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Dear WarStagers,
Everything is going fairly smoothly at the fulfilment center and your parcels are nearly ready to go. Because when I say fairly smoothly, well, there are always bumps here and there.
We've just had a last minute bad surprise but fear not, the issue is already being resolved and it should not generate an excessive delay. But we wanted to share this with you anyway, because we want you in the loop.
As we were finishing filming the videos for the assembly of the Cathedral (as we described in our previous Update), we discovered - I kid you not, on the very last segment that we assembled - that somewhere along in the process, two of the sheets required to assemble the portals had mysteriously disappeared from the printing log.
When the project supervisor discovered this error, he was filming the assembly videos. His heart dropped, but he first frantically re-checked the entire content of the Cathedral parcels (4 of them, as this was the XL Cathedral). Then he double-checked it again. Then he dove into the orders placed and fulfilled with the manufacturer. He was ready to slice his wrists in despair, convinced this was his mistake. But the truth is that the manufacturing process is so complex that it is hard to know exactly where this went wrong.
How can something like this happen, you might think? After all, it seems a fairly straightforward process: count the parts, lay out each sheet, and send it to the printer.
Well, yes, but that's before real life interferes. One of the many changes that happened as we were normalising the files for the manufacturer's requirements was that we had to completely lay out certain sheets several times to accommodate technical limitations of the die cut machines, and in some cases, adding more sheets. Every re-design completely changed the total count and the distribution of the parts on each sheet, as well as the total number of sheets per Cathedral.
Keeping track of all of this was a real nightmare. And it seems that this is where, during one of those changes, that the miscount occurred.
The bigger the Cathedral, the higher the portal count, and so here's the actual count of missing sheets per Cathedral:
Anyway, we did not want to bother you with this missing sheets issue before having a fix in place. We're not quite done yet, but we wanted to keep you posted, so here goes:
We have now arranged the reprints with our manufacturer, but before we give them the go-ahead, we need to arrange shipping from China. We have assessed the various shipping options to move 700 additional kilograms of Cathedrals across the world.
Because we don't want to keep you waiting any longer, our goal is to ship by air courier these additional parcels to our 2 fulfilment centers. It is the most expensive but the fastest option. We are in the process of setting that up and hopefully negotiate a good price for this. It is still going to cost several thousands of dollars more :(
We're just waiting for the couriers to get back to us with quotes; and the manufacturer is ready to print as soon as he knows how to package and divide up the sheets for the 2 fulfilment centers.
However, we just found out today the plant will be closed all of next week for China's Golden Week! Wait, what? Yep, true, but certainly inconvenient for us :( This holiday celebrates the founding of the People's Republic of China. I found some extra details over here.
As soon as we have the quotes and the manufacturer printing dates (they are working with us to slip it into their printing schedule, so we don't expect much delay aside from that week off), we'll share that with you. The additional delay to get this to the fulfilment centers was expected to take no more than 2 weeks, but the printing being delayed has thrown off our projections. We'll keep you posted as soon as we know more.
I hope that sharing the behind-the-scenes details help you journey with us as we sail onwards to the last miles of our adventure. I cannot tell you how sorry I am for this latest hurdle.
There have been many moving pieces in this innovative project, and despite our best and most attentive efforts, this one slipped through the cracks. We have taken steps to fix it and got the wallet out as well to cover its cost, because it was out of the question to slow things down when we're so close to the goal.
Another bump concerns missing shipping fees. A careful review of the Pledge Manager shows that, to date:
I will be contacting directly all these backers. If you know that you belong to one of these groups, please take action now or reach out at RagingHeroesTeam@gmail.com.
Meanwhile, we have started uploading the first assembly videos in this playlist.
By the way, everything is filmed. We are currently finishing the editing, so more videos will be uploaded in the coming days.
Thanks for reading. There will be more news coming as soon as we have them.
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At Raging Heroes, every army we create starts with carefully chosen ingredients. For the Dark Elves, you've got: Refinement. Elegance. Extreme Evil. Gothic fashion. Japanese Rock bands. Scandinavian fairy tales illustrations from the 19th century. Find out more about your past and future favorites!
