Iron Clays & Iron Spades Just Launched! Birmingham wins TWO Golden Awards!
almost 5 years ago – Mon, Jun 03, 2019 at 07:53:51 PM

 TL;DR – Iron Clays and Iron Spades Kickstarter is live! Brass wins Golden Geek and Golden Elephant awards. Birmingham restock arriving in August/September. Dice Throne Adventures coming in July!

Iron Clays and Iron Spades is now Live On Kickstarter!

 In two short years since we introduced the Iron Clays, almost 4 million individual chips have been manufactured and sold. We see them used everywhere—from Sheriff of Nottingham to Terra Mystica; from Food Chain Magnate to Axis & Allies. We see them used as casino chips in Texas Hold 'em. We see them used as victory points, in Tichu and Azul. We’ve even seen them used to track health and life, in games like Star Realms. They've been so successful, in fact, that the entire print run is currently sold out. 

So we're bringing them back!

The Iron Clays You Love with New Options

Now you can get Iron Clays Printed Box with 500 and 2K denominations or upgrade to the Limited Edition Wooden Chest:

• A set of 200 or 400 Iron Clays game counters in a premium hand-crafted wooden chest, featuring two (faux) suede lined slide-out bank trays.
• The set of 200 chips chest also includes 2 decks of our new set of playing cards, Iron Spades.

Some games just need MORE money. With smaller chip sets, you can easily break the bank in games like Navegador, Chinatown, or even Raccoon Tycoon. For games in the 18XX series, they're an absolute necessity. This has been a popular request from the gaming community, and we’re glad that we can make it happen!

Complete Flexibility!

We've carefully curated a set of denominations that will work for most hobby games. But diverse people have diverse needs, so we've got options for you!  With the Build Your Own Bank option, you can choose for yourself in the pledge manager how many of each denomination you'd like. This will also, by popular demand, include options to fill out and upgrade partial or complete sets of Iron Clays that you already own.

And Now Introducing - The Iron Spades! 

Poker night will never be the same. Made with a proprietary thin stock preferred by cardists, and featuring a custom Joker and Ace of Spades, the Iron Spades are designed for both beauty and function. Encased in a gilded letter pressed box, designed by Chad Michael Studio, and printed in collaboration with Art Of Play by the United States Playing Card Company, these elegant decks of cards are the perfect partners for the Iron Clays!

Where there's Brass... there's awards.

Since our last update, both Lancashire and Birmingham have received an astonishing amount of recognition from the fans and the industry. Between both games, they're in the running for the Origins Fan Favorite award, for FOUR Dice Tower Awards, have already won Best Analog Game and Game of the Year from Canada's Design & Game Awards, and have both been accoladed "Highly Recommended" by Germany's Hunter & Cron. To crown it all, Brass: Birmingham has won gold twice, in the form of the Golden Elephant (Best Heavy Board Game of 2018) from Heavy Cardboard, and Boardgamegeek's Golden Geek Award for Best Strategy game of 2018.

Here are Gavan & Matt, showing off their Golden Geek Award medals! (Heavy Cardboard's is amazing too, but somewhat harder to hang around your neck.)

This brings all of us at Team Roxley a tremendous amount of pride, to be sure; we put a lot of work and a lot of love into what we do. But we cannot claim all the glory for ourselves - the truth is, you, our fans and supporters, are the ones who actually made this happen. Without you putting your faith in us, giving us your feedback, playing, teaching, rating, and voting for our games, none of this would have been possible.

So join us and celebrate--these awards are yours too!*

(*Note: this does not mean Matt will let you have a turn wearing his bling.)

Current Availability and Reprint Status

For those asking--Kickstarter Deluxe versions of Brass can still be ordered from the BackerKit Store, depending on your location. (The URL still reads "preorder", but orders for Lancashire will ship within a few business days of being confirmed.)  

Available stock is as follows:

· USA, Canada, EU, Australia, NZ: Kickstarter Deluxe versions of Lancashire are still in stock now. Birmingham can be ordered, and is expected to arrive in August/September.

· Asia, Rest of World: No stock remains of either Lancashire or Birmingham. Roxley is working with partner publishers to produce print runs of both games in Mandarin, Japanese, and several other languages to serve these markets this year, but we do not yet have more specific information we can share.

· Retail versions of both games are sold out at the distributor level, are also expected to arrive in August/September for your FLGS to order.

But Wait - There's MORE!

If you or your family like to change things up now and then, for a fast-paced, tactical, thematic fighting game with powerful heroes and unique abilities, you should check out Dice Throne, if you haven't already! This July 16th, the Dice Throne team will be bringing a new dimension to their already rich world--a fully cooperative dungeon crawl experience, in which you will use the existing Dice Throne heroes to face monstrous opponents, gain experience, and win loot to improve your abilities as your quest to find and defeat the final boss. Join their Facebook launch event at dta.dicethrone.com for more details, and for the chance to win a Season Two Battle Chest including all eight heroes!

As always, if you have any questions, please email [email protected]. 

Keep rollin' sixes,

Gavan Brown & Team Roxley

Brass: Birmingham nominated for Game of the Year (2018)! Vote now!
about 5 years ago – Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 02:19:40 AM

Golden Geek Awards - Vote before April 1, 2019

Once again, BoardGameGeek is hosting their annual Golden Geek Awards, and Brass: Birmingham has been nominated in three categories: 

• Board Game of the Year (2018)
• Best Art & Presentation (2018)
• Best Strategy Game (2018)

We'd love it if you'd visit the announcement page, check out the other nominees, and vote for your favorites! (As always, we value your honest opinion; a lot of great games have been nominated, and we feel the most deserving ones should be properly recognized.)

We'd also like to offer a heartfelt thank you to all of you who have taken the time to rate Brass: Birmingham (and our other games) on BoardGameGeek - it has risen to an astonishing 16th place in the overall boardgame rankings, surpassing Lancashire and some very highly regarded classics on its upward journey. (Will it catch up to the mighty Spirit Island? Tune in next time, loyal viewers, and find out!)

Deluxe Availability and Reprint Status

We're getting a lot of requests about this lately, so here's the scoop. Deluxe versions of Brass are still available at the BackerKit Store in some areas (note: the URL still says "preorder", but these all ship within 1-2 weeks of an order being placed):

Available stock is as follows:

•  USA: Birmingham & Lancashire Deluxe (no Iron Clays)
•  Canada: Birmingham, Lancashire (no Iron Clays)
•  EU Lancashire, Iron Clays (100 chip set) (no Birmingham)
•  Australia, NZ: Lancashire (no Birmingham or Iron Clays)
•  Asia, Rest of World: No stock remaining  

Retail versions of Brass are sold out at the distributor level and at most local stores, but a reprint is in the works as we speak. (We can't promise a specific date yet but the estimate is sometime this summer.)

(We are getting a great number of messages from customers, especially in the EU, requesting a reprint of the Kickstarter Deluxe version of Birmingham. We are looking into this, but cannot yet positively confirm whether it will be possible; we'll make an announcement when and if it becomes possible.)

Lastly, we wanted to share with you this cute Brass fan art, sent to us from Laura Gavinelli Art:

As always, if you have any questions, please email [email protected]. 

Keep rollin' sixes,

Gavan Brown & Team Roxley

STATUS REPORT – 2018.10.14 – Shut Up & Sit Down reviews Birmingham, Deluxe Edition still available, Martin Wallace at Spiel 2018
over 5 years ago – Mon, Oct 15, 2018 at 12:17:52 AM

TL;DR – Brass Images & Videos. Deluxe Versions Still Available. Brazilian Customs Delay. Martin Wallace & Roxley appearing at Spiel 2018!

Shipping and Fulfillment

Shipping is 99% finished. (Customs in Brazil is what is keeping it from being 100%, and a couple of customers in Africa and some remote areas we are following up on.) Brass is the biggest and most ambitious campaign we have fulfilled to date, and we are grateful to all of our partners for rising to meet the challenge. For those who ordered Brass post cards signed by Martin Wallace, the last of these have been sent; we expect them to arrive within the next 2 weeks.

We love to see how many of you have been playing Brass, and posting about it to social media and BoardGameGeek! For those on BGG who have not already done so, we would love it if you would add your honest ratings of the games here:

Brass: Birmingham on BoardGameGeek
Brass: Lancashire on BoardGameGeek

Kickstarter Deluxe Editions Still Available

While quantities last, anyone who missed the campaign, or who wants additional games or Iron Clays can order them at the regular preorder link. These ship within 1-3 weeks, depending on your location:

Deluxe Brass / Iron Clays Order Link

Available stock is as follows:

• USA: Birmingham & Lancashire Deluxe, Iron Clays (100 chip set – retail version)
• Canada: Birmingham, Lancashire (no Iron Clays)
• EU, Australia, NZ: Birmingham, Lancashire, Iron Clays (100 chip set)
• Asia, Rest of World: No stock remaining  

No Iron Clays left in your region, but you still want some?  We will be running a Kickstarter Q1 2019!

Video #1 - Shut Up And Sit Down loves Brass: Birmingham!

Some highlights: 

“I recommend Brass: Birmingham with every fiber of my being… I think this is my favourite management game since Great Western Trail.” 

“Look at how readable the game state is because of the choice of components... Different materials, creating tiers of prominence that allow you to see the important stuff first: beer, THEN coal and iron, THEN the buildings and networks on the board. In an era in which a lot of people want games to be all plastic or all wood, this is a textbook example of why texture is good.” 

“Every time I’ve finished a game of this, I just want to play it again immediately, which is why Brass: Birmingham gets the 'Shut Up & Sit Down Recommends' badge, unequivocally.”

For the full video review, click HERE. 

Video #2 - Brass: Lancashire How To Play video from Gaming Rules!

For any who have not yet played Lancashire, the official How To Play video for Brass: Lancashire is now in place, from the amazing Paul Grogan of Gaming Rules! (Paul is firmly #TeamBrassLancashire. What do you think? Let us know in the comments or on social media!)

Video #3 - РАСПАКОВКА from Zundra Grapes

Demand is high for Brass in other languages, and a number of companies have expressed interest in partnering with us to produce them. Check out this wonderful, whimsical unboxing of the first one to be finished: Russian editions of Birmingham and Lancashire from Crowd Games! (For those customers who would like a copy printed in your language, we appreciate your comments! But we can't yet announce estimated dates or partners for any other non-English editions.)

The Brazilian Delay

As some backers have reported, the shipment of Brass to Brazil was refused by Brazilian customs and sent back to VFI. This is extremely unfortunate, but Roxley is working with VFI, our American supplier Quartermaster Logistics, and potential new partner Conclave Editora, a Brazilian publisher and distributor, to find a good solution for affected backers. Once we have a confirmation of the timeline for replacing these, we will be reaching out to all Brazilian backers to update you further. (While there is going to be a significant cost to fix this, none of that cost will be passed on to backers, as it is not your fault or responsibility.)

Roxley and Martin Wallace at Essen Spiel 2018!

Team Roxley will be at Spiel in Hall 5, booth 5e118, along with Nate Chatellier & Manny Trembley, the creators of Dice Throne (and a preview of Dice Throne Season Two!). We would love to meet more of our backers in person!

Martin Wallace will be at the booth for a one-hour game signing session at 2:30 PM, Friday, October 26th. We will have a limited number of Brass Kickstarter Editions and Iron Clays for sale, and you are welcome to bring your own Roxley editions of Brass (or just the board or the rulebook, if the game is too heavy). (Because of limited time and the potential for lineups, Martin may not have time to sign other games, or to chat at length.)

Due to limited stock, we will not be able to preorder/reserve games at Spiel.

Under The Covers

This image is a glimpse into the artistic journey that led to the game you have on your shelf today: an early variant of the original Birmingham cover, featuring the entrepreneur from the Lancashire cover, years later, passed out on the street after losing his fortune to the drink. This cover was ultimately rejected, as feedback was that it was simply too dark. (Some people also asked “why is there a dead guy on the cover?”)

As always, if you have any questions, please email [email protected].   

Keep rollin' sixes,

Gavan Brown & Team Roxley

STATUS REPORT – 2018.07.11 – We are 98% Fulfilled. Postcards shipping this month.
over 5 years ago – Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 01:42:19 AM

TL;DR – Fulfillment is 98% complete. Martin Wallace signed postcards are being shipped this month. Iron Clays and remaining KS editions available soon.

Fulfillment 

About 200 backers remain to be shipped in the EU, out of over 15,000 total pledges that were placed. This is about 1.5% of the total. Don’t worry, if you are one of those 1.5% - at the current rate of fulfillment you should have your tracking within the next 2 business days.

There's a problem with my game or delivery!

For damaged or missing components, please use the form below:

www.roxley.com/parts

For delivery issues, please email us at [email protected]. Note that we are still getting a very high volume of email. We are doing our best to respond to all messages within 72 hours.

Can I order more Deluxe games or Iron Clays?

We will not release any more games until the last backer pledge is confirmed to be shipped.

We are anticipating that in the North America and EU zones, we will be able to sell remaining Deluxe versions directly on roxley.com later this month. We are hoping to have copies later this year at PAX Unplugged and Essen Spiel; we will confirm these when we can. We have not yet confirmed whether we will have any in Australia/NZ. Unfortunately, we are not projected to have any remaining in the China / Rest of World markets.

Deluxe versions will not go to retail stores unless the retailer was a pledger.

Retail versions of Brass: Lancashire will be in game stores later this month. Brass: Birmingham will be available in September.

100 chip boxes of Iron Clays will be in retail stores and on roxley.com later this month. (30 chip fillout sets are no longer available.)

Later in 2018, we will be announcing details of a Kickstarter for an increased set of Iron Clays, with more chips and higher denominations (compatible with 18xx games)! 

Martin Wallace Post Cards

For those who added these in BackerKit, these did not ship with your game because prior to Gen Con, Martin hadn't signed them yet. These are being mailed later this month (If you ordered one and you have changed your address since you got your pledge, please email us at [email protected] and let us know).

As always, if you have any questions, please email [email protected].  
Keep rollin' sixes, 

Gavan Brown & Team Roxley

2018.07.31 - Shipping Update. Gen Con Booth: #531 in Hall J - Bookplates available at Gen Con for those who do not have their games yet.
over 5 years ago – Wed, Aug 01, 2018 at 01:04:31 AM

Gen Con Booth: #531 in Hall J

TL;DR - We understand everyone is anxious to get their copies, and we're doing everything we can to help the fulfillment centres get the remaining games into your hands as soon as possible. We are at Gen Con, booth #531, communications may be slow.

Shipping Zone updates  

ASIA: Tracking for all packages should now have been sent, and packages have been going out the door. VFI has informed us all China / SEA shipments will DELIVER by August 7.  The only exception is Indonesia, which will take an additional week (the boat to Indonesia takes the longest).

REST OF WORLD: We now have tracking from VFI for all 236 Rest of World packages. This was available much earlier in July but was missed due to a misunderstanding. All backers should also have it now too. If you do not have your ROW tracking number, please email [email protected] so we can look into it.  

AUSTRALIA / NEW ZEALAND:  COMPLETE! All packages were sent out by July 26th. Most have been delivered, and all backers should have received tracking. Excellent work Gameology!

UNITED STATES: 2300 out of 6000 packages were sent as of today (July 31th). Quartermaster has said that shipping will be completed by Friday Aug 3rd, with a worst case scenario of Monday August 6. They are pushing to see if they can speed that timeline up.  

CANADA: 1132 out of 1400 packages have been sent. Reports have been coming in all across Canada of successful deliveries. They expect to have the remainder out the door tomorrow. Excellent work Snakes & Lattes!  

EUROPE: 2000 out of about 6000 packages have been sent. A few weeks ago, the containers were all held by German authorities for over a week.   Since the containers were been released from inspection, Happyshops has run into trouble booking trucks to bring the containers from the port.  The final containers are scheduled to arrive tomorrow (Aug 1) and Friday (Aug 3). We are really pushing them as hard as possible here. We hope all the remaining packages will go out next week, but given the delays that have happened in this zone we do not feel we can guarantee this - If worst case scenarios were to happen, some backers might be delayed as late as the 15th.   Long story short: fulfillment is scheduled to resume from Happyshops to the EU tomorrow.  

Fulfillment Delays

Many of you in USA, Europe, China, South East Asia, and Rest of World have still not received your games yet.  We make no excuses, and we are extremely sorry for this. We at Roxley are the ones who select our fulfillment services, and so we alone must take full responsibility for these shipping delays.  

From the very start, we’ve communicated with each of our fulfillment partners that backers should receive their games in the last week of July, before Gen Con. We felt this was a simple and straightforward goal, and we trust our fulfillment partners know better than us how long each package will take in transit, and when they should be shipped to reach this goal. All of our selected fulfillment services represent the best in the business. Our relationships with each of them have been built on trust and an extremely positive experience in working with them in previous campaigns.

However, the increasing demand for Kickstarter, combined with the few choices of fulfillment partners to work with, has created some very real challenges when it comes to shipping out games in an ideal way.  

What we are doing to address this now:

Challenges have arisen in each zone, explained above.  Right now we are focusing on:

• staying top of fulfillment centres, urging them to get packages out the door as well as requesting frequent updates.  
• providing you with as much up to date information as possible through the comment section, Kickstarter updates and BGG (we will continue to answer comments as best we can at Gen Con). 
• removing any roadblocks possible from fulfillment services

What we will do better in the future:

We need to be better. We will be better.

You deserve accuracy and timeliness that matches the quality of games that Roxley strives to create.

As such, we will be doing a full reexamination of how we do fulfillment for projects of this size in the future to increase our ability to fulfill a project in a timely manner.  Gavan and Adam will be working in house and with our fulfillment services on the following items:

1) Assuming worst case scenarios with timelines - When predicting fulfillment dates, especially as we approach fulfillment time, we will do better to provide dates representing worst case scenarios.  In some cases like USA, we feel we have done this, but it seems we need to pad our dates even more.  

2) Produce factory shippers - It is likely too late for Dice Throne Season Two, but in future campaigns, we will have the factory manufacture ready-to-ship boxes with foam padding to allow fulfillment services to simply place a sticker on the games and send them.   Brass is contained in cartons, which are packed into other cartons, but these are only rated for freight.

3) Split fulfillment between multiple partners in some zones - In Zones with the lion's share of backers, such as EU and USA, we will look at splitting fulfillment between multiple partners.  

4) Potentially discard the concept of staggering fulifllment - In order to be fair to backers, we asked fulfillment services to send out the games such that they would be complete in the last week of July, rather than asking them to ship them as soon as they got the games.   We did this with the intention of having everyone receive their games reasonably close to one another.  Although our intentions are from a good place and still seem logical, there are clearly too many variables outside of our control to take this path again.

Brass at Gen Con 

It took us well into July to decide to sell Brass at Gen Con.  This is because we did not want to pull the trigger on shipping Brass to Gen Con until we had confirmation that nearly everyone would already have their games.  (We knew a few people wouldn't have them yet, as that is the nature of shipping. )

After receiving confirmation from all of our fulfillment partners that timing wouldn't be a problem, we shipped a small number (100 copies) of Brass: Lancashire and Birmingham to Gen Con at the deadline.  Then we did our absolute best to ensure that your pledges were in your hands prior to Gen Con, but despite our efforts, here we are with more than we expected still en route. 

To say that our team is gutted that we have stock at Gen Con, while some of you don't have your game yet, is a gross understatement.

Gen Con is an extremely expensive convention for Roxley.  We need all our staff there, and the cost of flights, hotels and exhibitor booths are astronomical and going up every year. We also do not want to disappoint fans who are hoping for the chance to get a copy autographed by Martin Wallace.  

Because we have stock sitting at our booth, we will be proceeding with our set plan of selling our very limited stock of Brass at Gencon so that we may attempt to break even on the show.  These copies will not have the discounts or package deals that you received as a backer.  If you'd like to discuss this directly with our team, please email us at [email protected], we are listening.

Let us say thanks!

Please come by our booth so that we can personally thank you for helping us to make Brass an amazing game. We are tremendously grateful!   Your continued support will allow us to continue the Brass line, and also allow us to create many more quality games in the future.

Don't have your game yet, but want Martin Wallace's signature anyway? We got you covered with bookplates! 

If you really wanted your game signed by Martin Wallace, but you have not received it yet, we have a solution for you.   We have printed nice Brass themed labels that Martin Wallace can sign.  You can then stick it to the inside of your game box when it arrives. :)

Communications Reminder

Reminder that the whole team is or will soon be in Indianapolis for Gen Con this week and updates and email responses will be less frequent during this time. 

Game Damage 

If you have damage issues, or manufacturing defects, please contact us at [email protected] with a detailed description and pictures of the damage. 

Thanks for your unending patience.  We are almost there. We want these games to get out to you as badly as you want them to arrive.

Sincerely,

Gavan Brown & Team Roxley