Oh, my friends… I am not having a good day.

And I am bummed to be bringing you this news, BUT… the fucking PORT is delaying the shipment of our games. Not by a lot but the delay is, according to them, “6-10” days. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but I am sick of waiting and I am sure you feel the same way.

It’s funny: I was thinking we actually escaped most of the shipping problems, then the NEXT day we find this out. I jinxed us. Again, reprinting the cards and 2 MONTHS stuck in Shanghai is what really killed us. Now clearly 6-10 days isn’t that big a deal in the bigger picture, BUT it actually is for me… you see, we were going to be delivering the games to everyone (at the latest) in the last couple of days of July or MAYBE August first or second.

GREAT! Why is that great? Because as I mentioned before, we want to be selling ESW A2 stuff at Gen Con on AUG.4… and this would have just barely lined up, so we aren’t selling stuff before the Kickstarter backers get it, something I consider a huge no-no. And it’s not just about selling it, it’s about having the chance for ME to sell it. Each person I can convince to take the game home is another person closer to the critical mass we need to have this game get the credit it deserves. Seriously, I feel like I am pushing a religion, and as soon as someone gets it, they see just how great the game is… GOTCHA! Then it’s one quick push over to becoming a FAN-FUCKINGTASTIC FRIEND!

So this is the issue I am struggling with, and to be clear we are pushing on every vector trying to get all the different parts of the shipping process working as quickly as possible. BUT if we had the chance to hire a truck to deliver 1 pallet of ESW A2 to Gen Con and sell them 4 or 5 days before it hits the Kickstarter backers, should we do it? If it were a month? Hard NO. But a week? A tougher call… hit me up in the comments with your thoughts. Anyone reading this is clearly the hardest of hardcore members of the ESW community, and it’s your opinion I really want to hear. Clearly, many of the backers on Kickstarter are not following along and would have NO idea several hundred units were sold at Gen Con, but it’s not them I am thinking about it… it’s you.

So how about something COOL, after all that negative nonsense. “OK, sure, show us something cool!”

I was lost in thought thinking about what kind of neat shit we could do in the future for fans, and an idea hit me… uncut sheets! If you’re unfamiliar with this concept, it’s taking sheets of printed cards and NOT cutting them, simply leaving them as a large piece of “art.” Well, as it turned out, I was able to get the printer to grab a bunch before they hit the guillotine slicer, and here they are…

So cool, right? AND I was trying to come up with an idea for a cool giveaway to slip into the FFF mailer… THAT’S IT! Now clearly I cannot slip this giant sheet into a mailer, but I can include handmade redemption cards, so if you receive one of these cards I will have instructions on how to contact me and I will send you a cool uncut sheet. I did this to replace the “random” extra thing I was doing as it was slightly too many going out and making people feel not like they got lucky, but like they got UNLUCKY. This is more of a lottery win… there are only 2 per mailer so it’s very rare. And it gave me the chance to finally use one of the cool stamps I made…

Now for TWO more Legendary cards! First up is one that’s PERFECT for today’s update. Yes, that’s me giving it my all to make the game great… AND bonus VP if you have an ESW sleeve? So meta! Also, it’s funny because it represents the pursuit of a creative passion BUT I am also trying to make you buy something… ahahahaha, what a dick. And second up is a BRUTAL card. Every time I see it come up, I’m like, “GODDAMN, I gotta buy that card… just so it isn’t hitting me in the face.” That’s right: This is one party you do NOT want to attend.

Well, that’s it for this week. As always, I love you, and thank you so much for reading this… and caring.

-cory