Most Kickstarters I've been in have a "ship when it's ready" and "ship when it's done" option.
It really depends on the nature of the KS. In cases similar to this one, where there is a staggered production schedule, it's common to have wave shipments. This is usually because some backers don't want to wait for the last item to be produced -- it's different from backer to backer.
Also, you have to consider the risk of non-production for later waves. This can be a particular issue for KS that grew too big, or in some cases geo-political issues. One classic example would the the Robotech Tactics KS which produced one wave, and then promptly strung out the other waves into non-existence. However, there are other KS that because they hit sudden production cost increases, they were unable to fully fulfill subsequent waves.
So, it's both backer preference -- I feel most would prefer periodic shipments, maybe by quarter for consolidated shipping -- and also risk mitigation, in case some bad things happen to either the KS people or the production chain.