Monday 7 January 2008

I Fail at Press Releases

So anyway, Jeremy at FFG is kind enough to send us a very cool Press Release for featuring on our blog.

Unfortunately, he sent it to us on December 17th, and it fell into the void known as "Fat Man Jolly Days" and "We are Working on GABBO right now, please bugger off."

As I said, I fail at Press Releases.




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Fantasy Flight Games currently shipping Confrontation: The Age of the Rag'narok
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Editor's note: Oops)

Roseville, MN (December 18, 2007): Fantasy Flight Games has shipped the starter set for Rackham's Confrontation: The Age of the Rag'narok to distributors and retailers and has declared a street date of Wednesday, December 19 for this highly anticipated game.

"We're very happy to get this game out right before Christmas," said Jeremy Stomberg of FFG.

"Rackham and FFG, working together, have gotten a beautiful, fun game to retailers just in time for last-minute gift givers to put another present under the tree."

Confrontation: The Age of the Rag'narok is a medieval fantasy skirmish game featuring highly-detailed pre-painted plastic miniatures. It is the newest version of the wildly popular Confrontation miniatures game that has been a staple of Rackham's line since 2000. The new game is fully compatible with Rackham's metal Confrontation figures, with decks of game cards featuring Age of the Rag'narok stats available in stores and for free download online.

To promote the game, FFG's media division, Landroval Studios, has created a promotional video available on their website at http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/confrontation/video-lg.html (Quicktime required, available here: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/).

New miniatures featuring well over a dozen different armies in the game's universe will launch in early 2008 and will continue with monthly releases into the future.


About Fantasy Flight Games

Based in Roseville, Minnesota, Fantasy Flight Games has been designing and distributing hobby games for over a decade. Founded by Christian T. Petersen, FFG produces games based on computer games such as World of Warcraft, StarCraft, and Kingdom Hearts; games based on written works like J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories; and many original properties such as Twilight Imperium and Descent.

About Rackham

Since its creation in 1997, Rackham has specialized in the designing, manufacturing and marketing of miniatures strategy games based on imaginary universes. Confrontation was the first game released by the company. Simulating conflict in a medieval fantasy universe, it rapidly became a success and continues to evolve as a game and as a universe.

# # #

Contact information:
Jeremy Stomberg
jstomberg@fantasyflightgames.com
651-639-1905
Marketing Associate
Fantasy Flight Games
1975 West County Road B2, Suite 1
Roseville, MN 55113

14 comments:

Michael Barnes said...

I was actually really pretty hardcore into CONFRONTATION back when I had my store. When we first opened, we got a bunch of the Rackham stuff because it looks awesome- seriously, they are bar none the best looking miniatures in the business. And of course, no one was interested, favoring Games Workshop products. When HYBRID and NEMESIS came out, I got interested and for good reason- HYBRID is a really cool take on the dungeon crawl board game genre with great atmosphere and unique mechanics. And some really great Templar figures that reminded me of BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF, which is pretty much automatically endearing to me. I painted them up, got some folks around the store to play, and gradually moved up to CONFRONTATION, the skirmish game. As a bonus, it turned out that most figure purchases could be used in both games. By the end of the Summer of 2005, I had pretty much everyone who walked into the store playing and couldn’t keep it in stock. I ran Griffin (quasi-goth French witch-hunterish kinds of guys) and Dirz (Desert-dwelling HR Giger/biohorror miscreants) and had pretty much everything for both factions but due to the Great Atlanta Game Factory Fire of 2006 (that’s codetalk, folks), they were lost.

CONFRONTATION is a really cool game that suffered mostly from rough translation, inconsistency, and vagary- all of which I expect FFG to have cleaned up in this new iteration. And it was ludicrously expensive, owing mostly to the fact that it was tough to get through distribution and was all imported from France. But somehow it was still less expensive than GW, mainly because you could run an army with just three or four figures. And up through 2nd edition, there wasn’t a rulebook to buy- each figure came packaged with one like sort of like the old MAGIC rulebook. The rules are pretty interesting- if WARHAMMER FANTASY BATTLES is an American football match, then CONFRONTATION is a fencing duel. If that makes any sense. Unit selection is critical since abilities and traits vary wildly, and finding good combinations is definitely a part of the metagame. It’s small-scale/tactical level so it’s a man-to-man deal not concerned with formations and so on (that’s RAG’NA’ROK, another Rackham game). And each race has their own thing going on, so there’s a lot of variety that breaks out of the standard humans/elves/orcs/undead paradigm, even though humans/elves/orcs/undead are all there. It’s a really creative and unusual gameworld, if you’re interested in fluff and backstory, the Rackham stuff has it in spades.

It’s great to see FFG doing prepainted/preassembled stuff in concert with Rackham- painting (let alone assembling) their stuff is a NIGHTMARE if you’re someone with totally amateur miniatures skills like me. It’s one of the best miniatures games on the market and if you agree with me that BATTLELORE is lame, shallow, incomplete, unsatisfying, and ultimately pointless then go for CONFRONTATION. But it is definitely a full-on miniatures game, so tape measures, terrain, and so forth are de rigeur. This was also the first minis game I ever saw where all the stats and information were on CCG-style cards.

Hopefully, the FFG/Rackham partnership will pan out- it’ll give FFG a great miniatures line and maybe they’ll do us a re-release of HYBRID and NEMESIS!

Ken B. said...

All I can say is, "Pre-painted is where it's at, baby."

It removes one of the enormous barriers to entry. Not all of us can paint with those dainty little brushes on one-inch high orcs.

I mean, I respect those who can, but it's not something I think I will ever be able to do.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I'm seriously ticked at Rackham.

Reason: Cadwallon

They did two books for it, and a small arsenal of tiles. Collectively, the artwork outshines anything you've ever seen (alongside the Hybrid stuff).

And...the rules are badly written, and the translation is extremely manglish. And...they aborted Cadwallon.

Which is a crime. They were aiming at what is kind of a Hybrid RPG. The rules introduce a lot of concepts that aren't really in either type of game--but should be.

1. Alarm levels. You can practically see the MGS exclamation points.

2. Complex weather and lighting-based LOS.

3. Stealth.

4. Reputation and alliances.

Some of these appear in some form in other games, but not as formally structured. It was kind of an RPG for Final Fantasy Tactics fans.

And personally, I'm finding that RPG's are more fun that boardgames anyway....

Michael Barnes said...

It takes a phenomenal amount of time, too...which was fine when I was in my shop for 12-14 hours a day and no one was in the building but me from 11-3 or so. But now, with a real job and all I can't imagine squeezing paint time in with real-world activities and regular gaming.

NOW WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN IS THIS. FFG, release prepainted DESCENT figures. It is your mandate.

Joe Belanger said...

Hurray for FFG! Looks great! The music is very Lux Aeterna.


...but I was not all that impressed by AT-43. The minis were flimsy and the rules were counterintuitive to the feel of the game. The theme was unreal though! Just my two-cents.

I would love to hear that Confrontation has fixed my few meager issues.

Cheers and well done.

Mr Skeletor said...

As a bonus, it turned out that most figure purchases could be used in both games.

This is something I really miss with FFG - all the games taking place in the one or 2 worlds so that figures were compatible between the different games.

Michael Barnes said...

The music is very Lux Aeterna

I was in a music survey class once and the professor played "Lux Aeterna" in its entirety. When it was over, she asked for a show of hands as to who liked it. Most people giggled uncomfortably or nodded condescendingly. I put my hand up and said out loud "I fucking love it."

Oh, the sight of those kids squirming through Steve Reich, John Cage, Stockhausen...it was almost as good as the time I put a Merzbow CD on when I was managing a Wherehouse Music...

druenkree said...

Who would of thought something cool could come out of France besides Brotherhood of the wolf and any movie by Luc Besson (The Professional,The Fifth Element,the messenger and Le Femme Nikita).The minis for Hybrid are cool but somewhat dainty .Little bit harder to paint then blocky Games Workshop minis.

Any one think Games Workshop will ever go pre-painted?I for one doubt it but I am curious about what others opinion about this.

Joe Belanger said...

New Line Cinema did a huge disservice to "The Two Towers" by using Lux Aeterna in its trailer. I was left wanting listening to Howard Shore's "as to be expected" score in "TTT". Sigh.

You've got great taste, my friend.

Jur said...

I was quite impressed by the prepainted miniatures in Rackham's sci-fi game AT-43 (compared to my level of painting which isn't very high I admit). At that level of quality and given my lack of time to paint, prepainted becomes a serious option.

Given the success of other games with prepainted miniatures (heroclix and mechwarrior) I think that it stands a good chance. If it picks up it might be drawing non-painters into miniature games. I'm all for that. And you can always throw away the rulebook if that doesn't suit you.

I'm not sure about the price comparison between unpainted and prepainted miniatures (because generally the former are metal and the latter plastic), but that gap seems to be closing.

MWChapel said...

Didn't they release Confontation like 8 years ago? Oh, wait, was this Warmachine? I'm confused, is this new?

Michael Barnes said...

No Chap- you're thinking of AGRICOLA.

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