When Iroh and the Shogunate Troop packs came out I ended up purchasing them off ebay through a US distributer. A week or two later they showed up through many UK sellers.

Mizu and Itami seem to be taking longer however and even the US option seems to be more expensive this time around. Is it literally just "we get them when we get them"?

Remember this stuff still travels the world in ships from China, and a lot of things can effect that.

Like customs delays, the war on terror and imigration, can delay an entire ship, or just a single container.

Then there's the weather...

Mechanical failures...

Human error...

And FFG's supply chain is pretty complex.

As I understand it, alot of their stuff is shipped from China to California or Washington, then by Rail or Road to FFG's wearhouse. Then from there it goes by Trucks to all over America and Canada. Once the products reach the east coast, they often get back on a boat in New York or Virginia, and sail to Europe. Then it's all those problems from above again.

So any glitch anywhere in this whole chain can slow things down by days, if not weeks.

But this whole thing varies by product as well.

So it's always hard to say why things are late.

Well it turns out that today ONE seller in the UK online has Itami and Mizu it but they want £20 each!? No, it will be cheaper for me to order in from the US a wait the couple of weeks instead, at least there most of the time it's £10 with postage.

What you told me however does make sense. Orders are a fickle business.

well, board games arrive pretty fast in germany, only Tannhäuser stuff takes so long :-(

By the way, Azanael, were you already able to get Itami and Mizu?

Speaking of Europe, it seems really odd that Germany is about the only place you can still get the Yula figure. With shipping and handling, it works out to about $30. Slightly less than the asking prices on e-bay.

A lot depends on the shipping/supply network a company has set up. Most of the FFG products are made in China. Usually these products are sent directly to the distributor in Europe. It would make no sense to ship it to the US and then reship it. GIven the distances involved and the variability of shipping, it can obviously take quite some time. Then you have the customs issues which may not be insignificant. For example, a ship may dock in the UK and offload its cargo. The cargo passes through customs and then is put on the truck to who knows where or it may be put on another ship bound for Amsterdam and then everything would be on a truck from there for example. In other words, the route the product takes in getting to the distributor alone can be quite tenuous. The UK can be expensive because you have almost 20% VAT to start with plus other overheads which can add sharply to the cost. Thus as a minimum, it is not uncommon to find the cost in pounds to be the same as the cost in dollars numerically, thus there is a 60% differential in cost. Gas is the most obvious one, mainky due to tax differences in the various countries.

@ ??! : Still no Itami and Mizu on the horizon... I hope the "Heidelberger Spieleverlag" (german distributor of Tannhäuser) offers them at the "Spielwiesn"-Fair next weekend in munich

got an Email from my ´Bordgame-Dealer: They´ll arrive within the next week ^^

Mizu and Itami of course are only now in an abundence on Amazon UK... of course I got mine from the US a few days ago haha.

They finally arrived in Germany! I got both of them yesterday - and they are soooo cool!