Frosthaven Preorders (Q1 2023)

Containers Continue & Canada!
about 2 years ago – Sat, Oct 22, 2022 at 12:22:36 AM

Hey everyone!

Happy Friday. Let's get into it!

Essen Spiel

First of all, a WARM thank you to all of our community members who visited us at SPIEL in Germany! It was so great to see friends old and new returning to check out Frosthaven, catch up on life, and tease what's coming next. 

PSA: In case you weren't aware - our next crowdfunding campaign "MINIATURES OF GLOOMHAVEN' can be followed HERE! We'll have some REALLY exciting updates and announcements coming before the end of the year so please consider following along with us!

International Freight

Shifting to International Freight, we have been booking containers like mad! We're really appreciative to our manufacturing partners for doing a consistent output job and, despite some out-of-our-hands ocean and port delays, things are continuing along smoothly.

We have 50+ containers booked and/or shipped at this point - which means we're quickly approaching the half-way point on getting things out of the factory.

We're excited to share that the first North American containers have landed! These are estimated to land in their processing centers (Hebron, KY & Sparks, NV) on November 7th, and November 11th, respectively. (Dates subject to change). From there we'll start processing a wave of Canadian orders (see Oh Canada! below) and quickly move on to US orders once the first Canadian wave is out the door. 

Oh Canada!

Canadian Backers!

We know you've been awaiting updates as to how Canada will be fulfilled in relation to the USA and we're pleased to share we've finalized more of what that strategy looks like. First of all, Canadian orders are being processed via UPS from the same 2 locations as the USA, then imported in bulk into Canada for end-point shipment from a Canadian partner courier.

This will insure two major things. First - You won't get any unexpected customs/duties charges on your shipment. Second - you will have full tracking of your shipment despite it having been originally processed in the USA.

Because orders are needing to be prepped and sent in bulk to Canada this will mean that orders will be sent to Canada in waves, and we will be starting that first wave once our first USA containers arrive given the additional transit and processing time. 

Asia / Europe / Oceania / Rest of the World

We know you've all been awaiting updates patiently and we're still waiting on anticipated arrival dates to Germany, United Kingdom, and Australia for fulfillment. Luckily we have much fewer containers shipping than we do North America and (with the exception of Germany) generally quicker freight times. I've gotten signals that bookings are officially falling into place this week but am awaiting further details to share so please tune back in at the end of the month & thank you for your patience! Our international partners are eager to get this game in and out of there warehouse too, believe us!

That's it for this week folks and an early "Happy Halloween"!

Small shipping update and icon name results
about 2 years ago – Sat, Oct 08, 2022 at 03:31:03 AM

Hello! Price and Chris are out at Essen this week (booth 4D118!), so it falls back to me, the one at home with a baby, to get you the shipping updates. The short version is that everything is moving along as scheduled, but here are some details:

We currently have 13 containers on the water, with an ETA of 10/31 for the first seven containers to Hebron, 11/21 for the first four containers to Sparks (though we're expecting this to be a placeholder date and the actual arrival will be sooner), and 11/28-29 for two more containers Hebron.

13 more containers are booked, with 11 going to Hebron (estimated ship out of 10/20) and 2 more to Sparks (estimated ship out of 10/18).

I recognize that is a lot going to the US and not anywhere else yet, but that's just how our chips fell with the freight bookings. We anticipate the next wave will including UK/EU and be a larger output than the previous waves as well.

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In other news, the results are in on the poll we set up last time to determine what names to use for each of the locked class icons. Here are the names we'll be using:

Now, if you don't like any of these names, that's cool! Obviously no one is going to force you to use these - you can call them whatever you want! These are just the names we'll be using to in our communications to identify replacement parts and whatnot.

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Price sends his greeting from Essen, where we are getting an overwhelming positive reception for the Frosthaven demos.

And a shout out to Chris, Julian, Paul, Jan, Esther, Lennart, Jan-Lukas, Dale, Felix and Marcial for their help in the booth!

And that's all I've got for you this week. I know I've said this before, but I am so pumped to have you all starting to getting your games soon. So many people put so much time and effort and love into this game, and I am 100% ready for you all to finally get to experience it. It just makes me so happy!

But anyway, I'll catch you next time for more shipping updates! Stay safe!

Bon Voyage! & "Name That Mercenary" Poll
about 2 years ago – Sat, Sep 24, 2022 at 06:17:10 AM

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another Friday update!

My name is Chris, and I'm the Sales & Community Manager for Cephalofair. Most of you may not know me, but chances are, if you've contacted us via email or visited our booth at conventions, our paths have crossed!

I'll turn it over to Price in a minute for that shipping update you're really here for...but I have a small request first. One of my responsibilities is handling customer service and community support, so with Frosthaven quickly approaching, Price and I are in the midst of securing merch and setting up our product support pages for it. Part of that involves listing the character classes, which I would hate to spoil for you with the actual names...so that's where you come in!

We'd like to have the community settle on the names used for each of the locked class icons. A big thanks to the Gloomhaven subreddit community for providing suggestions so far, which has allowed us to compile the most popular 2-3 names for each of the 11 icons in question for a final vote to decide what will be used both on our replacement form and future products on our webstore to keep them spoiler-free. Follow the link HERE to "NAME THAT MERCENARY!"

Oh, and one other thing! Backerkit is now totally locked down so you won't be able to update your address there on your end anymore, this is to make sure that we're updating your address with each individual fulfillment partner. We're still able to update your address though. Please contact me at [email protected] directly, and I can assist you.

Stay tuned below for Price's update in "The Shipping Shuffle" or "How many containers do I need??"

-Chris

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Thanks Chris! And hello everyone, Price here.

Today I bring good news and confirmation that.... OUR FIRST VESSEL HAS BEEN LOADED!

That's right...it is my pleasure to introduce to you what we're officially calling Boat #1! Officially named the HYUNDAI PLUTO 0025. This first container vessel is heading to the US west coast (est. Oct 10th) for port in Long Beach with final delivery to Hebron, KY, for east coast fulfillment. (Reminder: this is only a handful of many, many, more containers to ship to this location.)

Containers for Boat #2 destined for Sparks, NV have been picked up and are heading towards their respective vessel. That's happening any day now, so I'll have more info next update!

All-in-all, we have our first 22 containers successfully booked and either on, or to be loaded on, vessels in the coming weeks, which is really exciting and surreal. Ideally, in our second and third waves of shipments, we'll begin to see some allocations for our international warehousing partners. Coordination with those arms of UPS has just been a bit longer, given international teams we have to get involved and onboarded with.

Generally, things are moving along as planned, aside from normal small logistical delays here and there that we anticipate seeing throughout freight shipping (port congestions, railyard delays, etc.). A few accessories are taking a little longer to get out of China than we'd anticipated, but given the scope of the total fulfillment project ahead of us, this should not create any additional delays or undermining of fulfillment being able to start - but we wanted to let you know.

For those keeping tabs, the U.S. seems to have JUST narrowly avoided a US rail workers strike that could have disrupted up to 75% of US rail transit. We're talking full project halt in a situation like that. While it seems like we might have dodged a bullet this time, these are the world event type situations we will have zero ability to change, but will be sure to keep you fully informed as they surface and become issues. On that note, I'll plug that there are talks of similar strikes going off in the UK. We'll be keeping ourselves informed as talks continue, so we can anticipate how our fulfillment might be impacted. Fingers crossed and knock on wood!

On another positive note, Chris, I, and our team of incredible booth staff will be heading out to Germany next week to setup for ESSEN SPIEL Oct. 6th-9th and are excited to be demoing Frosthaven in Europe for the first time! While we won't have Frosthaven for sale yet, we will have multiple tables, promos, and sales going on so please make sure to stop by and give us a hello if you are planning to attend - our booth number is 4D118 (in hall 4).

That's about it for this week's update! I'll be back in two weeks with more vessel names, container updates, and general fulfillment tidings.

Be well.

-Price

Production completed and first freight shipment imminent
about 2 years ago – Sat, Sep 10, 2022 at 03:48:18 AM

Hey Everyone!

Price here with another production & fulfillment updates.

First of all...production has been completed! Like, for real. There's still a lot of assembly ahead, but it's happening everyone! Hold on to your butts.

This week we approved a final assembly line copy and received the first two physical copies off the assembly line. This is a very surreal and exciting feeling and the next step is getting things out the doors and on boats, roads, and rail.

On that side, things have been busily boring getting the administrative things out the way so that ocean freight may begin.

That being said, we're also excited to share we have our FIRST of many sail dates to come... September 19th!

On Sept. 19th our first 11 containers will be leaving the port of Shanghai for the U.S. West Coast, with final destinations in Hebron, KY and Sparks, NV for North American fulfillment.

We'll have more details to share about these containers once they ship - but they are projected to hit our warehouses shortly after Chris and I will be returning from Essen Spiel in Germany (Mid/Late) October, and we're excited to go out and see the first units unloaded from the trucks and sent out the door to you.

From there we'll continue shipping weekly waves of containers and branching out to our international fulfilment partners as well.

That's it from me this week! A big thank you to our sales manager Chris, UPS, and Backerkit for their help prepping all of our final backer data and running through our preflight checklists.

Have a great weekend and catch you on the next update!

Info on organizers as production continues
about 2 years ago – Mon, Aug 29, 2022 at 02:00:38 AM

Hello! I just want to start by giving a big thanks to Price for the last update. He has been working tirelessly on getting all the production and fulfillment lined up for you, and things are very much coming together and in motion! We're still on schedule in regard to what was outlined in the previous update, and we don't have any further updates on that front. Instead, I wanted to give you an update on the organizers.

Things are moving along smoothly with both of our incredible game organizer partners. Production has been underway and product has already begun shipping to regional warehouses for fulfillment alongside Frosthaven later this year. If anything, they're ahead of our own timeline, so we won't see any delays there. We can't thank FoldedSpace and Laserox enough for being such fantastic partners and stepping in to pick up and run with so much quality work on such short notice. We're really proud of what we've created together and can't wait for these storage systems to hit your tables.

Here are a couple images of the FoldedSpace organizer, which is the default option for those who pledged for an organizer:

As you can see, the insert has been detailed with a full color design that looks great and features icons and graphics to show which game components go where. As with all Folded Space products, the insert is easy to build and lightweight, adding less than 2 lbs or 900 gr to the box's overall weight. And there is also space for sleeved cards.

Once the Kickstarter campaign fulfillment is under way, FS-FROST and FS-FHMAP (the map tile storage) will be available from retail outlets worldwide and from Folded Space's own web store.

From Laserox, I have a very nice video on how their wooden organizer is made and packaged: 

And here are some images of the assembled pieces:

Laserox is also cooking up some cool accessories that you might be interested in for their upcoming crowdfunding campaign, so be sure to keep an eye out for that as well. You can join their Discord for all the updates on that and their organizer on their webstore once fulfillment is underway.

Note: It is too late to change which organizer you want or add it to your order at this point.

A couple other things. First, you can still pre-order a Frosthaven carrying bag from Boardgametables.com to make transporting the behemoth easier.

And second, we're still looking for a few more booth staff volunteers for Essen, so if you are interested, you can apply through this link.

That's all we have for you today, so stay safe and I'll catch you next time!