Short fulfillment update
over 4 years ago – Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 03:50:13 AM

Hello! I am coming at you with a short Friday update on fulfillment. I know when I say "short" it usually ends up not very short, but we're gonna try really hard this time because I still have a bunch of emails I need to get through before the end of the day. So, anyway, here we go!

Fulfillment!

US: Wave 1 fulfillment is completed at this point, and the shipment for 1.5 just arrived today. Notifications are going out today, there will be 1 week for address changes and packing, and then shipping on 1.5 will begin around August 20. However, if you also ordered Forgotten Circles along with 1.5 products, we will be waiting until Forgotten Circles arrives to ship your product together. Forgotten Circles should be arriving August 28, which is when those notifications will be going out, and then shipping will begin around September 9. 

Canada: Shipping on wave 1/1.5 began today. The Forgotten Circles shipment will arrive August 28 and notifications for that will go out then, in preparation for shipping around September 9.

Australia/New Zealand: The Forgotten Circles shipment will arrive in the docks on August 25, and we expect to start shipping that out around September 9.

EU/Rest of the World: Weather has caused some more delays on the wave 1/1.5 shipment, which has now synced it up pretty well with the Forgotten Circles shipment, so we will be fulfilling everything together. Everything should arrive in the warehouse by September 3, and fulfillment will begin shortly after. We'll have more info on the specific timing next week. You'll receive tracking when your shipment goes out, but if you need to change your address, please contact [email protected].

UK: The wave 1/1.5 shipment docked yesterday. We expect fulfillment will begin around August 25. Forgotten Circles is expected to arrive September 2 to begin fulfillment around September 9. Notifications for both of these will go out three days before shipment, so you can look for that, especially if you need to change your address.

China/Southeast Asia: Forgotten Circles was a little late arriving due to some bad weather, so fulfillment of everything has been rescheduled to begin August 17 (Monday). You'll receive tracking when your shipment goes out.

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And one more time let's touch on the Diviner Deck from DriveThruCards. There were some delays, and so the final proof won't be arriving until tomorrow. So, barring any disasters, we'll turn on ordering on Monday. I'll let you know in the main page comments. I know I said almost the exact same thing last week, so I am sorry for these continued delays. We're almost there.

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And speaking of delays, we are still working with our manufacturer and other partners to finalize a new schedule for development and production of Frosthaven. We're not quite there on this yet either, but I just wanted to let you know that progress is being made. Hopefully I'll have a timeline for you next week.

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And I think that's it. You can always send a message to [email protected] if you have any issues, and you can reference last week's update if you have any replacement requests.

Was that short enough? Let's throw in one last update: my hand is at, like, 97%, at least for computer use, so I am pretty excited about that!

I'll talk to you next week!

More fulfillment! And some sculpting updates
over 4 years ago – Mon, Aug 10, 2020 at 01:50:15 AM

Hello! Apparently it is Friday again already, so let's see what I can do to update you on the current fulfillment situation. Across the board, we are experiencing some delays due to congested ports, but things are still moving along.

US: Wave 1 fulfillment was scheduled to have concluded by now, and we're almost there, but due to the late delivery of our final container, we have around 500 Wave 1 backers whose stuff won't be shipped until around Wednesday of next week. Thanks for your patience in this!

Canada: Wave 1 notifications went out earlier this week. Our final container arrives at the warehouse on Monday, which is one week later than we had projected, and shipping should commence by late next week. Smaller addons are being pre-sorted and packaged for expedited processing once things do get moving.

China/Southeast Asia: Forgotten Circles ended up falling behind it's delivery window this week but should be arriving today. VFI will be sorting over the weekend and hitting the ground running with all shipments on Monday.

EU and the rest of the world: Things are on track! Despite some port delays, containers are moving, and we appear to be on target to begin fulfillment in the next couple of weeks. We should have more information in next week's update.

UK: Things are on track, but we're also keeping an eye on delivery times as Forgotten Circles isn't too far behind the Gloomhaven stock arriving. We may see a slight delay here to sync up delivery, as fulfilling everything at once is most ideal, but we'll have more information by next week's update.

Australai and New Zealand: Completed! If you have questions/concerns about your Wave 1/1.5 order please contact us at [email protected] and we'll be happy to provide support.

Custom Support / Replacements

We can all acknowledge that things don't go right 100% of the time. Packages get damaged, a piece is missing from the game, etc. But don't worry, we are here for you!

Extra product is available at all regional warehouses specifically for support requests, so don't hesitate to contact us so that we can resolve any issue you have by whatever means necessary.

• Gloomhaven parts can be ordered from our website's "Contact" page: http://www.cephalofair.com/contact
• If you require replacement of something else in your order, please email us at [email protected], and we'll be happy to assist.

There are a lot of orders going out, however, so this does mean higher than usual support times for us as we navigate order inquiries, delivery/damage claims, tracking requests, replacement parts, etc. If you sent us a message and haven't heard back yet, please be patient, and we should be getting back to you very soon.

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I also wanted to touch on the Forgotten Circles Diviner card deck available through DriveThruCards, which I know a lot of you are waiting on. Our initial master proofing wasn't quite as close to the original artwork as we would have liked, so we finished reviewing a full array of proofs this week and made a final selection.

We anticipate our new proofing deck to arrive next week, at which time, if everything looks good, we just need to flip the "On" switch. I'll post something in the main comments section when that happens and probably also post something on Twitter. Sorry for the delay on this.

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Lastly, I wanted to let you all know that we have finished the drafts of all miniatures for the game! They were all sent over to the factory, where we will continue to make small tweaks as needed to optimize the molding and assembly process.

I'm really excited about how they all turned out! We made a concerted effort to have more detail and more dynamic poses than in the original Gloomhaven, and I think we've really come a long way. We've even gone back to the sculpts presented on the main page and added more detail to their bases to make them extra awesome.

So I just wanted to give big shout out to our extremely talented sculptors who have really made Alexandr's artwork pop: Chris Lewis, Chad Hoverter, Andrew Cothill, and Tom Mason.

I've been working on writing the rule book all last week. I think I'm at about 90% now with my hand, so it hasn't been too bad. The first draft of the rules is getting close to being done, but there will still be a very long process of editing and design after that.

And we're still working on figuring out an updated timeline, so I think that's about all the news I have for you... Oh no, wait. One more thing!

The 4th Gloomhaven community-driven campaign, which started all the way back before the Kickstarter, has finally concluded! You can find a Geeklist of all the posts about here, and BGG user Peter Krol was kind enough to put all of it together into a single document that can be found here. Marcel has also put all 10 scenarios into the Tabletop Simulator Frosthaven demo module. And remember that another Frosthaven-based community-driven campaign will commence some time after the game is delivered and you all have a chance to settle into it.

Stay safe and I'll talk to you next week!

Continuing wave 1 fulfillment and some potential Frosthaven delays
over 4 years ago – Mon, Aug 03, 2020 at 02:26:01 AM

Hello! It is Friday and time for an update on fulfillment! I have info on US, AU/NZ, CN/SEA, and CA fulfillment, so let's break it down by region.

US: We have roughly 20% of the wave 1 shipments left to send out, so we're getting close. These orders will continue getting sent out today and early next week. Keep in mind, this is just wave 1. As stated in previous updates, wave 1.5 and Forgotten Circles will be coming later, and I'll update you on those as they get closer. If you have any concerns about your shipment, you can reach out to D6 Fulfillment at [email protected].

Canada: I previously told you that Canadian fulfillment would start tomorrow, but the Gloomhaven containers were a few days late on water and will be arriving at D6 Canada's warehouse next week. Wave 1/1.5 orders are already being prepared to hit the ground running as soon as the warehouse has things received. Confirmations for these orders will be sent out on Tuesday (8/4) from D6 Fulfillment, and this will be your last chance to update/change your address before fulfillment commences. Forgotten Circles won't be part of this fulfillment, so I will update you on that when it gets closer. If you have any concerns about your shipment, you can reach out to D6 Fulfillment at [email protected].

Australia and New Zealand: Aetherworks has completed wave 1/1.5 shipments, but orders may still be making their way through the post. Forgotten Circles wasn't part of this fulfillment, so I will update you on that when it gets closer. If you have any concerns about your order, reach out to us at [email protected].

China and Southeast Asia: The slight delay had the fortunate side effect of bumping us into the delivery of Forgotten Circles to VFI's warehouse (early next week) so VFI has begun preparing/shipping orders that did not include Forgotten Circles and will be able to wrap up Wave 1/1.5 and Forgotten Circles all in the same fulfillment wave once they receive the Forgotten Circles shipment. If you have any concerns about your order, reach out to us at [email protected].

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Next, I wanted to give a quick shout-out to Josh McDowell, who is officially joining the Cephalofair Games staff next week! Josh has done all his previous work for us as a freelancer, but the stars have finally aligned for him to come aboard as the Associate Creative Director! We'll soon be seeing a lot more productivity on the graphic design side of this project, which I hope to share with you in the future. It will also just mean that Frosthaven will be a much better product in the end, with a much finer attention to detail. Yay!

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Speaking of productivity, I did have one bad thing to share with you. I broke my hand Saturday night, and while it is now feeling better, I'll probably only be at about 75% capacity for computer work for the next 6 weeks or so. And computer work is, well, all the work that I do.

And to be honest, even before the break, I was starting to feel like we might not be able to get everything done within the aggressive schedule we set for ourselves. Me breaking my hand pretty much just confirms it. We will be seeing some delays getting Frosthaven out the door.

Obviously no one wants delay announcements to be a regular occurrence - least of all me - so what I'd like to do is spend some time coming up with a new development schedule that we should be able to stick to, and then come back sometime in the coming weeks to give you a new, ideally final, estimated delivery date. Until we can do, that, though, I don't want to throw any new dates around. I just wanted to let you know what was going on as soon as I identified the problem.

And that's not to say we haven't continued to make progress this last week, despite being down some digits. Play testing is underway on the character classes, and I've been able to make a lot of refinements on the locked classes. I am really happy with the state of quite a few of them, though others still need more work.

I've also been working on a draft of the rule book so that Jason Kingsley can get started working on that.

I'll need to leave you here, though. I should go get ready for demoing Jaws of the Lion on the BGG Gen Con live stream, which will be happening from 5-5:30 EDT. You can join me there if you wish, and I'll talk to you next week!

Wave 2 opens, and some info on conditions
over 4 years ago – Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 03:42:38 AM

Hello! It took a little longer than expected, but we got wave 2 opened up yesterday. Everything appears to have gone smoothly, so if you were waiting for wave 2 to finalize your order, now is the time to do so! (Or any time in the next few months, really.) We won't be charging cards again until we officially close down the pledge manager around the end of the year, so no need to worry about that.

And if you are confused about what is in your cart, or how to edit stuff in your cart, no worries, we are here to help! First of all, you may want to look at the final section of last week's update on how your pledge was carried over into wave 2, and then Price whipped up a FAQ to hopefully deal with any other pressing issues:

How do I access the Wave 2 pledge manager survey?

The Wave 2 survey is accessed identically to the Wave 1 survey, through your original email or by logging in at backerkit.com using the email address associated with your Kickstarter account.

What if I only see my Wave 1 Pledge confirmation?

Based on whether you've already submitted your survey for Wave 1/2 product, you will need to follow these steps:

• 1) Click "Edit Your Address" or "View your Confirmation" on the survey confirmation screen.
• 2) Click "Edit Add-ons" at the bottom of the page.
• 3) Add any new items and resolve payment in cart.

How do I change my address?

If you've previously submitted your survey, but wish to change your address, please contact us at [email protected]

I still see my previous purchases in cart?

Yes. Due to the functionality of Backerkit, you will see all Gloomhaven/Frosthaven items previously "locked" during the Wave 1 pledge manager. These items do not reflect against any current balance/credits and are "locked" in by your previous order.

I'm in a $0 pledge level but had previously backed as "$285 All-In" pledge?

Any pledges containing Wave 1 product that were previously unresolved have been moved to the $0 reward level and given a full credit for any original partial payment collected.

When will the Wave 2 Pledge Manager close?

Estimated closure is November 30th 2020

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One more important thing to mention with the pledge manager: we screwed up a bit and initially didn't implement a question for the "Slay an Ooze" reward (basically, in which name would you like me to slay an ooze). We've implemented the question now, but there are a large number of people who have that in their cart, but weren't given a response field for it.

We've now added a work-around, though. If you previously purchased that reward, there is now a new item that was added to your cart that allows you to very easily input a name for us. This is entirely optional, of course, but if you have a name you'd like to be included in the video I will eventually make, and you've already paid for the reward, just go into your pledge manager and fill in a response.

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Moving onto some small fulfillment updates. Shipping went underway in Australia, New Zealand and the US on Wednesday, so Aetherworks and D6 are still in the process of getting everything shipped out. Don't panic if you have a wave 1 product coming and haven't received a shipping email yet.

In addition, one of the shipments to VFI got delayed, so China and Southeast Asia won't start shipping until early next week.

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And now, I have some preliminary challenge coin pictures! They are still preliminary and obviously don't have the colored enamel, but I thought you'd like to see the progress we're making on them.

The coins are still available in the wave 2 pledge manager, and all profits on the sales will still be going to UNICEF!

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Finally, I wanted to spend a little more time talking about the game itself. Specifically, the new conditions we'll be adding to the game, which I don't think I've discussed in detail in an update before. One of which I certainly haven't, because I just decided to add it this week. So let's go through them!

• Regenerate: At the start of each of your turns, perform a "Heal 1, self" action. Removed when you take damage.

This was added in Forgotten Circles, but if you haven't played that, it will still be new to you. Technically, it was added to Frosthaven first with the Banner Spear (I've been working on this game a loooong time), but Marcel liked the idea and incorporated it into his Diviner design. Anyway, it is basically the opposite of wound, and can be pretty powerful if you can avoid getting hit.

• Bane: At the end of your next turn, suffer 10 damage and remove the condition. It is also removed if you are healed.

This was added later for a locked class as a more measured way to basically kill something, but without it being an actual instant kill effect, which has caused some problems in the original Gloomhaven (it can be overly powerful, especially against stronger and higher level monsters). The monster still gets one more turn, and it only suffers 10 damage, so it'll still be mostly fine if it started with 30 or something. This is also a rare condition applied by some monsters and is very effective at making you lose a card if you don't get rid of it.

• Injure: You cannot use items. Removed at the end of your next turn.

Unlike all other conditions, this can only be applied by monsters to characters, as they are the only ones who can use items anyway. I wanted another mean thing I could do to players, and this seemed like a logical choice. It's generally not too much of a hindrance, but can certainly prove to be an annoyance.

• Brittle: The next time you suffer damage, suffer twice the damage and remove the condition. It is also removed if you are healed.

Like Bane, this can be very dangerous and do some serious damage when played well. (For extra fun, Bane and Brittle the same monster, then wait for it to explode.) Just remember that this isn't part of an attack - it triggers on damage from any source, and is applied after all other damage calculations are made. Luckily, it is applied before you choose whether to lose a card to negate damage, so it will still go away even if you do that.

• Ward: The next time you suffer damage, suffer half the damage (rounded down) and remove the condition.

So this is the final one I've been playing around with this week. It seemed like a natural addition as the opposite of Brittle. It's not quite as potent as Brittle (halving things generally isn't as exciting as doubling them), but certainly has its uses. I figure, on average, a single application will save you 2-3 damage, but it is better than a heal, because it can be applied at full health. It will also cancel out the effect of Brittle. And when monsters use it? Yeah, that will be annoying.

So, yeah, I hope you found that interesting. I'm hoping to bring you all in on some more stuff we've been developing in the coming weeks and months, but for now, I think that's it. Talk to you next week!

Pledge manager opening early next week, and some info on the start of fulfillment
over 4 years ago – Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 01:42:08 AM

Hello! Happy 50th update! Today I just wanted to let you know that the pledge manager for wave 2 will be opening early next week, and to give you some info on the fulfillment that will be starting in some regions next week.

I've seen some confusion going around about what the different waves are, and 50 updates is a lot to read through to figure it out, so I'll try to break it down for you as simply as I can before we move on.

Your first resource is the main page "Add-Ons" graphic (quarter of the way down the page) that color-codes specific products as wave 1 or 2. Basically, most Frosthaven-related products are wave 2, and most Gloomhaven and Forgotten Circles-related products are wave 1. There are some exceptions, though, like the Envelope X box, which is for Gloomhaven, but will be shipped in wave 2. And metal coins will be active for both waves. Just look at the graphic to get a clear picture.

Wave 1 has been further complicated by a split between wave 1 and 1.5, which is based on a scarcity of product that we could deliver within our original projections. This ended up only affecting US backers, so if you are not in the US, no need to worry about it. If you are in the US and ordered a product labeled as "1.5" in the pledge manager, then it will be arriving in wave 1.5 (August) instead of wave 1 (July).

The last complication is that we couldn't get a new printing of Forgotten Circles out fast enough to coincide with either wave 1 or 1.5, so it will be shipped separately a little later than anything else (late August or early September).

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All right, so with that out of the way, let's talk about wave 1 fulfillment for the US, Australia and New Zealand, and China and Southeast Asia, all of which will be starting next week (according to the chart from last week's update).

US - On Monday, D6 Fulfillment (Cornerbox) will send an order confirmation to all US backers in wave 1, giving them a final 48 hours to review/approve their address. No action is required otherwise, and all orders will begin shipping by Wednesday from their warehouse in Iowa.

AU/NZ - On Monday, Aetherworks will be sending a fulfillment notification to all AU/NZ backers in wave 1/1.5, giving them a final 48 hours to change their address. No action is required otherwise, and all orders will begin shipping by Wednesday from their warehouse located outside Sydney.

China/Southeast Asia - VFI Asia does not send a pre-shipping email, but will begin shipping wave 1/1.5 orders out to their numerous dispatch hubs next week who will then email to inform each backer before their order ships. Local hubs can be contacted at that time for any last minute delivery changes.

I'll update you with news on other regions and US wave 1.5 shipping once we get closer to those dates.

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And finally, lets talk about the wave 2 pledge manager. This will open on Monday or Tuesday, pending some last minute development work needed over the weekend.

Wave 2 pledges $100/$145/$240 will be carried over if not previously submitted during Wave 1 and will now require submission if not done previously.

Any unresolved "All-In Pledge" tiers (because wave 1 product is shipping and no longer available) will be dropped down to the $0 reward tier, and a credit in the amount of their original pledge will be made to their cart.

Any unresolved carts with wave 1 products (excluding metal coins) will find those items removed and credit returned to their cart.

All backers will see products previously ordered in the wave 1 pledge manager, but will only have the ability to add/remove new products from their cart.

I may send out another small update when the wave 2 pledge manager launches, depending on whether anything else needs to be cleared up. Otherwise, I'll talk to you next Friday!