Hey Friends!

Well isn’t this a fun and new space to be talking to everyone—welcome to the blog! We hope to use this more often as we update you on future projects. I want to kick off this update by saying we share your excitement in receiving your pre-ordered copies of Fort, and the response to the pre-order has been beyond expectation.

Last Friday, we received most of Fort’s first printing to our North American fulfillment partner, Atlas Games, and the rest was sent from the factory to other region-based fulfillment partners: Fulfillment EU, VFI, and VR Distribution. All regions combined, we have over 3000 pre-orders to fulfill. Due to COVID-19 and how fulfillment works, we can’t ship every order simultaneously. We have timed shipments in each region as closely as possible while respecting that region’s bandwidth, ability to ship with limited options in ocean and air freight, and changes in practices due to the virus. Everyone who pre-ordered Fort will get it before the retail release (updated below in Change in Retail Release Date).

For ease of reading, I will break down the shipping timelines for every region and when you should be expecting your copy of Fort. Including transit time, fulfillment will take 2-3 weeks, which varies with region and destination—your shipping estimate was given during checkout. Please note that transit times are slightly longer than usual due to the pandemic.

North America - Fulfillment is starting now

Europe - As mentioned in this tweet, we had originally sold out of European pre-orders. But this does not mean Fort is completely gone in Europe. In fact, we have shipped additional copies to Fulfilment EU to help meet this demand. Starting today, we turned pre-orders for Europe back on! However, this does mean there will be two different waves of shipping for European pre-orders, depending on the date when you pre-ordered.

Pre-ordered before August 5th - Fulfillment starts August 24th
Pre-ordered on or after August 12th - Fulfillment starts September 7th

Asia - Fulfillment is starting now

AUS / NZ - Fulfilment is starting now

Change in Retail Release Date

We originally gave a retail release date of August 25th, meaning that distribution would ship Fort to retail stores in time to sell starting on August 25th. However, based on the timeline above, this means that retail stores would start selling Fort before everyone received their pre-order. This wasn’t what we promised to you or the retailers that buy directly from us (referred to as “direct retailers”), so we have decided to move the retail release date to September 21st. This will allow everyone who pre-ordered to receive their game before the release, with some time to spare, and let our direct retailers sell copies before distribution is fulfilled. This will also allow us to get more accurate purchase numbers from distribution, which will help us reprint Fort in the right quantity so we can avoid long periods of sellout. 

We apologize for pushing back the retail date and if it has affected your purchasing consideration. We understand that shipping may not make the game’s price accessible to everyone, so we want to communicate the retail release date clearly so you know exactly when you can support your FLGS.

What are direct retailers?

We will make a more formal announcement soon, but I want to explain what a direct retailer is, because this is our first time mentioning it so publicly. North American stores can order any of our games directly from us and can sell them on arrival. Pre-orders from our community in a region are always processed and fulfilled first, then direct retailers, then distribution. If you know a store or own a store that may be interested in starting a direct retailer account, sign up here. Currently, only North American stores can sign up, but more regions will be added soon.

Ok we are nearing the end of this update, so let me share some fun stuff!

Want to play Fort now? There are over 4,000 subscribers on the free Tabletop Simulator mod for Fort! Click here to get it!

Need someone to play with? Join the Woodland Warriors or Quackalope channel on Discord—new games are being started every day!

For rules and general discussion about Fort, head over to BoardGameGeek.

For assistance or any questions about your order, please email support@ledergames.com (up to a week response time).

Thanks for all the support, we are so excited for everyone to play Fort soon!

- Gates