Champions of Midgard: The Expansions

What is suppose to be in the Jarl box I receive?
over 6 years ago – Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 01:21:50 AM

A few people have asked me to list out what you should be expecting to get in your jarl boxes when they arrive vs. having to dig through all the previous posts to figure it out. That sounds like a good idea to me, so here goes...

Jarl Edition game (in the box)

• Valhalla board
• Dark Mountain board
• 4 square corner leader tiles
• 4 punch boards
• 30 Viking meeples (5 of each color)
• 6 helmet score markers (1 of each color)
• 43 mini cards (2 merchant ships, 2 sea journey, 26 land journey, 6 Destiny, 7 rune)
• 36 Valkyrie (rules say 27 and this is not correct)
• 9 Epic Monster cards
• 24 Bergrisar cards
• 3 Troll cards
• 18 Monster
• 3 Draugr cards
• 37 Dice (5 blues, 12 Green, 10 Yellow, 10 Pink) Note: the yellow dice faces are misprinted in the rulebook
• Gullinkambi "chicken" boat.  
• 2 Rulebooks and a reference sheet (not shown in pic)

  Extras that go in Jarl box but packed separately:

• Rounded leader boards
• Market tile
• Player color discs in Purple and Black.  these are small, so please make sure to dig through your box if you don't immediately see them.

Also, please note there  are 34 (not 35) coins in the upgrade kit.  There was a typo in the graphic for these and there is no way to modify the KS campaign at this point or we would have done so.  

Thanks,

Shane

Update
over 6 years ago – Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 01:45:41 AM

Hello backers,

First off, let me say that I know many of you in the EU and Canda are extremely frustrated and with good cause.  I could explain each and every detail of how this mess happened, and I might at some point, but it doesn't get the game in your hands so it doesn't really accomplish anything.  

What I will say is that I know some of you are seeing the retail version of the games in stores and that was certainly not my intention for that to happen.  When all the product arrived at our warehouse about 6 weeks ago, we proceeded to ship out distributor orders as we needed the room in our warehouse.  However, we sent every one of our distributors an email stating as clearly as possible that the release date outside the US was 9/1.  My thinking at the time was that there was no way it would take that long to get the KS stuff out and on that point I was clearly mistaken.  Regardless of this, some distributors decided to release the game early anyway.  They either ignored my email or they didn't see it.  In either case, once it's out their door, I can't stop it and they can't either.  I was able to get chaos cards to pull theirs down because I sell to them directly and so I have some control on that front.

I realize that none of this fixes the problem and I could have done a better job, but I didn't just choose to allow the game to be released because I didn't care about our KS backers.  In the future, I will be holding all product in our warehouse until I am 100% certain that the fulfillment companies are actually shipping out the product to the backers.  I also realize that might not matter to some of you as I may have caused irreparable damage and you will never back our projects again.  This is a consequence of making mistakes and it's just a part of doing business.  I don't like it, but I accept it and respect your right to speak with your wallets, so to speak.  I have certainly done the same myself in the past.

Ok, so now on to the current information:

Gamequest (EU/UK/JP/TH every other country not in US, AU, NZ, Asia, Canada)

After going through all the emails from Gamesquest they have had the product in hand since August 11th and in an email from that day, they stated that line work would start on Monday.  In between then GenCon happened and I did miss one email from them regarding a couple questions they had (took me 5 days to answer), but they were questions that had previously been answered and they were just clarifying.  Since then they have come back with other questions, which we have answered and the most recent of which was from 4 days ago stating they could not find the Seezam promo packs.  Why it took them 12 days to discover this when they stated lined work was going to start on 8/14 clearly means they did not start that line work when they said they would.  At this point, I have asked them to please please please start shipping out orders that do not have the Seezam promos while we airmail those to them.  I still do not have a definitive answer from them on when they are actually going to start shipping.  I hope to hear back from them on Monday and get this stuff shipped out already as I agree is it the pinnacle of absurdity that these games are still not shipped.

Canada

There are a comedy of errors that were committed here on both ends, however, I have been informed by the person I believe to be the head honcho that all orders will be out the door by end of day Tuesday.  I'll believe it when I hear that backers are actually receiving their stuff.

Missing game pieces, broken stuff, etc.

We are aggressively going through these as quickly as we can.  I have enlisted my wife for help to get back to each and every email going forward and then organize them in a spreadsheet so that we can more easily know where everything is at.  Our shipping/customer service manager was just too swamped to be able to effectively do this.   I will say that we have shipped out at least 80% of all issues.  The stickers and wood and food kits should all be in the hands of those that needed them by no later than Wednesday of next week, just giving the post office ample time.  To date, these extra shipments have totaled about 1000 and I expect that once the Gamesquest and SNL get their stuff out, there will be at least 300 more coming.  For people with a damaged box or insert issues, we are having new ones made and shipped and will get those out as soon as they arrive.  I promise that you will have a shiny new box for the game as soon as they come in.

If you are someone in the US that had emailed us about a non-box, sticker or wood and food problem more than 4 weeks ago and the problem is still not resolved, please send another email to info@greyfoxgames with the exact title Hey, where's my stuff already?"  Explain the situation and we will look into it and get it resolved.

Thanks,

Shane

Some updates
over 6 years ago – Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 01:04:19 AM

Hi all,

We just returned from a very good but very exhausting GenCon.   Most days were about 12-14 of non-stop working and I have felt rather disconnected from the outside world.  I have not been back in the office yet, but I do have a few pieces of info to share now that I am back and have had a few hours to go through emails and such.

Canada:

Apparently, Snakes and Lattes was actually getting ready to finally start shipping our stuff (I know what you are thinking, so I'll explain.  The last I had heard from them they planned on shipping our stuff out beginning on 8/14, I wrote an update to you on 8/15 relaying this and followed up with them with an email to confirm, I missed their emailed response while at GenCon.  It is totally my fault that I missed their response on the 16th asking for some clarification on some things).   To make matters that much worse, I received word from my warehouse manager today that they cannot find the market stall boards or the purple/black player discs in our shipment.  We have cross-checked our packing list and the number of boxes on our packing list matches the number of boxes accepted by Snakes and Lattes forwarder in NY.  What this means is that we did not forget to ship these extra items and they had to have been lost somewhere between the forwarder and Snakes and Lattes.  We were told that there was some damage to one of the pallets but in seeing the picture it did not look very significant and the wrap was still on the pallet, so it is unlikely that it could have fallen off.    We have asked them to contact both the forwarder again and customs in Canada to find out if they possibly were pulled off at one of those spots.  We would gladly just rush ship new components to them, but we do not have nearly enough to do so.  So right now the only thing we can do is give them until Wednesday to find the missing pieces and then rush print new components and airship directly to them.  I want to do everything we can to find the missing components as that will be the fastest way to get this resolved.  If we cannot find them, we will pull together every component we can find and send those over (we should have about 400 of the roughly 700 needed.  Any amount we are short will need to be made at the printer and mailed, which will take 2-3 weeks.  Obviously, I am really hoping it doesn't come to this and am incredibly frustrated and annoyed by this whole debacle.  In the future, we will be doing our fulfillment much differently.  

UK/EU/Japan and basically anywhere else not in Asia, Canada, US, Brazil, Russia Austrailia or NZ.  

As far as I know, these are underway with no issues.

Australia

My printer should be completing the missing base games this week and airmailing.  The rest of the orders should either be done by now or almost done.  I believe some people are already reporting receiving their items.

Asia

Completed a while ago, China should have theirs and outlying countries should be receiving soon.

Component issues

We are pretty much caught up with getting the backlog out and are now just dealing with emails as they come in as quickly as possible (2-3 days in most cases).  Most missing stickers people should have theirs by now and the wood and food people should be getting theirs over the course of this week.  If you are someone who has emailed us more than a week ago and has not either heard back or has not received your items yet, please email us at [email protected] (not KS message please) again with the email header "Hey, where is my stuff already?"  I get back in the office tomorrow and will be organizing getting any missed or late customer service issues taken care of over the week.

Thank you,

Shane

Quick update on UK/EU and Canada
over 6 years ago – Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 01:03:58 AM

Hi all,

Sorry for not updating a bit sooner, we took off for GenCon early this AM set up the booth all day, grabbed dinner and are just now getting to the hotel room.  I wanted to let you know that product has in fact arrived at Gamesquest, they have counted everything and everything looks to be in order except 33 missing sets of wood kit #2 upgrades (out of 963 total needed).  For these 33, I think we will just ship from the U.S.  They are starting to put these together and ship out now.  They may even have gotten some packages out as I write this.

For Canada, as far as I know, orders have started shipping out here as well.  I have sent another email them to follow up for confirmation to their statement from last week that they should start shipping on Monday.

We are still doing our best to get any component issues squared away.  Unfortunately, there are still a fair amount coming in on a daily basis.  We should be caught up with anyone that emailed us before 8/7.  It doesn't mean you necessarily would have your stuff by now, just that we should have gotten it out.  Stickers have been shipped and I know we are still working through the people that were not sent the wood and food upgrades.  

Thanks,

Shane

Time for another update.
over 6 years ago – Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 01:02:52 AM

Hello all,

Your weekly update is here:

U.S. 

Almost every component or shipping error issue that we have received emails for as of this past Monday has been packed and is ready to go (or possibly already mailed out).  In order to expedite this process, we just packed everything, hand wrote many of the addresses, threw some stamps on it and sent it out the door.  So there is no tracking for most of these unless there were over 13 ozs. as that is the cut-off weight for doing it like this.  So if you sent a request before this last Tuesday, you should expect your stuff in the next 5-10 business days.  If you are one of these people and you do not have your package by 8/23, please email us.  This past statement is true EXCEPT for the following:

• 1. Wood and Food upgrade people - these came in yesterday and should be completed and in the mail by Monday.
• 2. Sticker people - These are getting packed today and should go out tomorrow.
• 3. People with damaged boxes.  We are going to replace the boxes for sure, but we have not decided how we will do this yes.  Right now the plan is to ask the manufacturer to make us 50 extra boxes to send out to people.  It's going to take a couple months to get these, but I promise that we will get you a box if yours was damaged in transit.

You will notice that I bolded the word "email" because we goofed a bit with the messages within KS.  The person who is responsible for handling the messages in KS, got backed up with everything there is to do and then forgot to go back and deal with many of these.  Some people just eventually emailed us and we took care of it and some people didn't.  To those that didn't, you are probably pretty upset, understandably.  We are going to go through our backlog of messages and handle them today and tomorrow.

Brazil / Russia

Your packages are still in transit.  We will not start looking into anything "missing" until late this month/ early next as these shipments just tend to take a while.

Australia/ NZ

We received word from Aetherworks on Monday that they appeared to be short on the number of base game units needed to fulfill everything.  After doing some researching and double checking, this is, unfortunately correct.  It appears as if our manufacturer got the KS Expansion cases confused with the base game cases at some point in packing the pallet (cases sizes are the same).  So now Aetherworks has extra KS edition games and is short 108 base games.  The solution for this is that the manufacturer is going to rush putting together 108 games to airmail to Aetherworks.  Luckily, I keep an extra few thousand dice sets always made at the factory so that my orders can get done faster (the dice are the bottleneck).  Because of this he is going to be able to make these up in one week and ship them out.  It will add 8-10 days to the people that ordered the base games.  Sorry for the delay as I know you have all been really patient so far.

On a side note, if anyone knows people in Australia that would like a KS expansion version, we will have about 70 of those for sale off our website at some point.  Shipping will be very reasonable.

Asia

Many of these have already been received. There are still some countries waiting.  We will start to look into non-delivery issues the last week of this month.

Canada

We have just heard back from them today that they just received the skids and will start the shipping process early next week.  Apparently there was some damage to the skids, that they are figuring out the extent of.  Most likely it will have little to no effect as usually damage on a pallet is isolated to 2 or 3 games.  If not, I will let you know.

UK / EU / All other places

I just paid the freight and customs bill for the product going to the UK.  I have sent an email to Gamesquest asking them for status.

Lastly, we will only have one person here next week as we are going to GenCon.  hopefully we will see some of you there.   I have endeavored to make sure we have everything caught up as much as possible before we leave on Monday.  

Thank you,

Shane