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Great! Thanks.

I held a 2 player starter in my hands at a FLGS yesterday. It is much heavier than I had anticipated.

I have a Commodore pledge coming. The delivery guy better be in good shape to carry that thing!

Don't worry. He'll have plenty of time to build his stamina before he has to deliver your pledge.

In fact, he might need to worry about muscles atrophying.

Well if you extrapolate what they've supposedly sent so far, which has been the easier to pack pledges, they will be into December before all pledges are sent.

Seems like the distributors and retailers aren't having any problem getting restocked though

It's almost as if a standardised prepackaged set could be done in some sort of factorial type location whereas a large number of personalised completely bespoke packages needs a more careful manpower intensive approach.

Watched the video of them unboxing the sprues, I have to say they look very nice. DZC maybe seems more suited to space even.

Man I love these kits. Truly the first real successor to BFG cruisers.

 Compel wrote:
It's almost as if a standardised prepackaged set could be done in some sort of factorial type location whereas a large number of personalised completely bespoke packages needs a more careful manpower intensive approach.

I wouldn't make as big a deal of this, certainly not so much as to call the KS packages "bespoke". It's not like we're getting custom battlecruisers that are a few mm shorter or longer than standard so as to match the length of a user's hands while they hold the models. It's more like assembling an order of various goods, and since I have heard a rumor that Hawk Wargames does have their own web store, they should be used to that. It's not even that difficult because most of the components that make up the order are going to be standardized.

I guess the good news is that since they claimed the lack of tracking numbers was an early error on their part that they've since corrected, maybe when the commodore pledges do come out they'll finally be on track with that. Though I still haven't heard any rumors of people getting email notifications that their packages have shipped yet.

 JOHIRA wrote:
I guess the good news is that since they claimed the lack of tracking numbers was an early error on their part that they've since corrected, maybe when the commodore pledges do come out they'll finally be on track with that. Though I still haven't heard any rumors of people getting email notifications that their packages have shipped yet.

Plenty of people on FB have.

 Compel wrote:
It's almost as if a standardised prepackaged set could be done in some sort of factorial type location whereas a large number of personalised completely bespoke packages needs a more careful manpower intensive approach.

whoa whoa you're about to start a revolution, in an industrial sense

Got my shipping notification today with a tracking number. Says it is being sent by UPS. Given my experiences with UPS and FW shipments I am rather worried about the import gouging I'm looking at.

 Eldarain wrote:
Got my shipping notification today with a tracking number. Says it is being sent by UPS. Given my experiences with UPS and FW shipments I am rather worried about the import gouging I'm looking at.

What was your pledge?

Captain.

I freaking LOVE the models.

So much detail. Fun to assemble. Wonderful spaceships.




Seriously though, the UCM Cruiser Sprue is genius. Nearly every horizontal join is covered by another panel or antenna or something. Brilliantly designed and needs nearly no clean-up.
Frigate Sprue is great and fits ultra tight. Only downside is that the light mass drive turrets have a tricky cut.

The Scourge Cruiser sprue's pretty good, but you need to fix the gap between the 'nose' and the 'tail'. The wings go on great though.

Oh wow Killionaire, I almost regret not getting into this now.

Still waiting for my Commodore :(

most definitely wish i pledged for this instead of RRT :(

Killionaire are those your models / did you receive your pledge already, and what level was it?

 RiTides wrote:
Killionaire are those your models / did you receive your pledge already, and what level was it?

Yep, those are mine. Got the Captain level.

A few people I know in the US at Commodore have gotten shipping notifications, so that's coming soooooooon!

Still waiting on a notification for my Captian pledge. It's pretty obvious that Hawk's warehouse was woefully inadequate for this large of a shipment. Should have contracted out fulfillment, I guess.

Yeah, but they're doing okay, and despite it being slow, every day there's more notices of shipments arriving or notifications being sent out. That's still better than other companies where you hear nothing.

I'm just itching to start playing.

Oh, packages are going out, but the initial estimate of three weeks for shipping was obviously pie-in-the-sky optimism. At the 500-600 per week we've heard from several sources it looks like seven-eight weeks plus 2-3 more for late backers. Since it took them less then two weeks to get retail out to distributors, we're definitely low on Hawk's priority list (not surprising given they already have our money).

The thing is the reason is took two weeks to get it out to retail and much longer to backers is that it's like 4 bulk deliveries to suppliers, and that's it. They're much easier and faster to pack, and pretty much a factory line. In comparison, every single kickstarter pledge needs a personal address, shipping details inputting into courier systems, and each pledge checking to make sure it's correct.

 Duskland wrote:
Oh, packages are going out, but the initial estimate of three weeks for shipping was obviously pie-in-the-sky optimism. At the 500-600 per week we've heard from several sources it looks like seven-eight weeks plus 2-3 more for late backers. Since it took them less then two weeks to get retail out to distributors, we're definitely low on Hawk's priority list (not surprising given they already have our money).

One thing I have to say, seriously (and not as a fanboy) is that Hawk has shown me nothing but overwhemingly excessive care and concern previously in customer service. They're slow, due to few people. This is well known.
But as an example, I bought a starter set for Dropzone Commander Resistance. One of the models had a mild miscast: A hovercraft transport had a door that was a bit bent and had a mold line, and that hovercraft had a pit from moulding where some piece probably broke off during transit or packaging. That's it. The rest of the box (6 bases of infantry, 9 land vehicles, 2 air transports) were all perfect.

I mentioned this to them in an email, asking for a replacement door. I fixed the pit with some greenstuff.

I wait three weeks.
Then I get in the mail a box, containing a NEW starter, plus some promotional limited edition models and an apology note.

That's insane. They just gave me ~80$ worth of product, because I had an issue with two pieces. Won me over from there on the customer service standpoint.

So from that basis, I really do assume they're slow because it takes more effort to ship customized KS packages than bulk package box-sets of identical goods and mailing them to a distributor

 winnertakesall wrote:
The thing is the reason is took two weeks to get it out to retail and much longer to backers is that it's like 4 bulk deliveries to suppliers, and that's it. They're much easier and faster to pack, and pretty much a factory line. In comparison, every single kickstarter pledge needs a personal address, shipping details inputting into courier systems, and each pledge checking to make sure it's correct.

And however annoyed at the comms I may be, with international backers there's also all the relevant customs forms to ensure are filled out properly which vary by country. Messing those up will lead to even more delays and costs for those backers, so it's important to get them right.

I don't think it shows that the backers are a "low priority" so much as it shows how slow Hawk was to realize they had a major problem with a crucial supplier. Leaving aside the unknown nature of what the real problem there was, that Hawk was so slow to communicate is what I find fault with. The "oh, well...we broke a promise we made" attitude also bothers me; while that is certainly not unique to Hawk it gets more grating as more companies think that it's okay to do that. I understand a couple month delay may not be worth any physical goods, but surely there's some sort of mea culpa to be offered in the form of some scenarios or rules or artwork or design notes or...something.

Asterios wrote:
most definitely wish i pledged for this instead of RRT :(

Well, that's not a bar to clear so much as a trench to step over...

 Killionaire wrote:
So from that basis, I really do assume they're slow because it takes more effort to ship customized KS packages than bulk package box-sets of identical goods and mailing them to a distributor

That's true. The problem with that is, It's nearly a year now since their Kickstarter started. Even if they had met their original deadline, they would have had about 7 months to prepare for this. They have their own online store, so they definitely have experience shipping out individual orders around the world. They knew what was coming. Why didn't they get ready for it?

Because they can't just keep all these individual boxes lying around partially packed. That's a lot of valuable floor space.

 Killionaire wrote:
I freaking LOVE the models.

So much detail. Fun to assemble. Wonderful spaceships.




Seriously though, the UCM Cruiser Sprue is genius. Nearly every horizontal join is covered by another panel or antenna or something. Brilliantly designed and needs nearly no clean-up.
Frigate Sprue is great and fits ultra tight. Only downside is that the light mass drive turrets have a tricky cut.

The Scourge Cruiser sprue's pretty good, but you need to fix the gap between the 'nose' and the 'tail'. The wings go on great though.

Gorgeous scheme! Care to share how you painted them?

How does the game play? Are there any links that explain the rules and how the game plays? After seeing those pics, dang, I like to try the game now.

There's a demo game up on beasts of war:
https://youtu.be/j89Q-ZxNF94

There's probably a few games with actual miniatures by now on youtube.