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.

The sands of time cannot be stopped...

Under The Mountain is dead! Long live Under The Mountain!

A blog of legendary status throughout many years into the past, it seems that it has almost completely ceased to exist recently. For whatever reason, some months ago the whole section hosting the Confrontation model images has disappeared from the blog. I initially thought that maybe this was due to Monolith acquiring Rackham rights and the establishment of the new Rackham Games and that perhaps the UtM owner was simply afraid of any potential legal action by the new owners. When you think about it, this wouldn't make sense due to Fair Use rights, since UtM made no profit off of the images, nor claimed them as their own. In any case, a few weeks ago I revisited the site and now it seems that all of the content from it has been removed and only an empty page greets you when you visit the blog. 

Regardless of the reason, this is a severe loss to the Confrontation resource pool since it preserved a lot of precious information from the game's heyday. I've spent countless hours browsing through it and it has singlehandedly kept my interest in Rackham creations strong in the years before I got personally invested in Confrontation. It was always such a simple pleasure to browse through all the model images hosted there. 

Of course, everything is still accessible via the Wayback Machine, but it is definitely not an optimal solution and you never know when that might get scrubbed away as well. But as Christopher Paolini writes, "...years pass whether we will them or not… but we can remember," and remember we will.  And not only that, but we should continue the legacy established by our predecessors. 

With this in mind, I want to use my blog and continue carrying the torch of usefulness for the community. And since UtM was, among many other things, most famous for hosting images of all of the Confrontation models, this is where I will also start. This has been something that I've wanted to do for a long while and now is finally the time.

On the right side pane you will find links to Model Galleries of specific factions. For now it only features the three Elven factions (Akkyshan, Cynwäll, Daïkinee), but I will make an effort to periodically add more to it. The miniature entries have a recognizable format previously established by UtM, but I've so far tried to fill in some gaps with additional information from other resources where possible. 

This will be a continual work in progress and in some way I would like this to be a community endeavor. If you spot that any information is wrong, or there is something crucial that I've missed adding, or you have a suggestion on how to further expand the entries, please feel free to get in touch. I am in no way anywhere close to being a Rackham scholar and historian, as some members of the community certainly are, so it would be great to get some feedback in order to make all of this useful for other people, especially those new to the hobby.

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you stick around!