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I'm glad ever single kickstarter I've backed is well overdue, it's gives me more time to...how do they phrase it, oh yeah lie about having something better to do with my time!
I should point out this is the kickstarter I'm least annoyed about, in fact, I like secret weapon that much if I ever meet Mister Justin, I'll give him a really long hug.

Project Update #122: And I'm still waiting....
Posted by Secret Weapon Black heart (cards) Like

Another day, another delay. I know, I know, I said that the boxes would be the last delay, and that's still true. Unfortunately I'm still waiting on the printing samples. So let's talk about this delay and where that leaves us now.

The original plan had been for the Tablescapes Tiles to ship in waves. This isn't news, of course, but the reason I had planned it that way was so that the first wave would help pay for the second, and so on. The campaign funds covered the tooling, and some of the production -- the latter because we broke a goal without hitting the next one. But I am on the hook for the rest of it, and being able to ship in waves would have been a real help. As it stands now I've spent about $50k of Secret Weapon money, in addition to the campaign funds, and the product hasn't left China yet. I'll be out another $50k by the time that happens, not counting my initial inventory order. By the time we ship the product to backers... probably another $20k, easy. That's all money that could have come out of retail sales from each wave.

So while I might appear to take these delays in stride, please understand that inside me there's a white hot ball of hate and fury. But ranting about it on the interwebs doesn't actually help, and so I put on my game face, and do my best to get things done.

What does this have to do with the latest delay caused by packaging?

Because of the various delays all of the tiles are now ready at the same time. This happened for a lot of reasons, and we can rehash those in the comments if folks are interested. Having all of the tiles ready in one shipment means I really have to do this right the first time. There is no margin for error, and everything hinges on being able to get the product to the retail market. Thus, boxes.

While I suspect that most of you would be happy with plain white boxes, and that might have been a possibility if we'd shipped in waves, with only one shipment that has to include both backers and retail product, I need to have the finished retail packaging in that shipment.

And so I'm still waiting on samples from the box printer in China.

While some of the blame for this delay rest with the printer, it is my choice not to begin production without first seeing the finished samples. With so much riding on the quality of the retail packaging, I can't risk something being off when it ships, and so I'm going to wait for those samples before I even send them the rest of the finished files.

I am very, very sorry for this latest delay. The good news is that the tiles are ready to be packed up as soon as the box printing samples are approved, and all of the box design work has been finished for some time.

Those samples are due here next week. I'll keep you updated.

In the interim I'll get to work posting the second half of our Urban Streets tutorial.

Ugh... bummer.

Things like this remind me how much of a gamble KS is, even for an established company. If this was some small startup without any funds to draw upon beyond an emergency business loan they would be well and truly screwed.

Yeah, this is pretty grim.

The numbers thrown out by Mr. Justin are disturbing. Is the project in the red for $70-120k or am I misunderstanding and SWM will just break even on the retail tile sales? Whatever the case I hope this gets resolved without any major damage to SWM's operations.

He's at least $120k in the red before he even orders the retail stock so more like $150k before he even breaks even.

That's a huge burden on a small company like SWM but he seems to be able to cover it for now it probably would have driven other companies under. The delays really messed thing up for him had he got each theme in the waves as planned the sales from them would have kept things ticking over but he's had to put his own money in to keep things going.

I think it helps soften the blow of another delay buy showing the dollar impact the delays actually have, correct me if I'm wrong but the above is basically saying that he had planned to release these in waves and in doing so would have allowed him to sell some kits retail as well thus getting an influx of cash from new sales, but since everything has been delayed he hasnt been able to sell anything retail which is where all the extra money he has put in comes from. Not even sure if there was really a way to mitigate that sort of risk. Given that it sounds like he was banking on some cash from retail sales to help float the project I cant help but wonder if this KS was basically in the red before any of the delays actually hit. I guess from a lessons learned stand point if you planning on getting a kickstarter going you should set your funding goal rather high trying to assume anything and everything will go wrong

Hey folks, I'm back. Now that things have settled down a bit - though not a lot - I'm making time to check in with the forums and address questions and concerns directly.

HOWEVER - the best place to reach me is still the Kickstarter campaign.

In regards to the most recent update, there seems to be some concern that I launched this campaign in the red -- and while that's true, that was also by design. If you watch the original campaign video, which is still posted, I make a point of the fact that I'm on the hook for the design, production, packaging, shipping, freight, etc. for everything. The campaign only paid for tooling, and part of the production cost. Just for the backer tiles, not counting the rest, I was on the hook for about $15k.

But, again, that was by design, and I'm not complaining about it in any way.

SO! Let's hit some of your comments!

@ Siygess -- yup, something like this would kill a smaller company, and we've seen it happen. I can assure you it's not comfortable here, either, but I'll get through it.

@ DarkTraveler777 -- you did not misunderstand. Secret Weapon will come through this, but it has certainly been a tight year.

@ DaveC -- and you've hit on why I've released so few new products in this past year too

@ ironicsilence -- you're not wrong, but, again, running this campaign in the red was always the plan. The cost for a single theme would have been $150-200k -- but I wanted to have skin in the game, and I ran an old school campaign. I'd do it again, too, but obviously knowing what I know now about manufacturing in China I'd have a different set of delivery expectations

Feel free to add questions, comments, and concerns as I'll check back as often as I can -- but if you really, really want to reach me I recommend chiming in on Kickstarter.

Thank you all again for your understanding, and continued support -- and many, many thanks to the folks that have been cross-posting the updates here. Your efforts are much appreciated!

Think retail sales will be really successful with this, it is looking a hell of a lot better than the "shiny mat with giant company logo printed in a corner" Kickstarters and retail launches I've seen a lot of this year (all of which were more expensive than the display board I bought anyway).

I'm sure that once I have the product it's going to do incredibly well -- in fact I'm fairly confident we'll sell through the first inventory before the year is out.

I just need to last that long

I genuinely hope this is the last Last Delay.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
from facebook a neat use of the tiles and a prospective release date
Look for a retail release for the Tablescapes Tiles in August of this year.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
My tiles better damn well be safely in my hobby space before then.

With them all going out in one shipment, and so many delays and the costs accumulated as a result - don't count on it!

Expect them at retail at the same time as backers get theirs/earlier depending on locations. And probably between September-December if August was being touted before the latest "final" delay.

 Azazelx wrote:

Expect them at retail at the same time as backers get theirs/earlier depending on locations. And probably between September-December if August was being touted before the latest "final" delay.

I'm not going to ship anything to my distributors until my backers orders have been shipped. I might pull the trigger when we're at 80% or so, because shipping a few pallets to a distributor won't take away from shipping to backers.

I had said I would make an exception for GenCon because I can't afford to leave money on the table, but I'm not even taking them to GenCon at this point. With the latest delay, and my commitment to backers, it's just not going to happen. Backers will get their tiles before anyone else, and the tiles will now leave China in June. That means we'll be shipping in July and/or August.

But you should NOT "expect them at retail at the same time as backers get theirs." The only thing out of my control is out my UK and AUS distributors handle orders, and that's out of my control because I lined up UK and AUS shipping partners so folks wouldn't have to pay duties on imports.

@ Azazelx -- you're in Australia, which means you should be one of the first to receive their tiles.

Just posted this on the KS page, but since you're online right now, I'll repost it here:

Justin - how will shipping work on add-ons in the post-PM from the SWM store?
With the latest delay, it makes me wonder if this could be done now, which would save either yourself or us from being screwed on the shipping from US->AU, since you could just include them with the existing freight going to Australia, etc from WGF instead.
Because, let's face it, after what will 10 months of delays, it's a slap in the face to backers to be asked to pay shipping for extra boards when it could easily have been worked out in that time, and I don't think anyone really wants you to go further into the red on this, either.
(And yes, there *are* a couple of KS campaigns I've backed I'd be happy to lose my money on if it took the gakky companies down with them)
-----
@ Azazel - you will be able to add items, but they will ship from the US and be subject to import duties.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
addendum - we in AU don't (presently) pay duty on imports for orders valued at Under AU$1000 (including the shipping from overseas). In the UK it's a very different kettle of fish.

So duties aren't a worry for Aussies (for a bit longer at least), but shipping from the Americas is an ungainly beast, with neither CA or US postage being pleasant.

Seems like WGF screwed over this KS just like it did DFG and KDM

Well, I've already said my piece on future WGF Kickstarters vs retail. Though Justin's update does show how badly he's also been hurt by WGF's constant [Mod Edit - Language.] and delays. Of course, he can't publically say anything about his manufacturer, since he obviously will want to keep his stuff in production, but if his stuff went to retail months ago, I'm sure a not-insubstantial number of retail customers would have been back for a second or third set of Tablescapes if they'd had the planned-for waves of retail release.

In fact, as much of an unhappy camper as I have been throughout the later months of this drawn-out painful process, I'd actually forgive Justin for having a very limited number of pre-release sets for sale at Gencon. Of course, that would probably not be a unanimous verdict amongst backers, but I'd see it as reasonable given the situation.

My own sticking point is that purchasing additional sets as a non-US backer is likely to have major issues that could have easily been worked out well in advance in the last 6 or 8 months...

with the gak show that has come out of WGF at this point id be shocked if Justin has any product to sell at Gencon, I'm in a similar boat, it will need to be some sort of amazing deal for me to think about backing a future kickstarter that is being produced by our friends at WGF

CROSS POSTED FROM KICKSTARTER TO Azazel
Unfortunately it's not that easy. With additional tile sets it MIGHT be possible to get them added to the freight - but as everything else is produced in our California warehouse, those items will never be on a ship out of China.

The order for tile sets is already in, and broken into country designations, which means that AUS does have some additional tiles, and I will work with The Combat Company to get late sales pulled from that inventory.

But because I can't run add-on orders through Backerkit at this point, I'd have to run sales through SWM, which will create problems in getting things moved through my shipping partners. Logistically it's just a nightmare. In the end it's likely that additional tile sets will ship from the USA/UK/AUS respectively, but anything else MUST go through the California warehouse, as that's where it's manufactured.

@ ironicsilence -- Future WGF campaigns will actually be much different fish. As the company isn't taking on new customers -- the current batch keeps them busy enough, obviously -- and we all understand how long things actually take, you'll see more realistic delivery dates in the future. For instance I will have a single theme Tablescapes campaign, and it's going to have a one year delivery window, because with all of the components that's probably how long it will take.

Justin - hence my discussion of the fact that it could/should have been looked at earlier. While I understand that each additional delay hasn't necessarily been flagged when the previous delays hit, there's still been plenty of time (months) when this could have been worked out with plenty of time to spare. Frankly, I expect at least another "last" delay to pop up. So I'd like to see some progress on this question made in the meantime rather than "it's too late to change anything".

Unfortunately from your reply here, it seems like you still haven't spent a lot of time working it out for people outside NA, since you're still pretty much talking about what you'd have to do it if could happen, rather than what you're planning to do.

I'll be straightforward here - the terrain and the "everything else" stuff - those are the garnish. The meat of the campaign is for the boards. That's what the campaign was for and what I think it would be safe to say the overwhelming majority of backers care about. Those are still in China and getting those added to the international freight should be the priority over worrying about resin scenery.

There are no freebies, so no-one should be getting butthurt that their pledge got up to $400 or whatever and are now owed a set of resin stairs or whanot. Just concentrate on the plastic boards. If you want to have a special "backer only" sale on the resin that goes with later on, worry about it then. But it's not the important thing right now, because as you say, it comes from California regardless and won't be loaded onto a shipping container in China in a month or three, so there's no need to continue to use that stuff as an excuse/reason why you can't sort out the boards before it's ship time.






Finally - what's going to happen with the spacers? We had quite a bit of delay over them, and I know they're not going to ship with the tiles. Are they going to happen at some stage to help store painted tiles, or do we just need to just use a really thick coat of varnish and hope for the best?

Is there any hint of when these will hit retail? I'm just not one for kickstarters. But (especially if you're dealing with Combat Compaby in Australia) I'll be at the store day 1 to pick up a city board.

@ -Loki-
I'm aiming for August at this point.

@Azazelx
CROSS POSTED FROM KICKSTARTER

As I said, all of the tiles have been put into production, and assigned to freight.

There are no plans to ship additional add-on tile sets to our shipping partners as part of the campaign. Logistically it just doesn't work. It was looked at several times, and in many different ways. The only way to make it work for all parties was to make it part of wave shipping. No shipping waves, no add-ons. We have freight designated for three locations, and changing it now would be... bad.

I could have taken additional pre-orders without knowing when the tiles would ship, but I have repeatedly said that I won't take another penny from backers or new customers until after the first shipment leaves China. That means that what is in production now, and already designated for shipping, is it.

As for the spacers, I still plan on releasing them. Unfortunately we have to re-engineer them again. The boxes now come with foam for storage. It's not ideal, but it's what we have... for now.

The spacers were one facet of the problems associated with the early delays, but they were not the cause of those delays. Even if the spacers had been completely finished, and worked with all four tile themes from day one, we'd still be where we are now. Alas.

Getting backer pledges out the door is my priority. That means focusing on what people have already paid for, and not about what they might pay for. Believe me, I'd like to have an easy answer that let me take additional pre-orders, and help cover the costs of getting this round shipped. But there isn't an easy answer, and taking time away from what MUST be done, for what MIGHT be done, would be a distraction.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS: As you are in Australia you will, of course, be able to purchase these directly from The Combat Company without having to worry about import duties. They have an inventory coming to them as part of this shipment.

Like I've said before. Import duties aren't a thing we need to worry about in Australia at present. Please demonstrate active listening and stop repeating that irrelevant point as though it matters to us. It's relevant for UK and EU customers, but not Australians.


Being able to purchase them from CC at full Australian retail means very little. Especially if you're planning to open up a wave of extra-KS purchases at KS prices for NA customers - it would in fact be rather insulting. Hopefully you can work out something with Combat Company to match whatever you decide for NA backers.

1) I suppose we should all be grateful that Azazelx finally posted without using the italics option.

2) Please endeavor to keep Rule #1 in mind.

3) In the future Azazelx should simply not back Kickstarters. They have proven time and time again to do nothing for him except raise his blood pressure.

I've some to that same conclusion HBMC haha ; ) That said, it's understandable and Aza's very rational about it. Thought i'd check up on how another WGF plastic KS was going, and I'm more understanding of the hard line positions from the DFG thread now.

My apologies, I misread your comment on Dakka to read that you would be subject to import fees on orders over $100 and not $1,000 as the missing comma slipped past me. My bad, moo moo.

However, there seems to be some confusion here though about the pricing. The KS price is almost identical to the retail price.

What I have said that I would do is offer a discount code to backers. I will still do that, and those orders will ship from California. They will also ship after the backer orders ship. There is no other way to do that, as those orders must be pulled from my inventory. Those orders will be subject to standard SWM shipping charges. For many, that will mean free shipping - and I'm more than happy to cover that, even to Australia.

If you choose not to take advantage of that discount, which will apply to tiles and anything else in the catalog, that is your choice. But this is not something special I'm doing for backers in North America.

While I am more than happy to continue this discussion with you, Azazel, I will ask that we do so on the campaign page. It adds nothing having it in two locations, and I don't want to miss any of your concerns, or confuse where I did, or did not, see a comma in a dollar value.

If anyone else has any questions, comments, or concerns that aren't being addressed on the campaign -- feel free to chime in. The KS page will still be the best, and most reliable way to reach me, but I'm checking in here again, obviously.

Thanks!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
3) In the future Azazelx should simply not back Kickstarters. They have proven time and time again to do nothing for him except raise his blood pressure.

You're lucky. I haven't (yet) accused Justin of war crimes nor literally killing people. Of course, the RH thread where you seem to think I'm having a hernia is simply a laugh - and doubly so when you ride in to white knight over there,
May as well say that HBMC should stay away from all GW products, no?
(That one was for you, Alph. After all, emphasis is important when using the written word in a conversational tone - especially when you remove non-verbal communication markers.

Oh, and I am indeed being polite. My tone may not be made of happy rainbows, but I'm certainly being civil, and have no plans to start calling Justin anything unsavoury. Ad hominem attacks are unlikely to add much constructive content to the discussion, after all.



Justin - I'd rather continue this discussion here on Dakka. I do most of my posting on the weekend, and then drop down to very little during the week. Anything on the KS comments will be lost/days old, and the format there is not very conducive to conversation. So I'll stop cross-posting to the comments.

 misterjustin wrote:
My apologies, I misread your comment on Dakka to read that you would be subject to import fees on orders over $100 and not $1,000 as the missing comma slipped past me. My bad, moo moo.

No problem. (The secret is in the number of zeroes! )While that may well change in the near future with our new tax-happy conservative government, barring an additional 6-month+ delay on this KS it won't affect us.

However, there seems to be some confusion here though about the pricing. The KS price is almost identical to the retail price.

This is news to me - and welcome news at that. Though I wonder how much of an "Australia Tax" we'll have? (ie:- markup because they can get away with it)

Looking at Combat Company's pricing - aside from the nebulous practice of making up AU$RRP out of whole cloth so that they can "discount" it, their infantry is priced close to US prices, but for some reason, their leviathans (large kits, as your tiles will be) are for some reason priced at up to +50% of US$RRP (Crusader). So, basically - still cheaper for us to buy from US sources.
http://thecombatcompany.com/search.php?search_query=dreamforge+&x=19&y=8
http://www.wargamesfactory.com/webstore/dreamforge-games
While what CC with pricing does is obviously out of your control, it's probably worth drawing your attention to it, specifically the widespread local penchant for making up "RRP" on imported goods that have no actual AU$RRP/MSRP. (You should see how many different "AU$RRP" I was able to find for Zombicide and SDE).

What I have said that I would do is offer a discount code to backers. I will still do that, and those orders will ship from California. They will also ship after the backer orders ship. There is no other way to do that, as those orders must be pulled from my inventory. Those orders will be subject to standard SWM shipping charges. For many, that will mean free shipping - and I'm more than happy to cover that, even to Australia.

Ok, fair enough. Though frankly I'd prefer to purchase from your store if you were able to get CC to pull it from their inventory than need to ship it across the Pacific yourself.

If you choose not to take advantage of that discount, which will apply to tiles and anything else in the catalog, that is your choice. But this is not something special I'm doing for backers in North America.

I was unaware of the details of the discount that you've just laid out or exactly what you had planned. I did look in various places, but was unable to find anything nearly as concrete as what you've just said here, especially in regard to including those outside of NA. Now having this information, I find your plans quite reasonable, and very much appreciate the non-exclusion.

 Azazelx wrote:
Looking at Combat Company's pricing - aside from the nebulous practice of making up AU$RRP out of whole cloth so that they can "discount" it, their infantry is priced close to US prices, but for some reason, their leviathans (large kits, as your tiles will be) are for some reason priced at up to +50% of US$RRP (Crusader). So, basically - still cheaper for us to buy from US sources.
http://thecombatcompany.com/search.php?search_query=dreamforge+&x=19&y=8
http://www.wargamesfactory.com/webstore/dreamforge-games
While what CC with pricing does is obviously out of your control, it's probably worth drawing your attention to it, specifically the widespread local penchant for making up "RRP" on imported goods that have no actual AU$RRP/MSRP. (You should see how many different "AU$RRP" I was able to find for Zombicide and SDE).

Yeah I noticed their penchant for that. Defiant Gaming the other "major" online seller down here seems to be much more standard across the board in their pricing which I'm a fan of, ie. $3 per vallejo paint rather than $4.50 or so iirc at CC. Then I have a club discount on top of that They have a more limited selection of miniatures though, or perhaps just a different selection... they support a number of good ranges, got all my original Dreadball stuff from them.

 misterjustin wrote:
@ -Loki-
I'm aiming for August at this point.

Excellent. Time to start saving the pennies. What was the Australian retail price?

I have not established an AU price yet as I don't know what the freight and duties are going to be --- in the end, of course, that will also simply be an MSRP that the reseller can use or ignore.

Buying them directly will run $199.99 USD for a 4x6' table -- which will also net you free shipping if you order from me directly.