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Into the storm! (Wave 1 shipping update) + More
Posted by Awaken Realms (Creator)
Hey Everyone!
First of all, we would like to apologize to all of you for late update. Unfortunately we had a small flue epidemic in the company (I am still sick writing this update, but hopefully healthy enough for it to make sense
).
In this update we would like to bring you news from production, first wave shipping and a bit more. Since we finally have production copies in our hands, we would also like to elaborate on what we are very happy about it and what could be done a bit better from our perspective
At the very end of it we will also have with you some new nice pictures
Solving problems and shipping update
In the last update we reported 2 problems - customs office and foam.
Custom office clearance
After 8 day fight, we finally got the goods unlocked (but had to pay additional 2,5k USD for storing the goods for this time... there are a lot of additional costs like that, that you cannot expect). With them at the factory, we were able to complete first un-pinated Core Boxes and let us tell you, that they really do look phenomenal - but more about it later!
Foams
With 3 days delay, also new foams for packing came to the shipping facility and they look way better then earlier shipping solution, and passed our in-house professional tests (put game into the box and kick it around the room as hard as you can). But we know that some couriers are way more skilled then we are in those kind of tests
You can even see special cut for our 2 surprises we prepared for you all
But, problems are like a Hydra - you cut out one head, two new ones grow out. We will be not giving you more details here, as we managed to solve most of them and remaining ones should not block the shipping.
There are two huge lesson for us to be learned here:
1) Don't produce & ship in December. It is extremely busy period for everyone, deadlines are not meet, everyone wants to have something ASAP and so forth.
2) Plan production very pessimistically. Truth be told, we are able to start shiping this game this week only thanks to big dedication of our workers and partners working in production. Looking back at the already produced game and seeing how many components it have, we honestly don't know how could we thought that it is achievable in the deadline we gave on Kickstarter.
This was not realistic deadline and we should definitely know better next time
We have put a lot of overtime, stress and health to make this happen as soon as possible, and we still will not be able to ship everything before Christmas. We are sorry for giving our unrealistic deadline and resulting delay, but we are writing this just to give you confirmation that we did everything in our might (including unpacking 3000 kg of miniatures in the middle of the night, calling over to customs offices around the country, pushing sundrop etc. )
We know that we will not be able to keep this up forever, so for any future project we will be giving more realistic delivery predictions
Also - since we left so much effort in the whole process, we expect anyone who will get the game before Christmas to play A LOT of games
What will ship and when?
Ok, but probably most important question for you will be - what will be shipped and when?
We will start shipping with 900 Core Boxes (without sundrop and terrain) - first boxes will leave tomorrow or Friday.
Then, from 19th to 22th of December, we hope to ship 1 000 sundroped Core Boxes with Terrain expansions.
So we will be able to ship around 2 000 orders in December and if nothing wrong will happen on Sundrop front, we will send the rest in January / Early Febuary.
If your order will ship, you will get an email confirmation from UPS with a tracking number (and few days later confirmation from GameFound). Shipping time will take around 3-5 working days depending on your localizations
Lords of Hellas - Core Box
We were finally able to get first production copies and we are extremely happy on the print quality - game looks amazing!
Here is a short unboxing video from one of the Polish reviewers
aaand some pictures!
One thing that can happen after opening the box is that some of the miniatures will be bent (mostly spears, but this can also happen to other models).
We put a lot of effort to sort out as much as we can ourselves, but with over 90 miniatures in the box we know that we missed some. Fortunately, fixing bent miniatures is very, very easy and in 5 minutes you can do it in your home without a problem.
To straighten miniature, you need a bowl with hot water / hair-dryer - expose bent part to heat for 10-20 seconds so it will be elastic, put it in the right position and after it will cool down, it will stay in this position.
Another thing that we are not fully satisfied is that sometimes there are small empty spaces in between monument parts, as even after our efforts, plastic in final production turned out too hard to control to make sure everything will fit perfectly.
We hope that those things will not influence your enjoyment from Lords of Hellas - as overall we are extremely proud from this game and we put a lot of love and passion into every inch of it! Amount of content in just Core Box is really stunning!
Sundrop
We are sundroping miniatures for few weeks now and we are seeing good progress in terms of speed (after solving A LOT of problems. Adrian will make a dedicated update about how many things can go wrong in relatively easy looking process
).
Here are some pictures!
For now, we can tell with a big certainty, that we had under priced Sundrop big time (especially when it comes to Hoplites) so we think you got yourselves quite a nice deal
But please have one thing in mind - this is a mass painting technology - please do not expect from it quality of a normally, fully professionally painted miniatures. They look way better then normal plastic, but they will be inferior to normal, professional paint job.
Satyr
Ok, a lot of information in this update, but there is always a time for some new model, right? Meanwhile, everything that is happening we are working on all the Stretch Goals and expansions. Here is a brand new model - Satyr! Hope you will enjoy it
Doing something good on Christmas
Last but not least we wanted to share with you something not project related
Since Christmas are coming big time, we would like to share with you an idea on doing something good for those less fortunate then us. We decided with our team to visit child care home and show them our passion - miniature painting, board games and overall art.
We must say that it was one of the best moments for us in the past months! It felt really great to be able to do something good and spread our hobby a little. Especially Board Games have this amazing potential for bringing people together and helping with human interactions. We recommend it to everyone!
We will be back with update sooner then 2 weeks, once most of the shipping will proceed!