kimbers

My box arrived at work today, all 20 pounds. I have been dying for my lunch break to roll around so I can peek inside. Have to eat first but in a few minutes I will be in Bones Heaven. So, Bones have now arrived in Adelaide, Australia! Edit: I have sated myself for now by assembling Kaladrax. The bags were already opened so Mine obviously got checked. No missing Kally bits for me. Only 3 more hours till I can go home and dive into the box. Oh, Kally is also greeting anyone who wanders into the kitchen now.

Walnut Brown is also the shadow of 09137 Blackened Brown, the highlight being 09138 Intense Brown. Blackened Brown is a very dark brown itself, so as part of the triad system, the almost black looking Walnut Brown does fit in perfectly.

Well, the estimated delivery date for the Vampire box was just fine. Its just that we all wanted so much more! Maybe they'll need to say, for every extra $500,000 you pledge, you'll have to wait an extra month!

For me, the benefit of using 2 AA's over the 9V is that when your Kaly goes flat, you're more likely to have spare AA's (or be able to steal them from a random battery powered device) than finding a spare 9V lying around. It would be rather embarrassing talking up your Kaly mod then realising you forgot to turn him off last night and flattened the batteries

Bones. Shaken, not stirred. I heard about the earthquake and thought "oh no, not again!" Hope everything is okay, and back to normal again over there soon. These earthquake clean-ups must be getting quite routine over there.

Mine has now entered into AusPost's system after arriving in Australia approximately 12 hours after USPS said it had on their tracking system. This is what it currently looks like on AusPost's tracker: Tracking summary Tracking ID: CJ2348******* Product/service: International Status: No events currently found Edit: forgot to say, when I checked it through AusPost this morning it came up as "product not trackable"

Remember, there was an update on Friday to say they are still working through the orders, and Monday's shift will have *just* started and they only have a small handful of people working on the weekend and USPS are closed so updates are extremely unlikely over the weekend. I very much doubt they will say that any orders will be on the next USPS truck until they actually are, as I think the last lot they had didn't fit on the truck they sent (reported by someone who had an email response from Reaper by someone who very much expected theirs should have been sent). This is why they would avoid saying anything but "You will receive an email when yours goes out". In the past, people have been even more annoyed when they were told their package would ship and then USPS/UPS failed them and they couldn't do it. tl;dr USPS have let them down several times, which makes people angry at Reaper. So they have avoided estimates recently. Edit: And I also had last week where work was slow so I had less hours. It would have been the perfect time to have my Bones, but alas! I commiserate.

I hope you're tracking status has updated to being in Australia by the end of the day, just so you can feel that little bit of happy I had this morning. Mine was posted on the 18th too and I got an email about 6-7 hours ago. AusPost says "Product not Trackable".

OMG, mine updated to "Processed Through Sort Facility AUSTRALIA July 22, 2013 8:37 am". While I expect early next week I can't help getting my hopes up it'll come Friday... I got up a few minutes ago feeling terrible. Still feel terrible but am at least a little happier!

Ah, someone who gets it! Its a very difficult thing. Either you take the responsibility of someone else's mistakes and look incompetent, or tell them that someone else is to blame and risk them thinking you're lying to make yourself look good or that you can't handle getting other companies to do things right. Then sometimes you have to try to explain to people that their expectations are beyond what anyone in your position can provide and say it without them getting offended and thinking you're talking down to them like they're idiots. Language is very difficult to get right. Words can often be misinterpreted. This is the main reason I think all of the important people at Reaper decided not to do KS updates without a meeting in the first place. One wrong word in the wrong place which could possibly be misinterpreted by a few out of 18000 people and everything blows up in their faces. I have great sympathy for Reaper. I have no doubt that they have the best of intentions. There is no crystal ball for them to gaze in to, and no magical power which they can summon to make other companies do what they promised them and at the time they promised to do it. No time machine for them to go back and fix their mistakes. I am not envious of them one bit. I think Kickstarter should come with a big warning sign for those hapless enough not to research how it actually goes and get annoyed the day after estimated times have elapsed. But then, Kickstarter wouldn't make as much money then, would they? I have issues with that too, but thats another kettle of fish. On that note, I checked some of the major/popular Kickstarters in the same theme (supplying physical products) comments to see how well they fared and the vast majority of the time its the exact same story over and over again. Complains about delays, complaints about the products, complaints about communication. Pretty much all of them.

I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid.

I am envious of everyone who actually get scan events between origin and when its delivered. Mine NEVER seem to get scanned. I just reload the tracking number several time a day, even though its set to email me updates.

NO, but they do often say, "its probably gonna be a couple more days... we're waiting on parts." Reaper didn't say "eh, we can't get it to you, its to hard". They just said its gonna take longer than expected. Not saying you don't have a complaint, but it was a terrible analogy.

On your invoice (or whatever you call the piece of paper you get in the box) there is an email address for where to send errors. I don't know what it says exactly, other people have mentioned it.

@CashWiley - I just saw "cheap". If I had paid more attention to what they were saying about the superior quality, I would probably be as annoyed as you. I just had much lower expectations because I didn't really pay that much attention to the campaign. Also, still being a beginner and only owning one decent brush, they still have a place on my work table (for now) so I'd feel pretty guilty complaining too much about something I will actually use. Looking forward to my brush stand though!

@GeraintElberion: I noticed you reported a concern with your email in another thread. Since you are likely to look here again, I'm hoping that you got the Kickstarter email that was sent.... my email says 15 hours ago. From the look of its content, at least we can be sure that they know people are concerned and they are paying attention and taking steps to address it.

I really hope they finish up on Monday (aside from the undertaker levels) and USPS sends them their truck and everyone gets their emails (mine is in the post now but I am eager to see everyone get their emails). I think they're avoiding giving an estimated date for when they'll be finished because they get pounded every time something goes wrong and they miss it. Although there is a chance that you may possibly get your confirmation email once its packed I think they're avoiding sending them prior to confirming they're getting the truck, I (and many others) got our confirmation emails the day that the USPS truck picked them up/was scheduled to pick them up, although it was packaged on an earlier date. Maybe the last batch will go out on the 23rd July. That would be almost poetic in a way.

(Converting currency for easier comparison) I think I paid a total of $63AUD for the 9 brushes plus the towel, soap and stand that are coming. I always intended them to be my rough brushes, saving my DaVinci. I have 2 W&N 7's which I just don't like. I don't know if they're just 2 bad ones, or I'm just really picky. For the difference in cost (A W&N #00 @ $12.20AUD up to $24.00AUD for a #4) I was never expecting them to be better than my DaVinci. I've only used 2 so far though and they're not perfect, but decent enough. Much better than the $9.00AUD #00 pure red sable I bought when I first started. That one I used as a glue brush today. My golden taklon budget pack has held up better than that piece of junk. Edit: Oh, and the long handles do seem to aid in me dropping the brush a little more, but other than that I quite like them. I really don't need much help in dropping my brushes though. I paint my pants and the floor regularly. I have no idea why though. Its like I forget to grip while I study my work.

She has no head! Oh, wait... haha, there it is. Those are pretty nasty looking. And to justify the bad quality of a miniature by comparing it to a more expensive bad quality miniature is bad form. If they think those are acceptable quality, then I'm glad I skipped this one... Lets hope that yours were a freak anomaly for the sake of everyone else.

I put pins in the centre or feet of untabbed models and use this thing, which I LOVE http://www.amazon.com/Woodstock-D4119-Handy-Hand-Held/dp/B005W179JC/ref=pd_sim_sbs_hi_1 I made a stand for it which is just a container filled with metal beads and a hole in the lid that I put the handle in. Although, for something it would be too big for, I'd probably do Doug's method and pin the feet with long pieces of paperclip then attach to the wood with hotglue, not inserting the pins the entire way in so the hotglue doesn't get on the feet of the model. Oh, and you should ALWAYS know where your glue gun is. It is the handiest DIY tool next to duct tape. Edit: Although, I'd give it a good test before starting to paint it just in case.

FYI: If you have trouble cleaning the droppers, or if you damage one, you can buy a pack of them separately. I have a pack just in case. http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/dropper/sku-down/08704

With the date of Wednesday, I would expect it to have either: a) Gone out on the truck but someone at USPS missed scanning your package. It happens with most companies but generally means its still on its way. (e.g. I had a DHL package that was scanned when it was processed at point of origin and didn't get scanned again until the delivery driver had it on board. That was nothing between Des Plaines, IL and Adelaide, Australia and 10 days between scan events. It was annoying.) b) Didn't fit on the first truck because USPS didn't send a big enough one and is waiting for the next one. This is just speculation.

I don't write posts, I write short essays. I think the most important thing they may need to do next time, to stop people from wondering and complaining that there aren't any updates, is to set a clear schedule of updates and inform the backers, then have one place for unofficial updates. Once the estimated delivery time rolls around, people start getting anxious. If they added their next scheduled Kickstarter update time to their updates once that time rolled around, it may help to reassure people. E.g. When the shipments are late and they expect to have them in about 3 weeks, they can put that they will update us again in 4 weeks and schedule a meeting and can tell us what is happening then. Even if they are short updates we know most of us appreciate them. Once the fulfilment part of the process starts is when everyone shows their impatience and is clamouring for updates and very little time for the staff to update us (I even saw someone post in the KS comments that they thought there should be a few updates A DAY! Sheesh.) This is when an unofficial locked thread in the forums may be a good idea (advertised through a KS update, maybe scheduling the next KS official update for around 2 weeks?). This is, of course, when most of us want to know what's going on, and a lot of people (well, a lot when you have over 17,000 backers!) are clamouring for updates every moment of the day. Frankly, I think twice a week updates from Bryan on the forum as a filler between the KS updates would be plenty. I think their next Kickstarter (I am hopefully assuming that there will be one) would certainly run a lot smoother from their experience with this one. They had their fair share (and then some) of problems creep up on them for this one. I imagine it would probably be smaller anyway, which would make it much easier to handle. I do realise that this is what I personally would like to see done and that other people's views may differ wildly. I also have no experience in anything of this magnitude and I have also backed a number of Kickstarters and am very aware that the majority have delays of months after their expected delivery date. I have also had past experiences with Reaper that give me a lot more confidence in them as a company and as people, which is definitely not something that most of the backers would have had. The vast majority of this projects backers have remained silent and we cannot assume whether they are happy or unhappy with their experience although unhappy people are usually much more vocal. tl;dr: My 2 cents are: Each KS update should state when the next update will occur once estimated delivery date rolls around. Once shipping phase commences, a Kickstarter update stating where unofficial news will be posted is given (still stating when next KS update is due). Unofficial news (such as that relating to where shipping is at) should be done twice a week, and probably kept brief. This is my personal opinion. Feel free to disagree politely.

I have to say, I've avoided reading this thread until now thinking it may devolve, but props to everyone who has posted so far for being constructive and avoiding making assumptions and staying on topic. I know its a sore topic and it can be difficult. I hope anyone who adds further keeps it that way.

I think that is a very healthy attitude. I went through my Vampire box to see what was in it, but I did not check all that carefully for missing parts or miscasts, except on my large add-ons. At the end of my count, I was missing one halfling (from the "half-sized heroes" set), but I had a duplicate of another mini in the set. I also had a few extra Nova Corp troopers. I call that a net win. If I suddenly have a desperate need for the missing halfling, I can just buy it retail. Unless its part of a big guy that's now expensive or or a large piece, I kind of have the same attitude. If its a piece or two (from the Vampire box especially) I probably won't much care and just buy it retail. I bought a large set of MSP's off ebay and had a few double ups, thus missing a few colours (I had the right amount of bottles), but it was also such a good deal I just decided it wasn't worth the trouble and to call it even. I have the three missing colours sitting in my Reaper cart for my next purchase.