Frosthaven Preorders (Q1 2023)

North American Fulfillment Completing!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 06:32:51 PM

Hello Mercenaries!

We’ve got some exciting updates today, and want to thank everyone for their continued ongoing patience awaiting shipping notifications and support replies. As we continue working through a record number of support tickets, rest assured we will address each and every question, issue, or concern in the coming week(s) and will not be leaving anyone, or their pledge, out to dry!

Along those notes, and before we get into today’s fulfillment updates, you may be aware that Cephalofair announced an APRIL 2023 crowdfunding project on Backerkit at PAX Unplugged last year. We will be making a formal announcement soon - but wanted to share here ahead of time that this campaign is being moved back to JUNE 2023 to allow confident wrap up of all outstanding obligations on this project first and foremost, and also allow us to continue making that the best campaign possible for those interested in Gloomhaven/Frosthaven Miniaturesor theGloomhaven Role Playing Game. More info to come soon - but we felt that was important to share with our backers here first so you knew where our priorities were given the delays due to the immense size of this project and the extra amount of time it’s taken since December to get Frosthaven to your doorsteps.

Thank you all for your enduring patience, support, and most of all excitement. We’re proud of what we’re accomplishing and the reception the game is getting world wide. We can’t do what we do without you and your trust in us to deliver will keep us going.

Now let’s get into….

FULFILLMENT UPDATE:

United States

By the end of today - we will be at 100% of pledges shipped!

There may be some instances of tracking numbers not issued until early next week - so we would kindly ask you to wait until Wednesday (22nd) or later to email us if you still have not seen a tracking number. No need to panic if this is the case - we’ll be happy to review your order and investigate or provide you with tracking details at that time. This includes Retailer pledges as well!

PRE-ORDERS: Preorder containers are set to arrive at our warehouse next week, and will begin shipping very shortly after. Please do not email us if you preordered Frosthaven in 2022 and have not received a tracking number yet - as these will be generating over the following few weeks.

Canada

By the end of today - we will be at 100% of pledges shipped!

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: Shipped means your pledge has been fully packaged, picked up from our US warehouse, and is part of a caravan on its way across the border to our Canadian distribution hub where your tracking number will be issued “locally”. If you have not received a tracking number by March 27th, please email us at that time at [email protected] - but please no sooner!

PRE-ORDERS: Preorder containers for 2022 preorders are set to arrive at our US warehouse next week, and will begin shipping very shortly after following the same process as above. Please do not email us if you preordered Frosthaven and have not received a tracking number yet - as these will be generating over the following few weeks.

Europe + Rest of the World

With ALL containers finally having made their way into Germany - our fulfillment partners at Fulfillment Europe are continuing to do a top notch job getting pledges out as fast as possible!

This has not only been Cephalofair’s largest fulfillment project to-date, but also Fulfillment Europe’s largest fulfillment project to-date too.

Michael from Fulfillment Europe says: “It is a lot of hard work handling those heavy games – but like I said, we are really proud that we can be a part of it! And you can be sure that we put our heart and sweat into it, getting everything here in time and getting all those orders out to backers asap.”

In full transparency, Fulfillment Europe is looking at needing at needing likely a couple more weeks to get all remaining orders out than estimated and communicated in last update, so current ETA for completion of PLEDGES and PREORDERS both is April 15th. As always we’ll keep you updated should anything change - but the team is rocking and rolling and we’re excited to see so many countries receiving their long awaited orders!

United Kingdom

With ALL containers having arrived at Spiral Galaxy - remaining addons/extras shipments have been going out the door steadily and great progress is being made. The amazing group at Spiral Galaxy have communicated that they are feeling good about a FIRST WEEK OF APRIL completion, and we thank them for their due diligence as they continue working on our project amongst the other large and scheduled fulfillment campaigns they have going on simultaneously.

We’ll be back next update to provide you with a definitive COMPLETION date so you know when to email us, but for now thank you for your patience!

Oceanic

Aetherworks has communicated that next week will see a large uptick in shipping notifications as they proceed with significant accessory orders as projected to wrap up by the end of month. The one exception here is still the Laserox inserts which are expected to be in by month end and will ship shortly after that period of time.

We will be back next update with a more definitive COMPLETION date so you know when to email us. Thank you for sticking in there!

Asia + South Pacific

In a correction to our last update, VFI-Asia completed packaging delivery/staging to their centralized distribution center. Since that delivery, shipments have begun deploying out to individual countries from that distribution center. VFI-Asia is communicating that all unshipped regions should be completed by the first week of April.  

We'll be back update with a solidified fulfillment COMPLETION date so you know when to email us. 

-FULFILLMENT END-

We’ll be back in two weeks as usual! Thank you all for your enthusiasm and patience as we approach our logistical finish lines.

Fulfillment Completion is on the Horizon!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Mar 03, 2023 at 07:04:27 PM

Hello Mercenaries!

Before we get started with today’s updates - I’d like to kindly remind you that we are not able to provide specific order ETAs or tracking numbers for orders unshipped. You will receive a shipping notification email to your provided email address directly from our fulfillment partners once it has left the warehouse. Until we communicate that “[REGION] fulfillment is complete - please email us if you haven’t received your tracking number” - we thank you for your patience and excitement and ask you to keep the email lines open for serviceable requests.

Support is still experiencing an overwhelming volume of emails, in many instances multiple from the same parties, asking for estimates of when their orders will ship. These requests only slow down our ability to service actionable requests like parts replacements, lost packages, etc.

Additionally, all service requests need to please come to [email protected]. Please do not use the Kickstarter message system, as it is not a reliable enough communication tool, nor does it give us enough information to service your pledge. Thank you!

With that being said….

========FULFILLMENT UPDATE:================

North America (United States, Canada, & Mexico)

We are at 99% COMPLETION!

Our Hebron, KY warehouse had to shut down a little prematurely today due to tornado warnings, so we have a fraction of a percent of orders that we anticipate getting cleaned up and shipped out by early next week - but then we can confidently signal a shipping completion status for our largest fulfillment region. This includes a handful of retail backer orders that will be shipping via appointment and LTL freight.

KINDLY, PLEASE DON’T EMAIL US YET IF YOU HAVEN’T RECEIVED TRACKING!  =)

We know everyone is excited and it’s hard to believe when you’re in the final fulfillment % percentage, but “I assure you, Cephalofair is open!” and not going anywhere until 100% of our backers have their games. We stand by all orders, and even still to this date receive emails from backers from past campaigns who realize they forgot to fill out their pledge manager, failed to recognize their order wasn’t received, etc. Frosthaven is something we have plenty of stock on, and will be keeping in stock so there is no hard deadline at this time to contact us for order resolutions. 

Europe + Rest of the World

Things are moving along as communicated in our previous update, with the final container containing Envelope X Rewards and Sticker restock scheduled to arrive by the first week of March. Orders are continuing to flow, and with the progress made by Fulfillment Europe we’re even exploring some additional add-on split shipping we can do to make sure orders continue flowing until the very second that the last container arrives! Mid-to-late March is still in our crosshairs and we’ll keep you posted and alerted when “EU+RotW Shipping is Complete!” - but that day is not today.

United Kingdom

The final container estimated to arrive this last week to Spiral Galaxy spent a few extra days clearing customs, but has since cleared with a delivery appointment of next wednesday confidently allowing fulfillment completion to take place this month. We’ll keep you posted on the next update with hopefully a more precise completion date.

Oceanic

Not much to update here other than things are still on target for completion of outstanding orders by the end of March. We have a container that's been stuck in customs for about 2 weeks now without any sign from customs what the issue is, or when it will be resolved, but we and our freight partner are pushiung for updates daily.  A reminder that Laserox inserts, which saw massive delays out of Hungary for reasons not Laserox’ fault, are still en route and won’t likely arrive until General Fulfillment is coming to an end in March. Until then orders are continuing to flow and we’re split shipping what we can, when we can, to insure they do.

Asia + South Pacific

All containers have arrived at VFI-Asia and the vast majority of orders were picked and packed over the last week for outbound shipping! We are estimating backer shipment completion as of next week! - with Retail orders being contacted soon (if you haven’t already) by VFI-Asia to arrange ex works arrangements of those orders (Shipping payment & coordinated delivery). 

2022 Preorders

To reiterate last week - with fulfillment coming closer to an end in various regions, we just want to reassure any customers who preordered Frosthaven in 2022 that those orders will be shipping IMMEDIATELY following fulfillment completion in your region. We have already provided that data to our fulfillment partners and they have directions to begin these shipments once they’ve completed all KS backer orders. 

-FULFILLMENT END-

We appreciate everyone's patience as we get nearer to the end of fulfillment and appreciate everyone's excitement as we continue to work through this incredibly massive fulfillment effort.

Have a great weekend, and Happy Fulfillment!

Fortifying Fulfillment Timelines
about 1 year ago – Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 05:04:22 PM

Hello Mercenaries!

General Update:

We hope everyone is doing well this week, and thank you all for your feedback and questions last update. Things in fulfillment hit about their most chaotic at this point of fulfillment, so we appreciate your patience and understanding as we worked on getting more granular information your way as to the full state of fulfillment this week. We cannot emphasize enough how many hurdles have come up on a daily basis as we navigated shipping multiple waves of product OUT of 4 different countries (2 of which were our first time navigating) and INTO 6 countries for final fulfillment.

While we can confidently say we had a plan at our onset, it has evolved and been forced to adapt many times along the way. From having to source new freight partners, to new customs requirements, fulfillment partners, and warehousing restrictions - our biggest priority has been maintaining as constant a flow of orders as we can from all regions, and we’ve been allocating extra resources (i.e. money) into making sure this is the case wherever we can. It’s not been the easiest project to navigate, but we’ve learned a lot and are now sitting on a lot of new logistical infrastructure to only do bigger and better in the future. Thank you all for your continued support and patience as we move this monumental project forward.

A Kind Reminder : Support is experiencing a large volume of emails at this time (like we said, most chaotic part of fulfillment) and additional email requests asking for status updates and ETA for specific orders is not something we’re able to offer, and only slows down our ability to service actionable requests like parts replacements, lost packages, etc. We are still unable to provide individual ETA’s, tracking #’s, or order locations. Additionally, actionable requests need to come through [email protected]. Please do not use the Kickstarter message system, as it is not a reliable enough communication tool, nor does it give us enough information to service your pledge. Thank you!

And if you’re just interested in more Frosthaven coverage - Isaac Childres sat down and spoke with GamesRadar recently about his personal ‘Road to Frosthaven’.

Short on time? 3 Minute Board Games has you covered with their first review of 2023!

We’ve got some more in-depth fulfillment details this week, as well as some new completion   ETA’s, so here we go!

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FULFILLMENT UPDATE:

United States

This message goes out to 7% of you still waiting on shipping notifications - because we are at 93% done! Last update we shared our warehouse had projected a completion date of mid-February and we’re SO CLOSE to completion. It sounds like we’ve just undershot this mark due to some cross-inventory needs in our West vs. East coast warehouse but that is being tended to by our Ware2Go team and should be on track for a quick completion once it’s resolved. We’re getting confident signals about West Coast completing by month end, but are awaiting some better details about the hold up on the East Coast side of things.

Our intention in mentioning “mid-month”, “end of month”, etc. is never an attempt to be vague or illusive. There has just never been such a thing as PRECISE dates when it comes to operations at this scale and with how many points of failure can surface from staffing, road/rail delays, etc. We’ll continue doing our best to be as transparent as possible and certainly feel like we’ve gotten more experience under our belt to perform more efficiently in the future. Thanks for your understanding!

Canada

Weekly exports into Canada continue, and we have 2-3 weeks worth of shipments remaining! No other news this week as our primary point of contact is out on holiday, but we have been assured the US-Canadian workflow has been solidified and look forward to wrapping up as close to month end as we can. We’re excited to see so many new posts from our Canadian friends sharing their tracking notifications and recent arrivals!

Europe + Rest of the World

Our second largest portion of this fulfillment project has passed the 50% benchmark and is on target for 65-75% completion by month end. We have one final container, as indicated in the last update, containing Envelope X Rewards and Sticker restock scheduled to arrive by the first week of March. Orders will continue processing between now and then, however, and despite the delay of this final container, we anticipate all orders will have been shipped to your doors by mid-to-late March! It’s been a journey, but the home stretch is finally in our crosshairs.

A big shout out to Fulfillment Europe for being such a fantastic logistical partner and their team for pulling so much weight and pushing so many orders out of their warehouse over the last month.

United Kingdom

All core games have shipped! Our partner Spiral Galaxy has over 1,000+ addon orders they are currently working on shipping out while they await the final addon container of Card Sleeves and Envelope X Rewards arriving towards the end of this month. This will allow them to ship the remaining orders over the following week(s) in March. We really appreciate all the maneuvering and postal negotiations Spiral Galaxy was able to assist us with. Split shipping is not typically something we’re able to accommodate (especially in larger regions as costs are extremely prohibitive in NA and EUR) but between Spiral’s logistical negotiations, hard work, and some convenient package weight restrictions that came into play, this actually worked out in everyone’s favor.

We’ll still be looking at how to better pre-plan for complete order fulfillment at once in future projects so this is avoidable, but thank them, and you, for your patience and perseverance!

Oceanic

With the arrival of more Card Sleeves, Inserts, Stickers, and Envelope X Rewards, Aetherworks is continuing shipments over the next several weeks and is currently on target for completion of outstanding orders by the end of March. The one thorn in our side here is the Laserox inserts, which saw massive delays out of Hungary. They are unfortunately still en route and won’t likely arrive until General Fulfillment is coming to an end in March. We are exploring split shipping these later so as not to hold up your orders longer than we need to and will make sure to put resources here where we can.

Asia + South Pacific

Inserts are still enroute to VFI China - there have been some hold ups at customs as these are a first time import for our company, but VFI says once they arrive in the following week they will have in-hand everything they need to start and complete shipments within 1-2 weeks time. So ultimately, we’re looking at a fulfillment completion in March - with a precise window to be determined once customs (hopefully!) gives clearance next week - fingers crossed!

2022 Preorders

With fulfillment coming closer to an end in various regions, we just want to reassure any customers who preordered Frosthaven in 2022 that those orders will be shipping IMMEDIATELY following fulfillment completion in your region. We are already in the process of handing over that data to our partners and they are making arrangements as necessary.

All Busy On the Fulifllment Front
about 1 year ago – Fri, Feb 03, 2023 at 05:16:51 PM

Happy Friday!

Just your friendly neighborhood Cephalofair checking back in with a bi-weekly fulfillment update.

North America:

Canada

We know optics on Canadian orders have been a little quiet - there were some customs issues to work through but now that they have been we’re over 35% complete and  assured by Ware2Go that another large outbound of pledges are making their way out of Hebron, KY and towards the border by end of day today. Tracking numbers will be issued as usual once the caravan has been manifested and scanned (upon arrival in Canada). From here UPS has weekly caravans scheduled to be sent through the remainder of February with the last caravan leaving March 3rd. Please stay tuned for any further developments but we look forward to it arriving soon!

USA

We have shipped over 40,000 orders!!! (whew!) Communications suggest we’re still on target for a mid-February completion for general fulfillment. We’ve been seeing an overwhelming amount of progress on both consumer and retail pledges in all states and are excited to be closing in on a potential end in sight.

Europe & “Rest of the World”:

We had the first of two remaining addon waves arrive at the warehouse last week and anticipate a lot of movement in the coming weeks on these orders. There is one more wave of addons on water that will arrive in time for fulfillment to continue without delay. While we don’t have an exact ETA as of yet - we’ll be sure to keep you posted once the target end date is in sight!

United Kingdom:

UK and EU fulfillment operations are largely in sync: We had the first of two remaining addon waves arrive at the warehouse last week and anticipate a lot of movement in the coming weeks on these orders. There is one more wave of addons on the ocean that will arrive in time for fulfillment to continue without delay. While we don’t have an exact ETA as of yet - we’ll be sure to keep you posted once the target end date is in sight!

Oceanic:

Fulfillment continues in Australia & New Zealand. As a reminder some addons that experienced delays are still on water - but we are continuing to split-ship when and where and when we can. We’ll be communicating and strategizing with the Aetherworks team this week to make sure orders continue flowing, and will be back next update with some more concrete information.

Asia:

Our friends at VFI are getting back from their well deserved time off for the Lunar New Year (Kung Hei Fat Choi!). Things may be understandably a little slow as they get operations back into full swing. LOTS of inventory is arriving for them in the coming week so we expect movement beginning very soon and will update as as we have more info. Thanks for your patience and understanding!

____________________________________________________________________

That's it for this week - thank you all for your continued excitement, understanding, and patience as we enter the final stretches of this massive shipping endeavor!

 Until next update - be well and "Happy Fulfillment!"

A belated fulfillment update
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 12:32:06 PM

Hello! I want to start off by apologizing for not getting an update out last week. Price and I got together last weekend to do some concentrated strategic planning for the next year of Cephalofair Games, and Friday ended up just passing us by, so very sorry about that! We'll do our best to stick to the schedule in the future, and you can expect the next update in two weeks, as normal.

So with that said, let's get to the fulfillment updates:

Fulfillment is in full swing worldwide! While we may have seen some slow downs in places during the holidays, we are hitting the new year strong and getting out as many boxes per day as our partners can manage. It never gets old seeing our games touch down in places like Greece, New Zealand, the Netherlands, etc!

Reminder: At this time please do not email asking if your order has shipped yet as it only causes delays at all levels, but backers that DO need to reach out with an issue please contact [email protected] directly. DO NOT use the KS message system as it is not a reliable enough communication tool, nor does it give us enough information to service your pledge and questions. Thank you for your help with this!

North America: Things are moving smoothly!

We're seeing orders at all pledge levels ship and have hit the half-way point! Our partner Ware2Go currently has us projected for completion mid-February, but we'll keep you posted as progress continues. This has truly been a herculean feat and Ware2Go have been knocking it out of the park! Canada has some catching up to do still, but all add-ons are received and fulfilling as timely as we can, given some border delays we've been encountering.

Asia: An update from the VFI team:

"All product has arrived in warehouse and is currently in staging as the VFI-Asia team breaks to celebrate the Lunar New Year for the next month. Unfortunately, between some delivery delays and a couple serious rounds of COVID (100% team impacted), we did not make the progress we'd hoped, but understand everything is set for their return, and everyone is doing much better and was able to spend some quality time with friends and family over the holidays."

Happy New Year to our friends at VFI-Asia, and thank you for all your hard work so far!

Europe/Rest of the World: Frosthaven has continued arriving to the warehouse in troves and fulfillment continues in Europe. We had some unfortunate delays on specific addons - but are split shipping where possible with Fulfillment Europe as to not delay the project, and keep orders flowing as consistently as possible. A big thank you to the Fulfillment Europe team once again for their help smoothing over some of our import/logistical hurdles we'd hit on the first set of containers - we couldn't ask for better fulfillment friends in the EU!

UK: Fulfillment continues! Here is a great summary from the Spiral Galaxy team (if you don't already follow their Facebook page, their Kickstarter updates are fantastic, and I encourage you to do so:

"Frosthaven by Cephalofair: As stated above we are 4 containers down, another 3 inbound next (this) week. So far, things are running entirely to schedule, so don’t panic if you haven’t received your core or add-ons yet. Stock is still flooding in, and we are processing as quickly as we are able. Keep an eye on our updates here and on Kickstarter for more information, but so far so good. Reminder: We are split shipping core games and add-ons. If you have received your copy of Frosthaven but not your add on inserts, etc., please do not panic or email asking for updates. These are being shipped separately and will be on the way to you soon."

Aetherworks: Fulfillment continues in Australia/New Zealand! We had some unfortunate delays on specific addons, but are split shipping where possible with Fulfillment Europe as to not delay the project, and keep orders flowing as consistently as possible. If you have received your copy of Frosthaven but not your add on inserts, etc., please do not panic or email asking for updates. These are being shipped separately and will be on the way to you soon.

Another reminder: Any retail sales you are seeing currently are from our valued retail backers. Frosthaven is not available through normal distribution. Retailers with copies took the same risks as you backing the project and have been waiting just as long to get their copies, so please treat them with respect!

And one last reminder: Box replacement will not be available. We are aware that sometimes games arrive with small box dings, dents, or blemishes received in transit form our warehouse to your doorsteps. Therefore we’ve done everything possible to prevent this from happening such as: a) increasing our box thickness, b) increasing the carton thickness, c) redesigning our game assembly, d) redesigning our carton assembly, e) restructuring how we load ocean containers, f) most games (with accessories) will even be double cartoned. Producing, freighting, storing, and shipping empty boxes is very much not a realistic expectation or a financially responsible thing to do on our end, or for most board game products from publishers. Not only can we not guarantee a new empty box would arrive any less damaged - it costs just as much as sending a brand new game due to the size of the box. We simply won’t be stocking empty box inventory. HOWEVER, should your game arrive entirely destroyed, crushed, splitting, etc - this is an entirely different story and we’d ask that you reach out to [email protected] so we can best serve you. Thank you all for understanding!

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And that will just about do it, but I do want to plug this great interview I did with The Cardboard Herald. There are some Frosthaven insights as well as discussions of the RPG and other upcoming stuff. 

Sorry again for the delay in updates, and catch you again in two weeks!