Onto Icewind Dale!
Problems with couriers meant that the delivery my FLGS should have received of the Launch Event kit still hadn't arrived on the Friday before the event… yes, the one on the next day. This was something of a problem for running it. I got extremely frustrated and a quite a bit angry and vented about it on EN World and Twitter. I calmed down quite a bit after several really good people at Wizards (Trevor Kidd, Mike Mearls, Greg Bisland and others) got in contact with me and sent me a pdf of the adventure.
This allowed me to, at least, read the adventure before I ran it, give a copy to the other DM at the store, and find the miniatures I needed to run it all. Hooray!
Meanwhile, Mark, the owner of my FLGS, was frantically calling about trying to find a copy of the adventure; he was prepared to do a 4-hour trip (there and back) to Melbourne or Geelong if he could find one, but no luck. He was relieved when I told him that I had an electronic of the adventure, but he still wanted to get me a hardcopy of the adventure, and so continued to ring other stores.
And then, at about 11 am, the courier decided that he'd deliver the adventure after all. Six hours before the event got underway. Mark was relieved. I was very happy – I'd have the map for the big encounter at the end of the adventure. And thanks to Trevor, Mike and the other good people at Wizards, I knew what miniatures I needed for the adventure.
Still, it was a huge amount more stressful than it should have been. My (likely flawed) understanding of the timeline is that the adventure arrived in Australia on the Monday, it was sent by the distributor to my FLGS on the Tuesday, and the courier finally got around to delivering it on the Saturday. All too close for comfort.
Mark was really surprised to see it arrive – the courier's Ballarat office was closed on the Saturday, and his other experience with this company had led him to believe they wouldn't make Saturday deliveries. We'd given up on having a printed copy of the adventure… and then there was one!
I picked up a second set of the Caverns of Icewind Dale dungeon tiles to help me with the icy wilderness we were sure to encounter, and we were away! As to what occurred in the session… I’ll get back to that in a couple of hours.
I really must stress how important the response from Mike Mearls, Greg Bilsland, Trevor Kidd and others at Wizards was for both my peace of mind and the enjoyment of the adventure. Without their help, I wouldn’t have been able to read the adventure before running it, nor make sure I had the right miniatures (and tiles) for it. I was extremely frustrated and angry, and they were able to help me. It means a lot. Thank you all, so much.