Does anyone here play Confrontation?

[Murtak]

As the title says . Does anyone here play this game? Me and some friends are nearly finished with a complete overhaul of the game and if there is any interest I can extract our changes, translate them and put them up here.

For those who don't know the game, its a fantasy tabletop game with gorgeous miniatures but, at best, bad and unbalanced rules/costs. We built upon Rackham's 3rd edition which is being phased out at the moment (beats me why - the old minis where great, the new ones are at best decent). An army is between 5 and 20 miniatures and even buying new miniatures you can get enough for an army and then some for under $100. Sample miniatures below.

[Username17]

Some furry friends of mine play this game because of all the horse cock. I.... I'm not making that up. I looked it over and found the game to be confusing and unbalanced so I never really got into it. That and the fact that it appears to be a thinly veiled excuse to put beastmen in "sexy" bondage gear on the table. That was kind of a turn-off too.

-Username17

[Murtak]

1st edition was unplayable.
2nd was horrible.
3rd was playable, but horribly balanced.

And yes, the Devourer faction is basically muzzled werewolves and goth elves with swords. Shown above is one of the "good werewolves", which don't go for muzzles and chains, but leather and rivets instead.

Coolminiornot is up again, so I can actually post decent examples now.

"Bondage werewolf" archer:


Templar Champion:


Elven Assasin:


Goblin Ninja
[/i]

[eeuuugh]

I remember being really impressed seven or eight years ago by the miniatures, but I couldn't make heads or tails of the rules. They had an incredible painter working for them who used no metallic paints and just shaded anything metal an appropriate color. Kind of sad to see that they've gone back to a more typical style.

[Murtak]

The miniatures from my first post are from the official site (probably painted by the guy you mean), the other ones are from non-affiliated painters. Some of them (the templar's cloak for example) have details painted on the original miniatures don't have. I picked them for the multiple angles, and because the Rackham shop is down right now.

Edit: 3rd edition rules in a nutshell
When constructing your army you may only play up to 20 miniatures, totalling up to 400 points. Miniatures of the same type may be combined into units. Miniatures worth more than 50 points may not be combined, up to two minis worth more than 30 points may be combined, and up to three minis worth no more than 30 points.

A game has 6 turns. On each turn each player first determines the order his units will be played in. Then they each roll discipline (differs by faction). The winner chooses who goes first. Then each player alternatively moves a single unit. ("Moving" meaning "moving, shooting, casting). After this all close combats are rolled.

First initiative is rolled and compared (a stat on the card). The loser then determines how to allocate his rolls (attacks or parries), then the initiative winner allocates. Combat is then done in rounds - initiative winner attacks first, loser parries, loser attacks, winner parries, etc.

It is highly recommended games be played for objectives (such as, who has the most minis at the end of turn 6 at each of these 3 locations).

These are the basics - there are dozens of special abilities, some additional rules and I completely left out terrain and persecution rules but they are mostly variations on the above.

[Voss]

Most of the editions of the confrontation rules have been... bad. Partly because of shitty, half-assed translation efforts, but mostly because the system was tedious and overly complicated.

The current edition has some fuzzy translations in spots, but is largely playable with a mechanic that actually works: Attack value - defense value gives you a target number (4+ at [-1 to 1], adjust by +/- 1 for every two points of difference in value).

Finding players is iffy, at least in the US, and is complicated by a disdain for prepainted minis in the wargaming community and a downright weird release schedule. There are, in theory, 15+ armies. Currently released: 4.

[Murtak]

Well, our rules + content revamp is based on the 1st to 3rd edition metal minis, though it will also be playable with the plastic ones (or any minis for that matter), provided you put them on square bases.

From what I heard Confrontation never took off too well in the US anyways, which, given the rules (and translations) I can understand. Of course that will make it hard to find people to play with - but it might make the minis cheap when you find them.

The current edition has some fuzzy translations in spots, but is largely playable with a mechanic that actually works: Attack value - defense value gives you a target number (4+ at [-1 to 1], adjust by +/- 1 for every two points of difference in value).

That is 2nd edition I think. Right now the attacker rolls a single die and adds his attack value. Then the defender rolls and adds his defense value. If the attacker rolls higher he has hit and makes a wound check.

Finding players is iffy, at least in the US, and is complicated by a disdain for prepainted minis in the wargaming community and a downright weird release schedule. There are, in theory, 15+ armies. Currently released: 4.

We are based on 3rd and thus we are actually complete as far as minis are concerned. Everything from 1st through 3rd edition has playable stats (excepting two mercenaries I think). We are still missing 10 miracles I think (out of about 120 miracles total), 4 fractions (selectable sub-factions), we would like a few more missions and we want to fill in like 10 miniatures in some rough spots - preferably with some of the Rackham 4th edition releases.

Overall we are about 99.9% done I think. The game is playable and very balanced (at least everything we playtested so far), every single miniature is playable, we have a database to track all changes, printable cards, a point-and-click army generator ... we are just missing more playtesters.

I hope we get official approval to put all of this on the web, but I am not too certain of that - but houserules and point adjustments should be fair game. 8)

[Voss]

Well, our rules + content revamp is based on the 1st to 3rd edition metal minis, though it will also be playable with the plastic ones (or any minis for that matter), provided you put them on square bases.

From what I heard Confrontation never took off too well in the US anyways, which, given the rules (and translations) I can understand. Of course that will make it hard to find people to play with - but it might make the minis cheap when you find them.

Lots of online stores had heavy discounts for the last couple years. One even had some very good deals for the current stuff (due to some sort of overstocking thing that was never really explained)

The current edition has some fuzzy translations in spots, but is largely playable with a mechanic that actually works: Attack value - defense value gives you a target number (4+ at [-1 to 1], adjust by +/- 1 for every two points of difference in value).

That is 2nd edition I think. Right now the attacker rolls a single die and adds his attack value. Then the defender rolls and adds his defense value. If the attacker rolls higher he has hit and makes a wound check.

2nd may have had something similar, but thats the current Age of Ragnorak version with the prepainted plastics. No wound check or any of that silliness. Same system as AT-43. Its pretty clean, but a lot of the army books (and thus rules) aren't out. Just some iffy get-you-by documents on the website for people who have the old metals.

Of course, distribution issues caused some problems. They were selling their stuff through Fantasy Flight Games during their bankruptcy (or whatever the French equivalent is), but they seem to have reformed as a slightly different company (and having sold off all their metal facilities) and have a long term release plan again.