Rackham's Confrontation Miniatures

[Painfully]

Hey, where's the mini's section? Maybe we should add one somewhere on these boards.

I've just found a couple websites that sell these mini's and would like some opinions from people who already own them.

What do you think about these minis? The painted ones they show off seem VERY GOOD, but I'm still learning to paint and am not sure if I want to spend what seems like double the price, or more, for a mini. I especially like the Wolven minis.


Here's a link Confrontation

 

[Pramas]

What do you think about these minis? The painted ones they show off seem VERY GOOD, but I'm still learning to paint and am not sure if I want to spend what seems like double the price, or more, for a mini. I especially like the Wolven minis.
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I love the Confrontation minis. Really nice stuff. I'm using one of their celtic-style minis as my barbarian/shaman in our weekly game (playtesting Green Ronin's shaman rules of course!).

Back in 1999 WotC sent me to Antwerp for a big meeting. While I was there I made sure to stop at a local game store, specifically to pick up some Confrontation minis. The shop had lots of minis--but they were all Ral Partha, GW, and Reaper! When I asked why they didn't have Confrontation minis, the clerk said, "There is no call for them here." I swear, if I had had an extra half day, I would have taken the train to France to go mini shopping!

Chris Pramas

 

[NiTessine]

Re: Re: Rackham's Confrontation Miniatures

Back in 1999 WotC sent me to Antwerp for a big meeting. While I was there I made sure to stop at a local game store, specifically to pick up some Confrontation minis. The shop had lots of minis--but they were all Ral Partha, GW, and Reaper! When I asked why they didn't have Confrontation minis, the clerk said, "There is no call for them here." I swear, if I had had an extra half day, I would have taken the train to France to go mini shopping!

Chris Pramas

You think that's bad?
In Finland, we only get GW, Chronopia and WotC up to Chainmail first set... That game never took off in here. I got some funny looks when I bought the basic set.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I like some of the confrontation minis but I have to nod my head that some of them aren't that great, but the paint job deceives the eye. They have some really great painters. Pick and choose.

 

[Moto Jojo]

stay away from New Wave

I want to chip in about New Wave, the mail order site that you linked to. I don't have any comment about the Confrontation minis except to say that I love the look of 'em, but haven't worked up to ordering any yet.

Unless you've personally had a good experience with New Wave already, _don't_ order from these yahoos. I've had incredibly terrible service. A friend and I both ordered unrelated minis from them in January. When you order, the only confirmation you get is a "Thanks for your order" email without any details on how to track the order. When our orders arrived after two weeks, both of them had backordered items (which amounted to half of my order). The items were circled on the invoice and had a handwritten "backordered" note, without any elaboration on when they might get them in. It took my friend about a week and a half to get in contact with them, at which point he asked them to cancel the backorder and just give him a refund. He hasn't gotten one yet. I called and emailed around the same time, and never managed to get hold of anyone. About two weeks after my partial order arrived, I finally got a voicemail message from them, to their partial credit, telling me that they weren't going to be able to get the minis I'd ordered, and the lady offered something else from their catalogue instead. I called back, getting their voicemail, and told them I'd prefer a refund. That was over three weeks ago. I've called back several times and emailed them also, and the single time I managed to speak to someone, she said she'd have to talk to some other lady to figure out what was going on and call me back. She hasn't yet, and I haven't been refunded yet.

Phew... sorry for the venting. New Wave just makes me fuming-angry, and I felt the need to warn other potential customers away.

Here's a link to an alternate online vendor for Confrontation minis: Fantization
I haven't ordered from these guys, so I can't speak for their service. They have a better gallery for browsing the minis, though.

 

[JoeGKushner]

New Wave does indeed suck

I ordered the high elf boxed set for $170. I was billed for it and never received it. Wrote and called and finally after about a week and a half, got an e-mail back stating that the product was on order.

Now who the hell bills you for something that's on order? If they already have the credit card number, what else do they need? They have to prebill me too? I cancelled the order.

New Wave has a great selection and great prices and the people, when I've dealt with them in person, such as at Gen Con, have been very friendly and helpful, but their online service is brutal. If you have both time and money to waste, order away, otherwise...

 

[Gizzard]

More slamming New Wave: I've told this story on these boards before, but I think its probably a good idea to keep warning people about New Wave. I dealt with them 2 times; one perfectly fine order and then one order that went slightly bad.
After that I dealt with them 2 more times (involuntarily!) because they sent me crap I hadnt ordered.

The order that went slightly bad went the infamous "backorder" route described in a previous post. The first I heard of the backorder was when I opened my box and found that I didnt get all my stuff; I figured that the missing item was a couple days behind and that it wasnt worth the bother of cancelling. After a month or so, my backordered item showed up. Not horrible, but enough to dampen my enthusiasm for New Wave a bit.

About four months later, I got a box from New Wave in the mail. How odd. I opened it up and it was full of Blood Bowl. I dont play Blood Bowl, I dont want Blood Bowl and so on. I called New Wave and played phone tag with them for a couple of weeks, trying to convince them that I had a box of Blood Bowl that they might want back. It was never charged to my credit card, eventually someone called me back and arranged for a UPS guy to pick the box up. Strange.

And even more surreal, the same thing happened again after another 4 months. This time I only called them twice before giving up on ever getting through to someone who cared. They just dont like to return calls. An excuse I heard a lot was "Oh, Bob handles that. But he just went out for lunch. I'll have him call you." Unsurprisingly, the mythical "Bob" never would call back. Oh well.

None of these experiences are earth-shatteringly horrible; actually, I ended up with $200 worth of Blood Bowl for free out of the whole experience. But its pretty clear that New Wave cant run their shipping department or their customer service department in an even close to competent way. I wouldnt touch them with the proverbial 10 foot pole.

 

[DMaple]

Hmmm other than GW I haven't seen many figures at all in the shops near me. (Birkenhead, UK). I tend to order minitatures on-line but shipping cost more than the figures sometimes.

 

[Creeper]

Re: stay away from New Wave

Here's a link to an alternate online vendor for Confrontation minis: Fantization
I haven't ordered from these guys, so I can't speak for their service. They have a better gallery for browsing the minis, though.

I have never ordered from New Wave, so I will not comment on them. However, I have ordered Confrontation minis from Fantization, and they had excellent service. They did not bill my credit card prior to shipping, and they even sent a confirmation email letting me know when the package shipped.

I ordered on a Wednesday night (after 11pm). My order was received the following week. I was very satisfied with my purchasing experience.

 

[Noah Kolman]

Well, to get back on subject...

Hey everyone,

I personally love the Confrontation Minis. The ones I have purchased (only about a dozen, mostly Alchemists and Griffons) have all been excellent sculptings and moldings. There are very few mold lines, the flash is a minimum, and in general, the pieces all fit together well. It's true that the excellent paint job in the image can be deceiving (I for sure could never paint like that), but from just a pure minis standpoint, I have no complaints with Confrontation at all. I highly recommend them, and fantization.com (the only place I have ordered from).