Speculation on KDM Wave 2

This picture has nothing to do with Kingdom Death, but I just finished watching Interstellar.

This post is inspired by a reply I just made on the KDM Kickstarter Comments.

The question is:  Will Poots keep the target of Wave 2 fulfillment beginning in February?

Short version:  I think so.  It might slip a week or two, but my sense of the situation is that the target will hold.

Longer version:  I think that more or less, KDM Wave 2 will start about when advertised.  It's a reprint (not new development, presumably not with a new factory), and that tends to produce a more stable production schedules.  Yes, weird things happen - quality issues, factory scheduling mistakes, container ship delays, Union labor strikes at the port, etc. etc. - but hopefully Poots' schedule allowed some contingency for "weird" and the schedule he talked about was a realistic one.

Poots suggested earlier that he had PART of the Wave 2 stock headed to the warehouse but didn't have the full quantity so he sat on it versus doing a partial fulfillment.  If true, that means the production quantity we're currently waiting on (call it "Wave 2B") is far less than the full run, and presumably Poots has opened a few boxes and run Quality Control on the first batch.  Having a known good quantity in hand reduces risk.

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I think the more interesting question is:  Will Wave 2 fulfillment go smoothly?

Short version:  Hold onto your butts, this is going to be a bumpy ride.

Longer version:  I'm scared of the actual Wave 2 fulfillment. I think that once it starts, it's going to take awhile to run its course. We still hear horror stories about the Core box fulfillment, and that was just two possible boxes (Core or Upgrade).

Wave 2 represents the first time they'll have to pick-and-pack "custom" orders line by line. Some of us got everything. Some of us got only a few things. Some of us got multiples of some things. That's orders of magnitude different and a lot of weird things that can go wrong.

Mitigating the inherit risk of complexity are a few things:

• This is not Poots' first time to the rodeo.  He has the 1.0 Kickstarter to rely on for experience (although that campaign was faaaaaar smaller).  
• He's been willing to spend the $$ to hire 3rd party fulfillment partners to expedite shipping. Unlike some other campaigns, fulfillment will not be one lonely guy in a warehouse slogging away at a long list of names; the load will be shared.
• This is a stretch, but - odds are - there are a fair number of people that bought ONLY the core box or the upgrade and therefore the total line count of unique addresses is lower.  

These things don't mitigate all of the risk I see, hence my overall position.  Hold onto your butts.  I read about other campaigns (Shadows of Brimstone, I'm looking at you) and the hot mess that "custom" orders can become and I sigh.  So I think that not only will the processing of Wave 2 take longer, I also think we'll hear more stories about things gone wrong.

EDIT - Jan 29
I found this picture on the 1.0 Kickstarter, Update #99.  The core box is huge.  The stack of brown box expansions is more huger. 

Size comparison.  And we thought the Core Box was huge. The top picture shows 11 of the 12 (Green Knight Armor is apparently missing).

No, not everyone is getting all of the expansions, but as I mentioned above - custom packing from each order list will actually make things more complicated.  And the numbers of the pledge levels that get every existing expansion is nothing to sneeze at:

• 1,143 Ancient Gold Lantern
• 239 Gamer's Lantern
• 666 Satan's Lantern
• 666 Twin Satan's Lantern
• 13 True Form Satan's Lantern
• 321 Final Form Satan's Lantern
• 400 God Frogdog
• 13 Percival's Lantern

... plus all the people that jumped in when the backer kit opened the first time, and the boatloads more than jumped in the 2nd time. 

Bottom line:  hope for the best, prepare for the worst.