Frosthaven Preorders (Q1 2023)

All Busy On the Fulifllment Front
almost 2 years 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!

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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
almost 2 years 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!

Happy New Year! (UK/EU Updates)
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Jan 03, 2023 at 09:05:05 PM

Happy Holidays Mercenaries!

This is a fairly short week around the Cephalofair offices as we pause to spend some time with friends and family, but just the same we wanted to make sure to check in and let you know some quick and hopefully exciting updates!

North America

USA: Fulfillment continues! We'll keep saying this over and over again but y'all are the largest group and we'll continue seeing you fulfill through January. Some winter storms on the west coast have thrown a curve ball into getting product from Oakland, CA to the warehouse in Sparks, NV which may account for why you've seen fewer notifications on this side of the country than the East, but "I assure you, we're open" and continuing to ship pledges out as soon as they come in! REMINDER: All states are being fulfilled simultaneously and in no particular order, we are not shipping by region. We're getting a handful of concerned messages and just wanted to reassure you that just because your neighbor down the street got their game, and you still need a shipping notification - it doesn't mean it's not still coming! We aren’t able to give you a window when your copy will ship due to the volume of orders but we appreciate your excitement! Thank you all for your patience.

Canada: We excitedly saw Canadian fulfillment start last week and are glad to say things are flowing regularly north of the border. It was brought to our attention that some pledges may have shipped without notifications and the problem has been identified ahead of the next wave being sent - which was why we started with a smaller test shipment on the first wave. UPS has confirmed another large batch of orders will be shipping out this coming week!

Asia/South Pacific:

Frosthaven has left the building and is enroute to VFI-Asia for fulfillment. Addons are also in the process of making their way from Europe and Shanghai and we look forward to fulfillment starting soon in the New Year.

United Kingdom

FIRST CONTAINERS LAND IN A WEEK! That's right, next Friday our first containers are projected to hit the warehouse, with fulfillment to begin immediately upon arrival. A big thank you to our partners at Spiral Galaxy Games who are bravely receiving more containers for us than they traditionally are able to for most projects - admittedly partially out of sheer necessity for this project -  but more-so due to their absolute commitment to providing EXCELLENT service. Like in other regions, we'll need to clear some floor space for additional containers coming in so we've asked Spiral Galaxy to fulfill in the order that gets the most amount of packages onto your doorsteps in the shortest amount of time.

Europe & Rest of the World:

FIRST CONTAINERS ARE HERE! Before I say anything else...THANK YOU to our partners at Fulfillment Europe and their staff.  While it's exciting to get a bunch of containers landed at once - it is NOT exciting to get them all in on the week of Christmas. We owe Melanie, Michael, and their staff a tremendous debt for spending some unplanned time back in the office last week getting containers into the shop for fulfillment. Thanks to their help FULFILLMENT WILL BE BEGINNING NEXT WEEK! As with other regions, we have even more containers coming in and a need to clear some floor space so we've asked Fulfillment Europe to proceed with orders in the order that best keeps fulfillment flowing and gets the most amount of boxes on your doorsteps in the shortest amount of time!

Oceanic:

Not a lot of news this week as the Aetherworks office has been closed for the holidays, but we expect some updates next week from the team upon their return and are excited to get things underway in January. More news to come and thank you for your patience!

-Fulfillment End-

As the last update of 2023 - on behalf of the Cephalofair Team - HAPPY NEW YEAR & THANK YOU for all your support in 2022! We truly thrive off the excitement, support, and engagement of this community and can't believe yet another year has passed getting to do what we're most passionate about - bringing epic strategy and excellent people together.

While we still certainly have quite a bit of fulfillment ahead of us in the next couple of months - we are excited to be taking the opportunity to reflect on all the successes of the past year, as well as the areas we know we can strive to provide higher quality work. We're excited to already be taking steps to "level up" what Cephalofair looks like in 2023 operationally and creatively - and hope you will be pleased with the results!

Have a great weekend - we'll talk to you next year!

Frosthaven Official Tutorial & Companion App Now Available!
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Dec 24, 2022 at 01:05:49 AM

Hello Frosthaven!

We are happy to announce that the Official Frosthaven Tutorial - How to Play series is officially LIVE from the gloomthusiast himself - Paul Grogan of GAMING RULES! This two part series covers everything you and your group will need to know from 1) GETTING STARTED & SCENARIO PHASE to the 2) OUTPOST PHASE. 

With the Outpost Phase being a brand new system in Frosthaven we especially hope Paul's guidance will help fortify your rules confidence, and in turn, your outpost! THANK YOU PAUL for your biggest game tutorial to-date!

1) Getting Started & Scenario Phase

2) The Outpost Phase

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We're also excited to share that the Frosthaven: Official Companion app is available on both iOS and Android. Since the first announcement back in May, our partners Lucky Duck Games have been hard at work to bring this initial implementation of the official companion app to life.

Frosthaven: Official Companion - iOS - Frosthaven: Official Companion - Android

With their soft launch for the app last week, it was fun to see how many of you jumped on the opportunity to check it out.

Cephalofair hopes to continue to see community feedback, in order to provide the Dev Team ways to improve the app for useability and gameplay. For any feedback, please reach out to Lucky Duck Games at [email protected]. All of us Cephalofair and Lucky Duck Games appreciate the outpouring of community support!

Lucky Duck Games has provided some pointed updates about the app, where it has progressed from launch and what they will be focusing on in the near future.

From Vincent, CEO of Lucky Duck Games:

Hi everyone, and thank you for taking the time to read this release note!

Let me first point out the fact that Lucky Duck Games is committed to making this app the most complete, robust, and reliable companion app for Frosthaven.

We have been hard at work since we first presented you with our initial implementation, and thanks to this community, and the many feedback we received on that first post, we decided to delay the release in order to include more functions on its release including, for example, auto calculation of move and attack values on monster ability cards, adding the loot deck, possibility to add NPCs, and many more!

In that regard, we have an official journey ahead of us to keep improving the stability and feature list of the application, and the following document will go over each planned release.

Here is what the app supports officially as of today.

V1.0 – Released December 16th

• Create multiple parties to maintain the state of multiple campaigns at once.
  
• Allow for multiple devices to synchronize at the same time, allowing remote play, or everyone around the table to see all stats without sharing their device.
  
• Choose which scenario the group wants to play, and the application will automatically set up all the monster stats, monster ability decks, and loot deck for that scenario.
  
• The application supports opening sections in a scenario. Doing so will automatically instantiate the monsters (normal & elite) in that section.
  
• The app takes into account the majority of the scenario and sections special cards and hp for monsters.
  
• Mark each scenario as started or completed, and track your progress.
  
• At any point you can draw from the Monster or Ally Attack Modifier deck, or from an extra Boss deck.
  
• Input the initiative of your heroes and draw Monster Ability cards for each of the monsters. Heroes and enemies will automatically be sorted by initiative, and the ability cards of each monster drawn and revealed.
  
• Support for auto calculations of move and attack values on Monster Ability Cards.
  
• Maintains the hp, xp, loot, and the various conditions of each of your heroes and monsters easily.
  
• Create Summons from your Hero, and track their various statistics.
  
• Create NPCs and set their name and hp, as well as their conditions. You can also input their initiative or snooze them.
  
• Maintains the status of the 6 Elements.
  
• Stop at any point, and resume your session in the state it was when you left.
  
• Undo or redo any actions between each round.
  
• If you do not want to input player initiatives, you can disable player initiative or even hide players.
  
• If you do not want to play a pre-made scenario, create your own custom session by adding any monsters from the game.
  

Important release note: Since the launch of the app, the 3rd party networking solution we are using is unfortunately experiencing stability issues in some regions, while working perfectly in others. We have decided to implement another 3rd party solution, which should be available by mid-January. Until then, we recommend playing Offline if you experience slow connection in your area.

Following some immediate feedback, we already released a patch few days ago:

V1.0.1 - Released December 19th

• Shuffling of Attack Modifier decks following the correct rules
  
• Removed shuffle icon from +2 and -2 modifier cards.
  
• Fixed typos
  
• Added 9th level for heroes
  

Now what is coming next?

V1.0.2 - Late December

• History for all decks
  
• Guidelines document, with explanations on how to use the app
  
• Reminder notes for some special rules
  
• Bug fixes, QOL improvements
  

V1.1 - Mid-January

• Custom names for characters when creating party
  
• Gloomhaven and JOTL characters
  
• Boss special cards
  
• Better centered images for monsters
  
• Loot deck upgrades
  
• Conditions automatic expiration
  

V1.2 - Late January

• New and more robust networking implementation
  
• Landscape for tablet
  
• Manual reorder of characters
  
• Dragging to modify HP
  

V1.3 - February

• Desktop Version
  

Finally, we want to thank the Frosthaven community for your continued support and feedback. Together, let's build the best Frosthaven: Official Companion app system!

Vincent, for Lucky Duck Games

Happy Holidays from Cephalofair!
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Dec 17, 2022 at 04:05:46 AM

Hello! Another short update coming at you while we try to get back onto our normal bi-weekly schedule.

We don't have too much shipping news for you since Price's update last week. Here's the rundown:

US: USA West Coast fulfillment has started, and addons orders across the US have started as well.

Canada: Canadian shipments have also started. Note shipping notifications won't be sent to backers until your copy touches down in the Canada warehouse.

Asia/South Pacific: Orders are being picked up and prioritized by VFI-ASIA with the goal of getting everything shipped by Chinese New Year.

EU/Rest of the World: No further updates here.

We are, as always, doing our very best to get the game into people's hands as quickly as we can, but I'll just reiterate that this fulfillment is necessarily a very long process and will be extending into next year.

Whether you have Frosthaven in hand or not, all of us here at Cephalofair wish you the very best holidays!

Finally, the embargo on reviews lift yesterday, and it's been great to see all the thoughtful considerations and appreciation from so many people! I just wanted to highlight this ThinkerThemer video. Even though both Amy and Maggie were new to the Gloomhaven world, they were able to get to the heart of the game and enjoy it from the perspectives of both mechanics and theme.

You should definitely check out more of ThinkerThemer's videos! They're great!

So we will be back in the normally scheduled two weeks with more shipping news. In the meantime, enjoy your holidays!