Monolithic expectations #1 - Hybrid upgrades

Author's note: I wrote most of this article back in December, but failed to publish it for a variety of reasons. The initial article I penned down was long to begin with and I kept coming back to it adding more each time, so I decided to break it down into a series of articles in order to be able to be more focused on certain aspects I felt needed to be covered. Needless to say, more info has started creeping out into the light of day, positively reinforcing some of the things I mentioned below.  It's important to note that this is a think piece article, it is all just rooted in my own speculation and contemplation, I have no insider information nor do I claim any of the below as a fact of certainty. I'm just thinking out loud.

If you're following all these rambling posts of mine, you know by now that way back in October I published a component overview of the newly crowdfunded and delivered board game by Monolith, Mythic Battles: Isfet. Receiving MB:I made me realize that it is time to prioritize and push Hybrid way up my collecting wish list. I acquired both Hybrid and its expansion recently and I've promptly posted a component overview of both shortly afterwards.

Following these two linked statements, dear reader, I expect you to do the math. 

If you can't firgure out where this is heading, I'll interject with a hint in the form of a newsflash relevant to this post. Most of my readers here come from the 7 Hills and the French Confede server, but some come via other places where I try to "advertise" the blog. Thus, most of you have probably seen the infodump done by Sweet on the 7 Hills back in December:

Back when I saw the initial announcement that Monolith acquired Rackham's IP, the first thoughts that sprang into my mind were not about Confrontation or Rag'narok, but instead they were about Hybrid. And okay, to a lesser extent about the Cadwallon RPG and AT-43, but let us shelve those thoughts for now. Hybrid simply made sense and the more time passes the more it seems to become a reality.

Obviously Confrontation was the flagship product of Rackham and the one that made them popular and the one which ultimately made them sink into oblivion in the end. But back then Hybrid was a natural extension of the skirmish game, mimicking the steps Games Workshop took with things like Space Hulk, thus Rackham so beautifully flowed into that direction, doing it with such smoothness that it was simply amazing to witness. It had the classic Rackham signature quality with amazing art and design, packed with tons of lore and atmosphere, and a relatively simplified ruleset to what Confrontation had to offer. It was a big step into the world of boardgames which opened the gates of Aarklash to a potentially new source of consumers.

With this being said, it is important to understand that, unlike Rackham, Monolith is a board game company, first and foremost. They've dabbled into other avenues, namely RPGs and publishing art books for their games, but again lets shelve these for now. So as a board game company which operates for more than 10+ years on platforms such as Kickstarter and Gamefound, it simply makes sense for them to first step into Aarklash via Hybrid.

I know a lot of people are going to grab pitchforks at the first mention of Kickstarter (actually a lot of people are going to grab pitchforks just by the mere mention of any kind of Rackham revival, but they are fairly harmless clout chasers, so we can freely ignore them), but this post is not about that. If you want to take a chill pill for a second, sit down and go read my Monolith article linked above, it has some information to soothe your soul. And if that ain't enough, there'll be more posts about that topic on this blog, trust me.

What this post is about is me writing my thoughts down about how I think thus far released Monolith campaigns/games might translate into Hybrid and what are my expectations on how it will be shaped and modified in its new iteration, based on what I previously saw from Monolith. I have a lot to say about this subject, so probably this will be only a first post in a line of many to come. Also, this is still speculation at best and who knows, maybe they don't even do Hybrid and I end up looking like a fool. Whatever, it is fun to speculate, sue me.

Let's tackle the "boring" things first, the rules.

I've previously mentioned my experiences with games released by Monolith. I played two incarnations of their Mythic Battles games, with the latest Isfet still waiting in storage, and I've played Claustrophobia 1643. Way back when those crowdfunding campaigns were live, I also closely followed development of Batman: Gotham City Chronicles and Conan, as well as the latest Berserk/Rokugan campaigns, so I've read the rulebooks for all three of those titles even though I didn't back them, mostly due to limited storage space.

And for the purposes of this article, I've read the rulebook for Hybrid, but with an important caveat that I still haven't played a full game of it, just a dry run testing session, and I don't have firsthand experience with how this all plays out on the table. So take these opinions with a grain of salt.

All of this is to say that I think I have a fairly good grasp of how Monolith designs their games. They tend to have very streamlined basic rules, yet they gain complexity when certain bits of the rules system interact, which mostly means that the games themselves remain tactically engaging albeit simple. I think this kind of approach will benefit Hybrid tremendously. For me, Hybrid does seem to be fairly straightforward in some aspects, but then also tends to be a little needlessly complicated or confusing in certain spots. There are instances in Hybrid where the rulebook tries to give examples and explain a rule, only to leave you scratching your head and going back to the original rule for further clarification. As much as I understood browsing the internet, this was mostly the issue with the English translation of the Hybrid rulebook. This has never been an issue with a MB title, which are fairly straightforward and clear in the sense of layout, rule definitions, and overall clarity. Similarly, as much as I've noticed, no big discrepancies between language versions. 

Claustrophobia 1643 is also a good example to look into, since it is the same thing that Hybrid will be, a new version of a previously existing game released by a different publisher. The original Claustrophobia, while a great game, suffered a similar bane to that of Hybrid, since some rules were convoluted and needlessly complicated, while also somehow limiting its own tactical depth at the table. Monolith stepped in, modernized some rusty bits and pieces (to the absolute horror of the grognards mind you), streamlined some of the questionable rules which in turn made the game faster and more tactical, while keeping the overall Claustrophobic flavor. A clear win in my book.

When it comes to components, I think we'll be in for a massive upgrade in the new iteration of Hybrid. Monolith has always produced high quality games with sturdy, long-lasting components. For example, my group has actively played MB:Pantheon ever since the 1.5 version came out in 2018 with over a 100 games under our belt (yes, we keep a score, it is a dreadfully competitive group) and all the components are as good as new. Tokens, unit dashboards and cards, boxes, none show any kind of wear even after so many games.

Box comparison #1

That said, the actual box itself is in for a bump in quality. It didn't even occur to me to write about this, but when I took out both boxes to make some photos of the components the difference in quality is glaringly obvious. In almost all aspects the Isfet box is done better, from the actual material used, to the way the box is glued, its thickness, and the way it is coated to protect the print. Sure, Hybrid was released more than 20 years ago, but these are the sort of upgrades which will make the potential 2.0 even better.

Box comparison #2

The biggest upgrade I see coming is for the faction boards. I'd expect those to be of high-quality thick sturdy cardboard, probably multi-layered for order placement and keeping the tokens in place. The Hybrid "boards" are fairly bad due to essentially being just thicker paper and are easy to push and mess up all the tokens on them. Not to mention that you do have to handle them with more care, either that or laminate them yourself for extra sturdiness. And also, lest we forget the dreadful glare possessed by the boards. Under stronger light and many angles, they are nigh unusable.

Faction/unit board glare comparison

As you can see on the flipside, Monolith boards for MB are made of thick, reinforced cardboard which can definitely survive a lot of punishment and they have a nice matte finish with zero glare.

Faction/unit board thickness comparison

Similarly, I'd expect a glow-up (hehe) for the tokens themselves. Hybrid tokens, the ones that come from the cardboard sheet with the door tokens, are visually amazing, but when held in hand there is a bit of a weird glossy finish to them which tends to get easily tarnished over time and also feels somewhat sticky in your hands if they are being handled often, ultimately I suppose caused by the very thing that gives the components the strong glare. In contrast, the tokens so far produced by Monolith have had a matte finish which is smooth to the touch and is quite sturdy and resilient. If memory serves me well, between MB:Pantheon and Isfet the tokens grew in size slightly (haven't played Pantheon in a while, so my memory is a bit foggy), which is a welcome addition to prevent the fiddliness of handling. 

Token comparison

I'm not even going to comment the wound and activation tokens from the thin paper sheet, since those are an absolute crime in the original Hybrid. I'd expect a massive upgrade to those, we'll most likely get proper thick cardboard tokens or even actual dice for wound tracking or perhaps some plastic tokens, though these are not that common in Monolith games as far as I remember. Monolith does occasionally produce nice little 3d tokens, as you can see the cute little Isfet scarabs. 

Scarab tokens from MB:Isfet

Similarly, the update to the dice is a certainty. There's nothing wrong with the original Hybrid dice, but as a big RPG fan I'm not a stranger to weird and niche dice, so some bling for Hybrid 2.0 wouldn't do any harm. I'd go so far as to hope for maybe faction (or at the very least Light/Darkness) specific dice, which would definitely be a nice little addition to the box.

Dice comparison

When it comes to room tiles, Monolith showed what they can do with those in Claustrophobia 1643. That one was released way back in 2018 and the quality of those was excellent, again "lacking" that Hybrid glossy finish and instead featuring the abovementioned matte smoothness of the tokens. You can also see that on the gameboard of MB:Isfet below. Similar reinforced cardboard like the dashboards, our Pantheon boards survived quite a lot of yanking around with no visible tarnishing or damage. As I also mentioned in the component overview, they've expanded their color palette and the level of details up to Isfet, so I imagine they'll be able to do wonders for the new Hybrid boards. And again, no glare.

Game board/tile comparison #1

Game board/tile comparison #2

The biggest question mark will be the miniatures, simply because we don't know what Monolith plans to do in that regard. It is important to emphasize again that Monolith is a board game company and as such has an established process for producing board game quality miniatures made with a combo of PVC and ABS plastics. While I do believe their miniatures are of exceptionally high quality and are definitely the best I've seen in the board game world, they are still "board game quality" and nowhere near what old Rackham established as the norm and what metal is able to replicate in the sense of detail or longevity. It is fairly certain that we will definitely not see metal miniatures, for various reasons. For one, a hard pill to swallow for most people out there, is that Rackham grognards will not be the primary target audience in this campaign. The primary target is the dedicated board game crowd which Monolith garnered over the years and that crowd is used to the Monolith miniature standard. Of course the Rackham IP will attract fans of Rackham, but what I'm saying is that we need a dose of realism.

Second, unless you are producing metal miniatures in-house, things are bound to get expensive real fast nowadays. As far as I am aware, most bigger publishers who still work in metal are either doing it in-house, like Corvus Belli, or they are so small that their production costs are more affordable and on a much smaller scale, like Oathbound Studios, for example. Some publishers who previously had metal miniatures in their catalogue are slowly moving over to some type of plastic, like GCT Studios, the publishers of Bushido, and even Corvus Belli slowly moves over to plastics for their bigger miniatures.

Monolith, so far and to my knowledge, has no production in house, not even for their plastics. However... 

PVC/ABS is what we can expect with a some dose of certainty, but what I would potentially hope for is maybe some kind of crowdfunding pledge level where you might pay a more premium price to get models made entirely out of HIPS plastics, aka on plastic sprues. In order for something like this to happen, I would assume that Monolith would need to have new means of production which currently they do not have in their catalog. Personally, I would love for them to reach an agreement with Archon Studio and establish a manufacturing deal with them. They are currently one of my favorite European companies, thus far been made famous for producing their Dungeons & Lasers miniatures and terrain for RPGs, as well as contractually producing HIPS miniatures for games like Conquest and most recently Trench Crusade, but also dabbling in licensed IP's like Masters of the Universe and the upcoming StarCraft miniatures game. This would be an ideal way to nourish the wargaming crowd coming directly from Aarklash, but I'm not sure if this is something Monolith would be willing to try, nor am I aware of what kind of deal Archon might offer them. Monolith does so far provide different versions of games, where you have a standard bare-plastic version and a "shaded" plastic version as seen in the Berserk campaign, so they are definitely no stranger to producing essentially two products simultaneously. However, providing actually different materials is completely new ground for Monolith which I'm not sure they would explore, but it would absolutely be a direct hit for the more hobby painting part of the audience. 

I have some previous experience with products from Archon Studio, so if you're interested in reading more about that, let me know! I also have a tingling notion that Archon would be more than willing to participate in the revival of Aarklash, so there might be some more things to explore there in future articles.

Think I've opened a whole new can of worms with this final tidbit, so I'll stop the post here, but I'll definitely come back to this topic some time soon.

Again another reminder, the component overview post about Isfet perfectly shows what I mean with all of the above, so be sure to check it out for a much better visual description than what my convoluted words here can provide. I feel like these two articles will play well with each other. And also worth pointing out before anyone gets butthurt, this is not me dumping on Hybrid. Hybrid was and is a fantastic product and one that definitely left an impression on the industry. This is a simple product comparison and me day dreaming about what we might get in a new iteration of the game produced by Monolith, if it ever comes to pass.

But that's it for now, more posts on this subject to come! If you have any of your own thoughts to spare after reading this, be sure to leave a comment below as I'm more than curious what other people think on this matter. Thanks for reading, I'll see you soon!

Collection round-up - January 2026

So far in 2026 not a lot of writing has been posted here, mostly cause I've been busy with other things. Painting some Griffins for Hybrid, though right now a bit stuck in the process of basing them, organizing boardgame miniature painting sessions with a group of friends, whom I hope to introduce to Confrontation as soon as I see that they are properly hooked, and some more work done on the miniature galleries. This time around I've completed Concord, Dirz, TNB Dwarves and Elementals, so technically not a lot left until the finish line! I have also been writing one longer think piece article which I'll post soon enough, but until then here's a quick low effort collection round-up post.

Card packs! I've said it before and I'll say it again, card packs are one of my favorite supplementary Rackham things to get. Dripping with lore, atmosphere, and just the overall wonder of Aarklash, opening and browsing through a pack of cards is a beautiful ritual. Especially packs like the Travels or the The Vessel of the Winds campaign which weave a broader picture of the world and its happenings. Wonderful all around! So far I've acquired around 20 packs in total and it surprises me how many more I am yet to get... very exciting!

As far as blisters go, I was a bit all over the place this month, with nothing too fancy or rare to show off, but still attention worthy. The primary focus this year is going to be Hybrid, so I'm happy to expand my army rosters with Phidias, Thallions, and the version of Centurus which I've been missing. I am just a huge fan of the design for the members of the Lodge of Hod, since their aesthetics remind me of "Brotherhood of the Wolf", one of my favorite movies. And perhaps you remember, a chance encounter with the Centurus kicked off my raving addiction for Rackham a few years ago, so these clones have a special place in my heart. 

I'm also glad to be getting closer to having a complete collection of Behemoth orcs with those two Tracker blisters. I have a few more Behemoth things on the way, but I already see that the Behemoth Troll will be the hardest one to find as the final missing piece.

Syriak is also one of those Wolfen models which I always wanted to have, mostly because, somewhat typically, I like Red Oaks. The Drune Minotaur is a rather silly specimen in the world of amazing cow-related models of Aarklash, but still wonderful. Acquiring some of Drunes in the previous months made me slowly realize how much I like them, so I'm very pleased with the addition of the Minotaur, especially since he eluded me a couple of times in the past.

Next to all of those models the Kestrels and the Air Elemental were just additional small pickups which were stupidly cheap, each of them only a few euros. I already own one Air Elemental, which I painted during Sweet's painting challenge, but it's such a beautiful and unique sculpt that I didn't mind investing in one more piece.

And that's a wrap. As I said, a modest lot to kick the year off, but all packages full of Rackham goodness are welcome in this house! Thanks for reading, see you again soon!

Crôn giveth! Crôn taketh!

Hail Crôn! For he has certainly provided us a miraculous spectacle this holiday season! Praise be!

Suffice to say that the server probably never saw, nor will it ever see again, such an influx of painted Crôn miniatures, nor has the internet witnessed such a rapid disappearance of available models. The market will never recover, nor will the people involved. A truly historical moment and, as a proud Sessair supporter, I am glad I was a part of the madness.

While I do honestly believe that all the painted Crôns were amazing and that all people who participated were winners, only a selected few were deemed worthy of a prize by an unknown selection of judges. Thus, here they are in all their glory.

Painted by Shades.

Painted by boyzie2000uk.

Painted by PhillipKaltenstein.

Congrats to all the winners!

My personal favorite was actually the work done by Shades, since I love how clean and crisp it is done, not to mention the lovely choice of gold for the axe. Truly amazing to look at!

As far as my Crôn goes, I mentioned it briefly on the server, I went a bit overboard. Not so much with Crôn himself, but the included diorama which I built for him along the way and that part alone was a whole project in and of itself. But first, a glimpse at the Undefeated!

If you want to see a bunch of photos I took of the diorama click "read more" below, since I dumped a lot of them and it would be a huge post for the main page.

Hobby Challenge: Rackham 2026 Bingo!

Now that the "Crôn-mas Miracle" painting competition came to an end, more on that probably in the next post, it is time to engage in a new painting endeavor. Brace yourselves, the bingo is coming!

A little clarification is in order. At some point during the early days of 2025 I started having an idea about hosting a painting competition of some kind on the 7 Hills discord server, as it seemed like a fun little community project and I could use the blog to host images of the entries and maybe get some of my non-Discord readers to join as well.

However, by the end of summer and just around the time when Shino's painting competition ended, it became clear that not a lot of people on the server enjoy engaging in painting "competitions" per se. It could be due to lack of time for hobbying, it could be the competition aspect, could be lack of motivation, could be all sorts of things. The same thing was also observable during the painting challenge hosted by Sweet in 2024. Either way, it got me thinking about trying to do something less competitive, but also requiring less effort from the participants while still somewhat motivating people to get things done.

Enter the bingo! I saw this idea back in 2017 over at The Rob Hawkins Hobby Blog and I've always wanted to give it a try. Basically, it is like one of those bingo cards, but instead of numbers you have tasks which you can complete over the course of one whole year. You do a task, you cross it off of the card. I think it's a very nice tool to have that can generate ideas for the times when you're stuck regarding what to paint next or as a general source of inspiration to start hobbying. I imagine that it can also be quite satisfying to cross off the boxes once you're done and that this in itself can be a way to get motivated.

Below you will find the tasks I came up with for our very own Rackham bingo and some basic rules!

The 3 golden rules of bingo:

1. A model/terrain/accessory/whatever can only count for 1 square (for example, you can't paint Aerth, Prelate-General and count him for both the "mounted model" and the "character" squares)
2. You get 5 blank spaces (a "blank space" means that you can create your own task and use it to replace one of the tasks that I created) 
3. Deadline is 31.12.2026.

I added the "blank spaces" rule primarily because the bottom row of the bingo is pretty niche and I understand that not everyone wants to do those. There have been some people on 7 Hills mentioning that they want to start their own blogs and podcasts or any other outlet where they can express their thoughts about Rackham games, so this was a way to motivate them to do it. I'd love it if I wasn't the only one with a blog on there, it'd be nice to have a blogging buddy. Similarly, maybe you don't want to buy miniatures outside your chosen army or don't own any boardgames (non-Rackham ones) or miniatures that have been sitting in your stash for a year (wow I wrote that with a straight face). So in case you don't want to do some tasks, you are free to create up to 5 of your own and replace some that I've created.

If this generates enough attention, there will be a channel created specifically for this on 7 Hills, so we'll have a place to further motivate each other and track progress. I sincerely hope many of you will join me on this little endeavor and hopefully I won't be the only one participating! If not, thanks for reading anyway!

Collection round-up - December 2025

I was hoping that this post will start with the good old "I finished some more model galleries", but sadly that is not the case. Between the "Crôn-mas Miracle!" and other, more earthly holidays, I've been away from the keyboard quite a lot. Worry not though, this year will be full of content on here, I promise you that!

December has been absolutely wild for the collection! Where to even begin? I'll share images one by one and then post a group photo at the end, since I want to go step by step and ruminate on all the things separately, that's how much this month got me excited.

The big boy is up first. Controversial as it might be, I think it is a valuable piece of any serious Confrontation collection, if anything for the period of Rackham's history which it marked. I grabbed this one for extremely cheap, 30 euros along with the Confrontation 3 book, so it wasn't that big of a sacrifice. Personally, aside from the historical significance, I dislike the pre-painted plastics for Confrontation, mostly for what it did to the game and the company and the fact that I'm honestly not that impressed with the miniatures. The box art is gorgeous, all the gaming accessories are great, and actually the terrain piece is pretty cool, albeit a bit on the thin side which was a bit disappointing. But the Wolfen and Griffin miniatures are a huge downgrade from what we were spoiled with in metal in the previous Rackham era. People say that over time the pre-painted miniatures got better, but I honestly haven't seen that quality anywhere so far in my Rackham journey, aside from AT-43. Regardless of the negatives, happy to own this piece of history.

Speaking of pre-painted plastics and AT-43, a little second hand lot popped up locally for pennies (8 euros to be exact) and it'd be a bummer to let it slip by. I forgot to pull 'em out of storage when I was taking photos for this post and realized I missed them when I packed everything back, so you're just gonna have to trust me. Essentially, the lot consists of UNA Shock TacArms, one black Wraith Golgoth and a few Bane Goliaths in need of some glue. Main reason I bought these was because of how cheap they were listed for, but little did I know that these TacArms are supposedly rare-ish. I know absolutely nothing about various rarities and values of AT-43 things, so this nugget of wisdom was handed over to me on the 7 Hills server. Guess I got lucky!

This is where things start to get spicy. Cyclops of Mid-Nor, Predators of Blood, Apostates of Darkness, and the Drune Horned Raiders boxes came as a deal, all English and NIB for a total of 90 euros. I'd consider that a pretty good deal even for community standards. The Cyclops is quite rare, I've only ever seen one that was English/NIB and that one alone went for around 90-100 euros. Apostates by default hang around the 100 euro mark for the most part and Predators have just steadily been increasing in price for the past year, though they have been seeing a bit of a dip, at least on eBay. Only the Raiders are somewhat common and affordable, this box actually being the first dip into Drunes for me. So all in all, this was an amazing deal to snag and I'm so excited to finally add the Cyclops to my collection, as it is one of my favorite Mid-Nor models next to the Demon Tower. And I'm happy to expand my Ophidian collection with the Apostates, since Ophidians in general have been a bit of a dried up well when it comes to English editions. Predators of Blood are a duplicate box for me, thus they are already available for trading or selling on my buy-sell-trade post on the 7 Hills server, but I'm kinda debating if I should keep the box as allies for my Daikinee army. Gonna think on that for a little more.

I've also managed to grab a little weird lot of used things, namely Cynwall and Wolfen card packs (which I also forgot to photo), a big ol' stack of loose English cards and six painted Ira Tenebrae models (also forgotten). Same as the Predators above, the card packs are duplicates for me, so they will be listed for sale/trade as well. Regarding the loose cards, the stack is actually way bigger in person than how it looked like in the listing of the seller, so that was a pleasant surprise. I'd assume the previous owner was a big fan of Dirz, since it seems like the stack has almost all Dirz profile cards sans Tarascus and Sasia's Second Incarnation. I'm excited for these cards, primarily since they will be a tremendous help when buying Dirz models, since I can now simply purchase non-English blisters/boxes knowing I already have the English ones. Also especially excited for the small stack of Hybrid cards, since there are some great profiles in there. The non-Dirz cards are a bit more frustrating, because while there definitely are some full sets, some things are lacking... for example, all of Morzath's cards except the Cyclops, or all of Sulfur's cards but missing the Troll. It is what it is, it'll be nice having spares at least!

The above used card lot also included these packs from Cry Havoc magazines, I just forgot to pull 'em out for the family photo, yada yada. These will also help tracking down the magazines, since many copies out there come without the cards, or if I end up getting duplicates I'll probably make someone else happy.

Here is a small continuation of the dip into Drunes, Morgwen and the Lanyfhs crossing my path for less than 10e was a deal I didn't want to skip. Not much to say about these other than that I'm excited about finally owning and growing a Drune army. Having painted so many Sessairs it'll be a thrill to explore the darker side of the Kelts. And also Lanyfhs are amazing, screw the haters.

Yes, I bend the knee and admit defeat. Alahan got me this time around! This is one of the rare models from the Lions that I enjoy and it showed up locally for extremely cheap so I went and grabbed it. Definitely one of my least favorite factions still, but credit where credit is due and I'm pretty sure I'll find a use for it eventually.

And then last but definitely not the least, Erhyl and Irul. After so much chasing and being patient, I finally found them. Here and there Erhyl has been popping up, but Irul is the elusive one. Previously I ever saw only a few of them out in the wild, but my recaster-sense went off every time and I never pulled the trigger. 

However, this purchase required some investigative work first, which made it that much more exciting. While talking to the seller, they provided an image of the miniatures and specifically for Irul said that "Irul has no card, Rackham never printed cards" which raised an eyebrow. 

I know that a few people from the 7 Hills have Irul and I've reached out to ask if they have the card and if they could provide a photo, but none of them could. Extensive searching mojo online fielded no result for physical evidence of a card, obviously aside from the scan that is up on the wiki and many other places. Essentially, it boils down to the fact that VPC models came with promo cards only and that some of the released cards were put up on the Rackham site for people to download and print at home. Some VPC art cards do exist, like the VPC Lanyfhs, but seeing as how Irul came out in 2007 maybe something changed with the way Rackham was doing things by then. Until someone, anyone, can show me a physical Irul card I will believe that it simply does not exist. Ironically, his card is one of my visually favorite cards ever made for Confrontation.

There's also a bit of a story behind this purchase once I actually paid for it. I was contemplating a long time if I should pull the trigger on this deal, because it was a bit expensive, yet completely justified, so when I finally did I breathed out a sigh of relief. It was happening! Sadly, this was just before the holidays, so shipping was bound to be slower. I received a tracking number and I was checking it fervently almost every day while it made its trip through France and toward Scandinavia. All was well, until it wasn't! On the French La Poste the tracking showed that the package was delivered to a pickup point in Sweden, but when I checked the Swedish tracking website, the package didn't exist at all. A bunch of visits and calls proved fruitless since nobody knew where the package was or that it even arrived or that it even existed. Luckily during one of the calls to the Swedish postal service, in which I was somewhere around 140th in the queue I shit you not, I get told that tracking numbers from one country don't necessarily work in other countries and that there exists this "international tracking number" which you need to provide in that case in order to locate a parcel. Long story short, lots of stress, but I finally picked it up literally an hour before they'd return it back to France! Lesson learned for the future, don't order important things at the end of the year and ask for international tracking just in case.

I am microscopically sad that Erhyl is in French, but what that is saying to my collector brain is that it only leaves space to track down an English version too! In any case, this marks a gigantic step for my Daikinee collection, about which I'll talk more about soon.

And that's it! Hope you enjoyed the read and stay tuned, because in a few days I have a fun little post in the pipeline!