Fulfilling Secret Weapon - Tablescapes Dungeons: Mines

[dice4hire]

Update posted but a distinct lack of info for AU and EU customers, just that there are more delays. Apparently the paint is causing problems.  Or not labeling the paint well enough for customs. 

 

And the question of why is the paint shipping now? They were ready to ship, or nearly so when the stairs trouble came up. Which means, to me, the paint was in AU and EU, but it seems the stairs are there now, but the paint is not. Why not?

 

 

Edited June 29, 2018 by dice4hire

[CorallineAlgae]

Fulfillment really is kind of messy. They forgot to add the stairs to the core sets and made an awful initial offer of a coupon code for backers to pay for them again in the store (+ shipping) to get the stairs they were expecting. They also didn't order separate orc warrens 1 & 2 sets, so any backers who only added one and not the other got both, while backers who paid for the second set got the same items, after paying $8 more. So they're issuing a rebate to those backers. Then it turned out all core set backers got an extra mine entrance. Backers who paid for extra entrances are also getting a rebate for those, since so many people got extra entrances for free. The stairs, orc warrens, and mine entrances all seem like costly lack of planning errors.

 

Then there are the delays. The whole project is about 8 months later than the estimate. That isn't really bad for a big terrain project run by a company with no real Chinese made PVC experience. After that came the "waiting for the stairs" delay. Now they have a "need to reship the paint" delay. Yikes.

 

My shipment shouldn't be missing the stairs and will have 2 extra mine entrances plus a bonus orc warrens 2. No complaints here. XD  Still, it's easy to see how international backers might start getting worried. Secret Weapon seems to keep fumbling in odd ways. Thankfully there are no big un-fixable problems. It definitely could be worse. 

[Orlando_the_Technicoloured]

I guess it's not impossible that the paint is there but once their courier saw it they found it wasn't correctly packed/labelled,

 

and the cost of paying for a 3rd party for unpacking and relabelling every bottle (with the right labels on every bottle) to conform to what is needed is higher than redoing the lot at home with SW staff who are already being paid

[Kro]

I'm mildly annoyed that it is taking almost 3 months to ship all the US orders

[nakos]

Well, it's going to take time as they only have two (three max) people available to actually do the shipping portion.  Secret Weapons employee numbers in the teens and probably low teens at that. Justin for a long time did the company management, marketing, R&D, and other small positions by himself and assisted his resin caster more often than not. I suspect his employee increase from a handful only happened over the last two or three years and because his company is getting to that awkward size, hence the hiring of Bryan to be the COO. 

 

Yeah it's slow going but they literally had to open every US order up, put the stairs in and then repack and ship everything with two or three people doing all that work. They just don't have the standing inventory or personnel to just stop operations for all hands on shipping like Reaper.

 

Please don't take all that to mean you can't be annoyed, but please do the above into consideration for why it's taking so long.

12 hours ago, Orlando_the_Technicoloured said:

I guess it's not impossible that the paint is there but once their courier saw it they found it wasn't correctly packed/labelled,

 

and the cost of paying for a 3rd party for unpacking and relabelling every bottle (with the right labels on every bottle) to conform to what is needed is higher than redoing the lot at home with SW staff who are already being paid

 

It's not so much as having to relabel each bottle but that the customs declaration had the wrong code on the paperwork for the UK, hence the denial of the entire shipment and return. As for Aus, it sounds like whoever received the paints shipment was just an idiot on what was flammable. But with a corrected declarations code the question of flammability shouldn't be an issue now.

 

And the reason the paints were only 'recently' shipped out, most likely in late Apr/early May (because boats take time) when they got the news that the China shipments were on their way, is the same reason that Reaper waits to do the paints. The less time the paints sit on a shelf waiting to be shipped the fresher the paint and less likely there will be drying or separating issues. Also, SWM has an additional problem with limited storage area for that much paint to sit around waiting either in their location or with their shipment hubs in the UK/Aus.

[Thes Hunter]

I got my shipping notification. Yay! 17.5 lbs. 

[OneBoot]

No shipping notification email, but my box of goodies showed up on my doorstep today!

 

It was bigger than I expected, but that was because I'd forgotten that I'd added the Extra Walls set in the pledge manager afterwards. And one of the gray paint sets. And a tan paint set. And one of each of the crystals because I couldn't choose just one color.

 

So basically I forgot about 90% of my pledge. 

 

Huzzah! 

--OneBoot :D 

 

Edited July 3, 2018 by OneBoot

[lexomatic]

On 7/3/2018 at 6:59 PM, OneBoot said:

No shipping notification email, but my box of goodies showed up on my doorstep today!

Me too, but yesterday. Lucky I was home. because I have no idea where the closest post office is. Big import taxes, too, which is disappointing considering I didn't have any from the last Reaper shipment, and I thought these were supposed to be sent the same way.

[CorallineAlgae]

Just got a notification email with a tracking number! It came from FedEx Delivery Manager, not from Secret Weapon. So relieved to be getting this. Says it should be here by Wednesday. 19.50 lbs of underground doom!

[Sirithiliel]

still nothing for me

[nakos]

So my shipment just arrived out of nowhere, even though I almost always get a notification from UPS and FedEx even if I don't get one from the sender. 

 

Forty pound because apparently I forgot that the "Core" set was two starter sets and now I have 8 starter sets and really wish I had spent some of that on stackers. The material on first glance and feel through feel like somewhere between Dwarven Forge pvc and the recent Bones 3 large monster sturdier pvc.

[CorallineAlgae]

Just got my pledge!!! I haven't had a chance to examine everything but it looks like it's all here including both sets of stairs. The PVC seems to be about the same as the older Bones and Stones dungeon tile material. A fair bit bendy but holding good details. I'm very glad I got a pair of the large 6" stackers. Wish I could've gotten the small and medium stackers but the large ones seemed the most practical. Can't wait to paint some of these up!

 

[hungerfan]

Got mine on Friday.  Went through it with my daughter on Monday evening and she had fun placing tiles and making her own areas.  I only opened up one of the starter boxes but assumed the other would be just like the one we dug through.

 

 

[Chris Palmer]

If you got the track curved wall set, be sure the curved walls you have line up with the curved track sections before you paint them. I had two sets, and all the walls had curved further inwards, so the track doesn’t align right. If I pull them back manually I can get the track to fit.  Hoping a boiling water bath and repositioning will hold them in place permanently. 

Edited July 12, 2018 by Chris Palmer

[Erk]

Thanks for that heads up Chris!

 

Some of these pieces are big enough that besides hot water reforming, it might be possible to put some sturdy wires in and bend them to hold the shape. I do that with limbs and things sometimes.