they've realized the amount of consumers that can be easily classified as nosy goblins (the ones constantly prying and demanding for answers, deadlines, and product pathways) and they just fully tapped into it. The way Archon is transparent, patient, friendly, and superbly professional with their consumer base is above and beyond anything you'll see anywhere else in the industry, and not only is it an absolute joy to watch, but one can learn a lot about how to run a successful business. Their growth over the years has been tremendous, planning and thinking ten steps ahead even in these insane times, all the while being so open about it, it just blows my mind every time. 

Personally, I'm extremely annoyed with the goblinry of your average consumer and cannot stand the amount of senseless questions and demands a single "fan" can generate, but the way Archon approached and tended to their customers has undoubtedly brought on great success. And all they needed was "just" a tremendous amount of patience and willingness for communication.

If you listen carefully enough, Jarek, Archon CEO, talks a lot about what is in the pipeline for the company and many times throws little bits of interesting information that raised my eyebrow on multiple occasions, especially since he seems like a genuine nerd (and I say this in the most positive way imaginable) and always looks like he's biting his tongue to not say anything ahead of schedule. As I've shared on 7 Hills before, he is on record talking briefly about AT-43 and his interest in it, during a conversation with AMA chat where someone asked if Archon would do an X-Com game and then someone saying "do AT-43". Where most people nowadays don't even know what AT-43 is, he responds to it without a second thought, and implies that things are happening with it behind the scenes but that "it probably won't happen soon", meanwhile his AMA co-host Szymon is just standing there with a grin on his face... and usually Szymon is the one trying to make Jarek not reveal too much. Worth noting in this context is that Archon also produces pre-painted plastic things, which in relation to AT-43 is pretty a good checkbox ticked off.

What this little scene telegraphs to me is that there is definitely some rumbling in the background, where even an obscure product such as AT-43 is making noise. There is reason to believe that Monolith, at least in some capacity, approached Archon, and I can't think that it is for any other reason other than making a deal for production and distribution. 

In context of this, a few months ago Jarek mentioned that while they do have scheduled upcoming miniature game releases for 2026, most notably StarCraft and, I believe it was World of Tanks, they still have open slots for plastic production available and some more IP's which they haven't announced yet. While I do think 2026 is still early for a Confrontation product, it is good news that Archon keeps room for picking up new clients and/or IPs, so there is room for Monolith to strike a deal.

So where does this all leave us in regards to Monolith? Aside from all the wishful thinking and wild speculation, I believe the best way going forward would be to work with Archon. A domestic European production company with a proven pedigree and serious upward trajectory is a sure and stable step for Monolith if they are at all serious about making their long term product a success. A deal with them would surely instill a lot of much needed security and trust with consumers, as well as open a big avenue for communication and information sharing if such a deal lands and production is in Archon's hands. This last bit is especially important since Monolith is not the best with sharing information and updates. Despite me having a lot of confidence in them due to all the previous experience I have with their products and campaigns, I know that their way of dealing with news and updates would not sit well with a lot of naysayers.

And to circle back to what started this article, Archon's plastic production and quality of said plastic would be able to do beautiful things in Aarklash. I would without a doubt put an absolute seal of approval on Archon making a Confrontation revival a reality. And not only this, but Archon itself would be a huge marketing platform, seeing as how many active consumers and followers they gathered as a company, especially now with the explosion of the StarCraft miniatures game. They alone would be able to create a lot of hype about the revival of our beloved Rackham IP's.

As I've mentioned before, I missed a few of the recent AMA's which I plan on listening to soon, and for some reason I'm sure I'll hear more things between the lines to solidify these claims. For now I just wanted to get this article out because it felt relevant to all the recent rumblings. Surely enough, if I hear anything else of interest from Archon I'll either update this post or mention it in a future one, since there is more to write about this entire subject.

But as I said, this is all just my own daydreaming sprinkled with a little bit of positivity and common sense. Time will tell how much I've missed the mark with what is written here... I might look back on all of this and think what a naive and hopeful fool I was, but then again what if I was even remotely right? In that case, man, good things lie ahead in Aarklash.

Thank you for reading, see you in the next one!