Price here with this week’s update. We’ve got lots of important project updates for you this week on Gloomhaven ocean & land freight, Miniatures of Gloomhaven progress, RPG, and unfortunately continued U.S. tariff impacts.

Let’s jump in. 

-GLOOMHAVEN FREIGHT & FULFILLMENT-

100% of our Gloomhaven ocean freight has shipped! Please see below for an updated Grand Festival project tracker and individual regional freight/fulfillment updates.

Also, please note that Forteller Audio Narration is on target to be distributed via Backerkit pledge manager as we get closer to regional fulfillments We’re also working on making “live” some support FAQ infrastructure and video tutorials for those of you stepping into Gloomhaven for the first time, or returning from your time “away”! More info on all of this in our next update(s)!

You don’t have a vessel as we have a truck(s) incoming to our fulfillment partner VFI from our factory. We’ve got a bit of time until delivery and I’m waiting on some updates from our partners but we’ll report back as soon as we have more from both partners. 

Your vessel, the YM MUTUALITY has arrived at port in Vancouver! We’re currently awaiting an update on ETA to our fulfillment center Universal in Toronto, but anticipate land freight to take approximately 1-2 weeks once it’s been confirmed to have left the port yard. 

Your vessel, the PUSAN C, is currently expected to arrive at port in Melbourne around June 9th according to our docking pre-alert! Yesterday we paid our deposit payment with our fulfillment partner, Aetherworks, and are currently being placed into their fulfillment queue as soon as possible once it arrives. 

Your vessel, the HMM HOPE, is continuing its journey and should be rounding the corner on South Africa any day now. We understand the ETA to currently be near the end of June at which point it will land freight to our fulfillment partner Spiral Galaxy. We’ll provide more updates when we have them but are lining up everything we can to keep things timely once it hits port!

Your ships, the ONE FUTURE &  EVER FOCUS, are both on water and starting their journeys about a week or so apart. These ships will ultimately be heading to our fulfillment partner, Ware2Go, in Nashville Tennessee. We don’t currently have an exact ETA to our warehouse at this point but will of course keep our U.S. backers updated in the weeks to come. We have some updates on the pending/anticipated U.S. tariff surcharges later in this update, so please make sure to read that. 

Your vessel, the COSCO FORTUNE, recently rounded the corner on South Africa and is projected to port in Europe around the end of June. We’re working with our fulfillment partner, Fulfillment Europe, to have things lined up to be inserted into their queue and keep things as timely as possible. Pending no major changes to U.S. tariff policy, orders to Mexico are currently planned to ship from Fulfillment Europe. This is something we’ve done in past campaigns and have no problem doing again to help avoid unnecessary U.S. tariff surcharges on your orders. 

We’ve got an updated Miniatures project tracker for you today. While internal reprioritizations led to some delays over the last several weeks, we’re back to making standard progress on digital modification approvals, red wax approvals, and polyurethane (PU) sample approvals. Check out some of my favorite recent samples received from our factory below!
















-GLOOMHAVEN: RPG-
I was just sent an exciting page spread this morning by our own Danielle (RPG Project Manager/Developer) and Layne (Graphic Designer) that we wanted to share with you! Progress continues on shaping and perfecting the “guts” of the book. I know Isaac recently provided some insights to the curation being done now that it’s “all together” so things are getting put through the usability/digestibility “machine” that is Layne Huber’s excellent eye for layout & presentation. Arch Anderson (Art Manager) has done a great job working with the ever-talented Francesca Baerald on the page accents you see here too. 

Last update I’d indicated we would be calculating and putting for U.S. tariff surcharges. While I’d hoped to spend last week doing this, we were hit with a number of breaking news updates, vendor price increases, and new potential surcharges from our freight companies as well that required our attention. While unexpected, it’s sadly not surprising. These updates all required our attention primarily so we could make sure IF we have to charge you for U.S. tariffs, it will be in confidence and ONLY ONCE.

The First Curveball:
On May 28, 2025, the Court of International Trade ruled that the reciprocal and fentanyl tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are unlawful. This court, made up of Reagan, Obama, and Trump appointed judges ruled unanimously against the tariffs stating “trade deficit” was not a valid reason to declare a “National Emergency” and that these powers rest by default in the hands of Congress.  To quote, “"The court does not pass upon the wisdom or likely effectiveness of the President's use of tariffs as leverage….That use is impermissible not because it is unwise or ineffective, but because [federal law] does not allow it." The judges also ordered the Trump administration to issue new orders reflecting the permanent injunction within 10 days.

The Second Curveball:
As we’ve been conditioned to expect from this administration, The US government filed a motion to stay the order pending an appeal. AKA, they are appealing and in the meantime continuing to collect tariffs until rejected by higher courts (appeals court and/or Supreme Court).

Obviously, we don’t want to charge a U.S. tariff surcharge if we aren’t truly being charged ourselves, so we pumped the brakes to wait and see what the rest of the week would bring. Within 24 hours, we were essentially right back where we started at a known 30% tariff tax for the time being.  

The Third Curveball:

We were notified that some of the import/customs partners we’ve traditionally used for clearing our products upon entry and handling duties for us have begun implementing new tariff processing surcharges themselves due to the surge in import duties impacting their cash flows. 

Basically, just as we’re finding ourselves needing to pass along these new taxes to you, existing logistical partners are also running into various situations in which their cost of business are increasing dramatically, cash flows are becoming tighter, and risk factors heightened, so to offset that, additional charges are being levied on our cost of doing business too.

We do believe we have ways to circumnavigate these payment pass-throughs ourselves though, but it’s going to take some more manual processing from us—frustratingly taking more of our time and effort we’d rather be putting into other aspects of our obligations to you.

To summarize: Given we have several weeks ahead on the water, we’re taking some more time to confirm what our true import costs are looking like so we can make sure we’re not overcharging, undercharging, or putting you through more annoying steps than absolutely necessary. We’ll likely have more confident information to share by next update, if not sooner.

 

-TARIFF IMPACTS & CEPHALOFAIRS ACTIVE EFFORTS-

We’ve been doing our absolute best to be transparent with our audience and community here about what tariffs mean to our project timelines, production challenges, and company resource hurdles. For this reason, I feel it’s important to share some hard decisions we’ve had to make recently as well as some proactive steps we’re taking to help advocate not just for our organization but this industry we love as a whole.

Last month we let our staff know we’d be concluding some re-forcasting of the year ahead, and even into next year, as we realize that without confidence in trade policy we may be looking at further delays on top of our own existing project creative/production delays (of which we acknowledge and take ownership of those parts we are ourselves responsible).

Last week we came to the conclusion of that new forecasting and determined that a few steps were in our best interest to uphold our existing obligations. Those obligations being first and foremost to:

#1) Our Backers. You have invested in us and our creative vision. We have a fiduciary responsibility to you to make sure we’re protecting your pledges and in position to produce/fulfill as soon as the landscape permits us to move forward.

#2) Our Staff & Creative Contractors. We are blessed to work with incredibly talented individuals that help us put together our wildest dreams, and it takes dedicated individuals with hundreds of hours under the belt of product understanding, awareness, and insights to build further upon the foundations we’ve already created. We want them to have confidence we’re positioning ourselves in the best place for long-term employment and growth. 

With these things in mind, and the fact that the core of our production/import capabilities have largely been brought to a standstill for 70% of our market for the last financial quarter—we communicated some hard decisions last week to our team resulting in one full-time job elimination and multiple temporary 50% furloughs (Of which I am first and foremost included in, effective last month). These reductions in salary/work hours will be in effect for the foreseeable future until we have confidence in our ability to resume standard and catch up to more timely operations. As Cephalofair’s COO my reduction is in salary only, as my commitment to you is still 110%+ of my time and effort as we navigate these waters together.

I want to make absolutely clear, we have confidence in Cephalofair’s organizational standing and future, but want to be able to look back and know we took EVERY step at our disposal to keep our promises to you. Steps taken not sooner than needed, and not later than would jeopardize that confidence.

NOTE: These furloughs impact more background operational/sales based team members as we recognize we still have outstanding product development/production obligations that require our full-time attention in those areas to see RPG/Miniatures through. As well as community support needs as we head into our next round of fulfillment. Please have faith we are not taking any eyes off the ball, but rather shoring up on overhead where it makes most sense and is most advisable by our financial specialists.

We deeply regret the position we find ourselves in amidst this trade war and to our staff, both dismissed and temporarily setback, we apologize and thank you immensely for your professionalism, understanding, and dedication to our outstanding projects. And while it may not be necessary, I do feel compelled to share that we had several Cephalofair employees be the first to raise their hand and offer to “be the first in line” should our situation require it. While ultimately our decisioning came down to our most obvious income disruptions and greatest business needs- having had the pleasure of working for each of these phenomenal employees for several years now I’m genuinely not surprised and thank them for their compassion for each other and support for our organization as a whole. We hope, and will be working our absolute hardest, to ensure these reductions are for as little time as possible and will prioritize getting staff back to full-time first and foremost. 

-SO WHAT ELSE IS CEPHALOFAIR DOING?-

Local Advocacy (Politics Warning, Ye Who Enter)

We try very hard not to make politics a center post of what we do, we’re game makers, toy makers, and inventors after all. But I am also a firm believer that in business and in life, politics will find you even if you don’t go looking for it. So when appropriate, I choose to engage rather than disengage. I volunteer locally, am a member of our local chamber of commerce, and try my best to attend local small business/governance related meetings when relevant to my needs and interests.

Last week I spent upwards of an hour in my local Congressman’s district office (Kevin Kiley, CA-R). Not with him, unfortunately, but with his district representative and district director. To be frank, I was deeply frustrated and disheartened by how little the office had prepared for our meeting, how few actual answers or pieces of advice they brought to the table, and how uninformed they were with even the most basic level of comprehension around small business economics and trade/manufacturing logistics. Instead of getting an official stance on the existing tariffs, or advice on how we should be navigating this trade policy, or for how long- we were simply told Congressman Kiley was unwilling to make comment at this time. It wasn’t clear what they believed to be the leading strategy behind the tariff negotiations, or the end goal, nor why the Executive office isn’t working with the majority held house and senate to pass legitimate and lawful trade policies rather than the courts.  

Nonetheless, I hope the insights I was able to provide and my offers to be a resource should they desire to represent small/medium enterprises in the future encourages them to consider greater action at some point.

Cephalofair is going to Washington D.C. (Obviously, politics)

Next week I will be heading to D.C. at the invitation of The Game Manufacturer’s Association (GAMA) in joint effort with The Toy Association to do some industry advocacy on capitol hill. While you’re not going to see me in front of any important looking congressional hearings or anything like that (to my knowledge!), it is our hope to be taking as many meetings as possible with elected legislators to directly convey the hurt our industry, our organization, and our customers are/will be feeling under this continued volatile trade policy. We will be spending a few full days in House and Senate office buildings as a cohort of twenty or so toy & game professionals from all different backgrounds who care deeply about what we do, the communities we build, and deep seated desire to “get back to business”. Please wish us all confidence, patience, and clarity as we do something we’ve not had to before (and honestly find a little uncomfortable having to do), especially when we’d much rather be spending our full time making amazing games and works of art.



Super Secret Stuff (NOT POLITICS! HUZZAH!)

Sooo…..let’s sandwich some of these less fun updates with positivity, optimism, and excitement for the future!

We’ve been asked numerous times by very generous backers how they can contribute/donate/support Cephalofair in smaller ways to help navigate the current uncertainty ahead. While we’re in a confident position to execute on those obligations without this level of direct financial support, we’re always keen to give our community more ways to engage in the “World of Gloomhaven”! Amidst the disruption of the last couple of months, we’ve not just navigated the lows, but actively looked for opportunities to pivot resources (where responsible) into vetting projects/ideas/etc outside our normal peripheral that may be executable even under these uncertain times.

One of the few things we DO have confidence and ability to execute on at this time is game development, design, and the ability to plan for things in the future that we hope you’re all really going to enjoy.

Some of these are more future proofing our publishing position and most certainly won’t be our focus until our outstanding obligations are fulfilled (RPG/Miniatures), but some smaller things in our “back pocket” maaaay just sneak their way onto your radar sooner than we intended.

And that’s all I can really say about that for now, so I’m going to “tie a bow” on it before I say any more!

END OF UPDATE!

That’s “it” for this week, if you’re still here with me and reading this thank you genuinely for your interest, understanding, and support. We’ll be back in two weeks with your next update. 

Price Johnson here with an update primarily for our U.S. Backers of Gloomhaven 2nd Edition and those interested in U.S. tariff impact. Please be sure to read through today's Q&A in its entirety as there are multiple important pieces of information including information on incoming U.S. tariff surcharges. 

International orders are still on water/road and heading smoothly towards their respective fulfillment warehouses. (I will have the boat names for CA & AU/NZ shortly, and will promptly update this comment with them)

Thanks to the hard work of our Cephalofair team and logistics partners, all U.S. backer orders for Gloomhaven (2nd Edition) have been booked for ocean freight starting this week—in fact the first containers are heading towards Shanghai's port TONIGHT!
 



I can’t stress enough how overwhelming and time consuming the last two weeks have been as we continue navigating a 7th tariff pricing adjustment over the course of just 3 months. A huge THANK YOU to the entirety of the Cephalofair Team who have continued working hard to pivot operations, priorities, and resource considerations as we focus on how to best (and quickly) get your orders to you. And of course another THANK YOU to our incredibly supportive community who have been patient and encouraging all the while.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-Some Q&A on U.S. Gloomhaven 2nd Edition Orders & Tariff Surcharges:

Q. What’s the abridged update on the current tariff situation?

There is a 90 day reduction in the tariff rates from 145% → 30% until August 10th. While different interpretations of this deadline are circulating, we’re being advised to most confidently benefit from the reduced rate, the goods may need to be customs-declared by around August 10th, which actually means getting booked and on the water well sooner than that.


Q. What happens after the 90 day tariff reduction?

At this point, we honestly don’t know what to expect from this administration and can’t make any assumptions, but are building multiple contingencies for our rest-of-year business and operations in the event tariffs raise, remain at 30%, or are removed entirely (a best case scenario despite the damage done already). Trump has previously stated he thinks 80% "seems right", so it’s hard to know. 

This is the 7th tariff pricing adjustment we’ve had to navigate in just the last 3 months alone, so we hope you can understand how difficult that is to continue pivoting our business models around. We’ll of course keep all backers posted on this subject as we proceed and finalize development on our outstanding projects and approach manufacturing readiness.


Q. But U.S. freight IS booked right?  RIGHT?

We booked freight immediately following the U.S. tariff reduction from 145% to 30% went into effect, taking the soonest available options, which are scheduled for pickup from our factory on the 21st and 25th (ocean freight channels are spiking in price while being limited in supply as most China → US shipments had ceased entirely).

Additionally, Folded Space addons have also been scheduled and begin their journey this week as well.


Q. A tariff reduction is good, right? 30% is less than 145%!

Absolutely. But it’s still 30% higher than our industry has seen in over a decade, and more than we collected from U.S. Backers. There is one thing repeated by each of our industry vendors that remains a throughline: this is an unprecedented and impossible trade policy to navigate in terms of freight, accounting, manufacturing, etc. While this sentiment doesn’t make the situation necessarily easier to navigate, it tells us we’re far from the only industry being impacted and there is an unpredictable amount of chaos that’s been thrown at us all this year. That’s not an excuse for anything, that’s just the reality of the current situation. 

To summarize: All U.S. orders now cost an additional 30% to produce, eliminating critical margins and necessitating additional tax costs for U.S. orders.

Q. What can U.S. Backers expect a 30% tariff to mean on their orders?

Our goal is as little as possible, but that will be assessed more confidently when product is secured on boats and our tariff rate is “locked in” (pending any unexpected changes this week). The reality is this is really no different than import/sales VAT/GST we collect for international backer orders so we’d need to for U.S. orders as well now that tariffs apply. As this is calculated on “cost of goods” rather than your purchase price, this will NOT be +30% more than you paid, but much less.

Even with a U.S. tariff surcharge, the reality is Cephalofair is still anticipating subsidizing several price increases inflicted by tariffs (as well as operating on delayed/loss revenue due to the disruption). These include, but are not limited to: increased freight costs, port congestion fees/forced yard storage fees, broker fees, extended warehousing fees, etc.


Q. How does the Backerkit U.S. Tariff Surcharge Work?

U.S. Backers & Backerkit Preorders can expect to see a new tax line (similar to shipping & taxes) with the calculated amount once the final impact is assessed (a combination of tariffs, sales tax requirements, Backerkit pledge management fees, and card processing fees). This will coalesce into a flat fee calculated across a few select products that pose the most detrimental cost impact to the project as a whole.

Sample Visual:



Q. Is sales tax charged/collected on U.S. tariff surcharges?

Yes, we have been advised that U.S. sales tax is applicable on U.S. tariff surcharges. This sales tax will vary by state based on this year's tax rates and be included in your Backerkit charge.


Q. When will the Backerkit U.S. Tariff Surcharge go into effect?

We will provide an update in the coming week(s) once this amount is validated, and provide at minimum a 1-2 week notice before your card on file is charged.


Q. Is payment of this fee required before my order is fulfilled?

Yes. Any pledges with outstanding balances on shipping, taxes, and/or tariff surcharges will be held until outstanding amounts are resolved. At that point your order will be cleared for shipping with our fulfillment warehouse once it is in their possession.


Q. Which products contribute to the U.S. tariff fee on Wave 3 - Gloomhaven (Second Edition)?

- Gloomhaven (Second Edition)
- Gloomhaven (Second Edition) Upgrade Kits
- FoldedSpace Inserts
- FoldedSpace Map Tile Organizers

Q. When is U.S.A. fulfillment scheduled to begin?

Currently, if all goes according to plan the soonest U.S. pledges will hit U.S. ports would be ~June 28th. Once we are confidently on the water, we will be finalizing estimated receiving times and readiness/availability of our fulfillment partner to provide you with our planned fulfillment kickoff dates. There are several factors that will keep this in flux such as ocean conditions, port/yard congestion, and delivery timing to our warehouse. We will continue providing updates as we make progress.


Q. Are U.S. orders locked?

As U.S. orders have been pre-packaged at our factory for fulfillment, we are currently unable to make individual product changes to your orders and they are “locked” in that sense.


Q. Can I still request a refund?

As always and per our campaign terms, we still offer pledge refunds (less a 10% processing/restocking fee). Please contact us at [email protected].

A few important reminders:

- Refunds are not a “now or never” situation, don’t feel you must make this decision immediately. You can cancel your pledge up until we start US fulfillment.

- Our hope is the U.S. tariff surcharge is close to/less than the 10% refund/processing fee, so you may wish to hold for more information.

- Pledge items were sold at discounts and many of these products may be seeing price increases on top of their previously marketing MSRP’s if tariffs persist.

- In the current state of U.S. tariffs, we can’t speak fully yet to the immediate future of retail/distribution availability of Gloomhaven 2nd Edition products (beyond U.S. Retail Backer orders still en route). While we have produced additional originally intended for U.S. distribution and retail, we can’t guarantee what that availability and final pricing will look like at this time and with trade policy negotiations still unfolding.

These are reminders we give in full transparency and good faith, not to instill “fear of missing out”. Please contact us if you require a refund at [email protected]. 

Q. Are U.S. Retailer Backer orders also impacted by tariff surcharges?

Yes, we will be needing to make an assessment on tariff impact here, especially at the wholesale pricing we offered during crowdfunding. We will be communicating this fee to retail partners directly due to these higher volume orders, and will collaborate to collect those additional surcharges directly as we know this has a more immediate cash-flow impact on your business. 

All other requirements above apply, including surcharge payment prior to fulfillment. 

-Q&A END-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That’s our big update for today, we’ll be back in two weeks with more regular “creative” project updates including Miniatures of Gloomhaven and the RPG, and even sooner with the next update for U.S. Backers in regards to tariff surcharges. 

Thank you all for your patience as this has dominated a large amount of our bandwidth and operations on the U.S. side - we look forward to getting back to more enjoyable topics that impact all backers and outstanding projects. Fingers crossed this 90 day tariff reduction leads to some longer term relief and stability on the “other side”. 

Have a great week!

Good day! I (Isaac) am back in the update chair for some brief news on the projects.

We're going to start right off with fulfillment on Gloomhaven, which I know is on everyone's mind. EU, UK, CA, and NZ/AU were successfully loaded onto container ships on April 29. We have ship info on the UK (HMM HOPE) and EU (COSCO FORTUNE) and will have the others next time. In addition, we expect to ship copies to VFI for Asia fulfillment on Monday.

The plan is still to save the US copies until last to give us as much time as possible to make an informed decision, so we won't have any more information on that until at least the next update. Sorry for the uncertainty here, but that is just the nature of shipping to the US at the moment, unfortunately.

No real progress on miniatures this week, so nothing new to inform you about here, unfortunately. Moving on!

From Danielle:
There isn’t a ton to update here. We’re still rocking along with our internal review. A couple of things the review showed us is that it needs more art and holy cow, this thing is over 400 pages! So, we’ve been working on slimming entries down, refocusing presenting material in a visually appealing way, and ensuring we’re only putting the most important parts into the core rulebook. This kind of thing takes time, but is well worth it. And don’t worry, we aren’t throwing any slimmed material away. Instead, we’re saving it for supplements that should start rolling forward shortly after this beast gets sent off to the printer.

Unfortunately, doing this work means I don’t have a ton of new information to share or things to show you, because a small tweak here or there might make the difference of a page, but it’s only exciting to maybe 2 people.

                               

In other news, we'll be out at PAX East this weekend in booth 12115, so stop on by to say "Hi" if you're in the area.

Last week, the team all got together for our yearly development retreat, "Gloomcabin", which was a lot of fun and incredibly productive. Obviously, we're focused on finishing up our current slate of projects for this campaign, but we're also very excited about what's coming next!

And that's it for this week. We're going to continue to see how shipping out Gloomhaven and the US tariff situation develops, and we'll have more news for you next time. Catch you then!

Today’s project update will touch base on several aspects of our last major update “Tariffs & Tabletop” which if you haven’t, we’d invite and recommend reading HERE. 

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Everyone,

This is Price Johnson back again this week to provide some project and industry-wide updates. Apologies to all of our international backers, as we know EVERYONE is tired of talking about U.S. tariffs at this point - but the reality is they impact our entire project so feel it important to keep you all informed. 

(Mini Update: Due to a delay between our manufacturer and freight forwarding company, containers for EU/UK/Asia we NOT picked up yet as previously estimated. We’re being told dates are being resecured now with an estimated pickup by the first week of May - now to include also AU and NZ. Confirmations and next wave shipments will be communicated in the May 6th update. We have no update on U.S. copies at this time, but will keep U.S. backers posted as we approach what would be our target ship date as to what options we have.)

FIRST, THANK YOU!

I want to start by first and foremost thanking our backer community IMMENSELY for their gracious understanding, support, encouragement, and thoughtful questions posed after our last update regarding U.S. tariff policy and the state of the board game industry. Lots of good questions and conversations that kept me well up until the early morning, feeling both energized by your support and eager to help communicate/educate what tariffs mean for board games.

I can’t emphasize how stressful the last month or two has been for us internally at Cephalofair, as well as each of our peers across the publishing space. Retailers, distributors, publishers, designers, artists, writers — everyone across our space is currently impacted in one shape or form and are sharing their stories on a daily basis. More time in the last two weeks has unfortunately been spent on strategy, consulting, legal, public awareness, political advocacy, and operational pivoting than we’d like, I’ll tell you that for free.

Some of those recent industry stories include:

We are very fortunate to work in an industry as collaborative as tabletop games, and continue finding inspiration in each other as professional peers and in our governing associations of GAMA and The Toy Association which both continue putting hard work into public awareness, political lobbying, and broad industry updates as tariff policy continues to evolve.



Q. So what are we seeing right now in the U.S.?

Well, U.S. tariffs are still a combined total of 145% on all non-exempt products sourced from China, so not much has changed on that front. An AP News article tonight suggests a tide may be turning as the U.S. Treasure Secretary suggests "trade war with China is not ‘sustainable’", but we can't count our chickens before they hatch as this administration has been far to unpredictable. 

Freight is actually fairly affordable, as you can imagine the U.S. has seen a significant drop in demand coming this way from China. This is nice, but not even close to cover a +145% increase on our costs.

Publishers are exploring several options including but not limited to:

-Storing product in China, importing to the U.S. only when absolutely necessary.

-Storing product in Canada, waiting for U.S. tariffs to be removed (Still counts as China import).

-Pausing all sales in the U.S.A. and focusing on international markets.

-Cancelling planned production runs.

-Doubling down on development and building out their future publish ready catalogues.

-Shuttering their business and operations to protect financial investments, and buy time.

-Downsizing, furloughing, or terminating staff

-Exploring alternative warehousing options like bonded warehouses which, while costly, avoid delay immediate tariff ramifications. 

-Canceling/Delaying new crowdfunding projects

-Implementing tariff surcharges on shipments/projects/retail orders

-Etc.

Q. Any other trouble on the horizon?

Well, other than even higher tariffs there are a few things Cephalofair and others in our industry may be anticipating and doing out best to navigate even in the event that we see tariff reversal or reduction:

-Retailers with limited stock around the holidays, their most critical time of year.
-Surge demand and pricing on freight container availability.
-Backlog of containers at ports and in warehouses (like our 25 containers worth of products in China now).
-Backlog of fulfillment centers available for crowdfunding project fulfillment, leading to delays.
-Surge demand on our normal manufactures from multiple clients resuming production at once.
-Tighter cashflows due to multiple product restocking needs at once.
-Etc.

That being said, a complete reversal is most ideal and still the absolute end goal, at least as it pertains to our industry.

Q. What are we doing on Gloomhaven 2nd Edition?

Right now, the game is completed and we are proceeding with international shipments first. Once all non-U.S. copies have shipped, we will assess the tariff landscape and make the most financially responsible decision to make sure we are both A) Protecting your investment in GH: RPG and Miniatures, and B) Not having to charge U.S. Backers more than absolutely necessary.

I’ll be honest - us producing ANYTHING new at this point is a gamble and poses cash flow challenges as long as we know our primary market (U.S. ~60-70%) is not viable for the tentative future. So development and pre-production continues, in an attempt to make most of this downtime and elevate this product as much as possible. We are leaning into continued and additional development, graphic design, artwork, and packaging options. To be clear, more work IS needed regardless of tariffs, but their existence incentivizes us to continue spending more time with it than rushing it out the door, for sure. Ultimately our project/product pricing was factored and dependent on producing U.S. stock, so we will have to wait and see what the landscape looks like for now.

Q.What are we doing on Miniatures of Gloomhaven?

As with the Gloomhaven: RPG, pre-production continues! We are still actively reviewing, revising, and approving final miniature samples with the hope that by the time we are ready to go full-scale into production on our steel molds that we will be able to go into mass production with some level of confidence we won’t be facing 145% tariffs. Ultimately our project/product pricing was factored and dependent on producing U.S. stock, so we will have to wait and see what the landscape looks like for now. 

Q. You know, if you’d stuck to your timelines, you’d have shipped ahead of tariffs.

Okay, so this one is not a question. But we’ve seen it repeated a few times and want to acknowledge that timelines on our creative visions have always been a weak point for Cephalofair when we embark on a project. This is something we own, and is a reality for a multitude of reasons (not excuses) from expanded product scope, world events, production delays, underestimations, growing pains, mistakes, etc. 

Ultimately, we are proud to maintain a 100% fulfillment rate on our projects and want to express that we’re our biggest critic and want to continue making improvements in this area. While we don’t have a crowdfunding project planned now or anytime in the foreseeable future, this is an area that will take a leading focus for our design, development, and project management teams. 

But we understand the criticism and, trust me, I wish we’d have been in position to ship even a month earlier than we have found ourselves. We look forward to making improvements for you in the future and understand that may take some proving on our part. 

We at Cephalofair really appreciate anyone’s desire to help navigate these uncertain times, and take all suggestions in good faith. That being said, we want to enthusiastically assure our backers that we are (unfortunately) spending the majority of our time (outside of strictly creative teams/contractors) navigating any/all options to us at this time and restructuring operations where we can.

Currently we are consulting with a) legal teams, b) customs brokers, c) freight forwarders, d) multiple factories, e) the majority of our industry peers (yet to ship, and already shipped), f) other industries of trade, etc.

I would STRONGLY advise backers, upcoming publishers/creators/designers, and others facing devastating cost increases to be leery of any “easy fixes” or “one size fits all” narratives they may come across by asking for receipts, looking for evidence of proven methods and track records, and scrutinizing incentives they may have for offering said solutions. It makes sense to double check your homework. Some of us are on our third and fourth check. Personally, I can’t blame a single one of our peers for taking conservative and precautionary steps to fortify their businesses, rather than rolling the dice on an untested game theory.

Regardless, the fact that these overnight changes in trade policy consistently come communicated in the form of tweets, Truth Social posts, and candid press comments, while leaving wide room for interpretation, miscalculations, and confusion should be testament to how ineffective and harmful this administration’s actions are on small and medium size businesses, many of whom are one or two world events away from troubled waters and are still recovering from the last one.

WELL. While we’re still working on doing everything and anything we can to get Gloomhaven physically to you, we are excited to share that it would appear that GLOOMHAVEN: DIGITAL (PC) is currently INCLUDED FREE on Amazon Prime Gaming through June 18th, 2025.

This is not our doing (Twin Sails handles sales/marketing of the digital game), or specifically anything to do with tariffs, but if you haven’t checked out the PC version of the original game now might be a great time while awaiting the new physical second edition!

Our team is currently on its way to our annual “Gloomcabin” development retreat where we are planning to spend some time in person on the above mentioned projects (and possibly get our hands on some exciting new ones…) and we will be largely out of the office through this time next week.

(Retreat = Vacation rental or cabin and a week of home cooking from yours truly)

As a fully remote company, we lack a common office so this is the one time a year we get to come together as a team and work together in person playtesting, brainstorming, and planning for current and upcoming projects. It’s also the time we get to celebrate our hardworking staff with some afterhours home cooked meals, games, and festivities.

While admittedly a less than desirable time for our industry and selves, one of the few things we can make sure we’re continuing to do is doubling down on development and planning for happier/easier times. 

We’ve got a few surprises up our sleeves and announcements to make when things begin to return to normal, but trust that our focus remains on our outstanding obligations to you on these projects.

I’ll be keeping up daily on news and changes to policy through next week even at “Gloomcabin”, but we’ll assess where things look upon our return and continue pushing forward and adapting to each obstacle. Updating you along the way.

Wrapping Up

With that, we’ll be back in two weeks with our next update and confirmation of first container shipments of Gloomhaven. Thank you again for your support and patience as we continue tweaking our initiatives. 

Reminder: if you’re tired of tariffs impacting the hobby you love, please consider contacting your local elected representative and tell them how they can best represent your interests, whatever they are:

https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

Today’s project update is dedicated to bringing awareness to the tariff crisis happening right now in the tabletop games industry.

(Mini Update: Wave 3-Gloomhaven(2E) factory freight pickups begin this week for Asia, UK, and EU!)

While this is not intended to be a politically partisan post, tariffs are implemented by elected politicians (constitutionally by Congress, but in this case by emergency claims and Executive Order of the President) so it will inevitably be political in nature, but from the agnostic perspective of a small business operator.

Regular updates will resume in 2 weeks, but we felt it necessary to explain the landscape as we march towards unknown and hard decisions across our entire company, slate of projects, and our personal lives.

Thank you for your time, understanding, and support over all these years. We intend to fight like hell and utilize every tool at our disposal to maintain our obligations to our backers, our employees, and our families.

Right now, that future is being made incredibly unpredictable.

Our next steps are uncertain and being forced to change daily.
____________________________________________________________


Hello Everyone,

This is Price Johnson, COO of Cephalofair Games. I asked the team to let me take lead on this week’s update so I can give all our incredibly passionate and patient backers an update on the situation currently unfolding in the tabletop games industry.

Speaking bluntly, our industry, our jobs, and our projects are under attack by volatile, and self-inflicted, U.S. trade policy. Our manufacturing costs in the last two months have seen an increase of 104% due to U.S. tariffs.

(See below for a more thorough explanation of how tariffs work.)

The impact that 104% tariffs will have on our industry, and our company, are nothing short of devastating and are already having immediate consequences that will be felt knowingly and unknowingly by everyone who enjoys this industry - from the hobbyist, the retail store owner, the publisher, and ultimately our communities.

But don’t just take my word for it. 
Here is what the industry, and our peers, have been feeling as well:

Q. What is happening?

The U.S. has imposed blanket tariffs (meaning broad & general, not strategically targeted goods) on ALL imports from a multitude of international countries - most notably in our situation: China, where the majority of the tabletop games industry manufacture our games.

This is leading to mass and widescale manufacturing, pricing, and inventory concerns as most products have had their profit margins all but eliminated.


Q. What is an import tariff?

An import tariff is a tax on businesses bringing goods into a country, - in our case, the United States. It is charged against the cost of goods of our product (AKA how much we pay our manufacturer for the final product). This means it has a DIRECT impact on our costs as a U.S. Business, how much we have to charge customers, retailers, distributors, etc.


Q. What tariffs have been put on board games?

Prior to this administration = 0% on board games

A Brief Timeline:
February 1st = 0% → 10% tariffs (link)
March 4th = 10% → 20% (link)
April 2nd = 20% → 54% (link)
April 7th = We are being TOLD 54% may increase to 104% (link)
April 8th = 54% → 104% (link)

Bringing this home: from the time Gloomhaven went into production our cost of goods has risen 104%.

For example, if a game costs $10 to produce, that company must pay the U.S. government an invoice for $10.40 on top, meaning the cost is now really $20.40 total.

“Yeah but the game is still $50, so you have lots of profit to work with”

Not really, no. To make games viable for nationwide distribution in retail stores (where most of our sales occur) publishers traditionally need to apply a x5 to x7 multiplier to our cost of goods to make wholesale pricing discounts viable and still provide us with a razor thin margin in which to cover additional costs and overhead such as freight, warehousing, staffing, product development, designer royalties, reprints, etc.

So that $50 game is really, typically, being sold at wholesale for $20, meaning a profit margin is gone.

If 54% or 104% tariffs hold and we don’t see reverse steps taken, this will all but eliminate our wholesale business as we know it today leading to some incredibly hard and scary choices to make.

P.S. Gloomhaven & Frosthaven cost considerably more than $10 to manufacture...





Q. Why is this a problem?

1. Domestic manufacturing does not exist for the products we make. Nor do many of the materials. I wish they were. I like having my product when it’s ready and not having to depend on a 30-45 day buffer between manufacturing and ocean freight.  

The reality is that China has been our industry’s gold standard for quality for decades, and continues leading the way in innovative new processes, materials, and capabilities. I’ve visited our facilities in person. I meet with our teams multiple times per year.  We can bid a project with well over two dozen reputable and specialized board game manufacturers internationally on a new project. We don’t have anything that resembles that level of availability, competition, or experience here in the United States that could support our products, let alone those of our entire industry. 

2. Suddenly punishing foreign manufacturing before standing a roadmap or solutions for building domestic options is backwards and will not lead to anything close to overnight manufacturing options. Especially when machinery, materials, raw goods, would all be subject to 104% import taxes as well. The cost has literally never been higher for a company/entity to consider such investments. 

3. Publishers must know their definitive costs in order to calculate retail pricing. When tariffs are in flux, our pricing is in flux. Meaning we cannot responsibly produce, market, and sell our games. If we do, we’re having to plan and mitigate around unknown cost increases, and that comes at a cost to ourselves and our customers.

4. Publishers who have already raised funds via crowdfunding did not account for tariffs. These were not in place, nor was there any guidance ahead of the last few months as to what tariffs might look like. I can guarantee none of my publishing peers anticipated anything close to the 104% implemented this week.

5. Board games that ARE capable of being made ARE going to get more expensive.

6. Your favorite publishers will be canceling, delaying, or stalling exciting projects.

7. Many publishers/retailers will close their doors due to financial insolvency. Many others will have to make hard staffing choices, furloughs, layoffs, etc.





Q. Doesn’t China pay the tariffs?

No. We do. The U.S. business who produces internationally and imports for domestic sales. We don’t import into China, so China raising their tariff rates against the U.S. are effectively meaningless for our business operations.

We have approximately $1.2M in product produced and awaiting shipment from China currently. The United States generally accounts for ~60-65% of our business. If we shipped what we'd normally be allocating to the U.S. - we'd be looking at a U.S. tax bill of ~$800k+ once it lands at port and before we even start making any new sales (slower sales, at new higher prices.


Q. What does this mean for Gloomhaven: Grand Festival Projects?

Honestly, we’re still analyzing this and it will take us some more time to solve fully.

We do know this is already meaning some really hard decisions for Cephalofair in terms of release schedules, fulfillment timelines, project costs, staffing considerations, conventions, contracts, budgets, and more.

As you are likely aware, there are three Cephalofair projects due for fulfillment. One of which (Gloomhaven) has already been mass manufactured and was due to start shipping this week, and two of which are in pre-production and development (RPG & Miniatures).

2025 has yet to provide us with a stable and known playing field for what lies ahead. It is hard to “plan a journey” when the “price of travel” keeps going up monthly, weekly, daily, without warning and without much perceived rationale. 

Ultimately, we take our obligation of delivering on crowdfunding projects very seriously and have a track record of delivering (development delays aside) 100% of our projects to date. Currently, our top priority is to uphold that promise and track record by protecting your backer investment to the best of our abilities - fighting as hard as we can against obstacles, interference, and sometimes the occasional global pandemic or trade war.
 

Q. What can YOU do to help?

Contact your elected officials:
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

Support your favorite publishers, favorite local game stores, and creators however you can. 

Understand that indie publishers, first time publishers, and crowdfunding publishers (like us) that funded prior to tariffs are hurting the most, and have the most difficult path forward.


~THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT & UNDERSTANDING~

On behalf of the entire Cephalofair Team, and so so many of our publishing peers:

Thank you for the opportunity to shed light on this giant obstacle in front of tabletop at this time. Our backers - YOU - helped build this company, our games, and continue to make this industry thrive as a whole. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we pull together as an industry to weather this storm.

We'll be back in two weeks with regular project updates and next steps being taken - until then be well and enjoy some games!

Price Johnson
Chief Operating Officer
Cephalofair Games