Box Inserts

Almost none of my games have the original inserts. If a box is fairly empty I might keep it to just take up some space, but usually I toss them, especially after bagging everything. As I've mentioned in the past, I like making custom inserts (as seen here ) and boxes.

Baggies, plastic accessories box, or my goal: combination of foamcore and plastic boxes.

repoman wrote: There is a reason zip lock bags were invented people.

Sandwiches?

Josh Look wrote:

repoman wrote: There is a reason zip lock bags were invented people.

Sandwiches?

No way, man. Wrap-top bags only. Ziplocs seal in moisture, which makes the bread soggy. Wrap-tops keep things dry without allowing them to totally dry out.

Ziplocs: Only for Game Components.

/thread derail

I would like to report that one of my favorite DOAM games has a very expensive custom insert that is 100% garbage.

CTHULHU WARS.

Petersen Games must have spent a fortune for this insert. The problem is it "protects" seven brick shithouse miniatures while the dozens of tiny sculpts are tossed into bags and barely crammed into negative cavities.

When I find a few spare hours, I'll create my own CW inserts with foam core.

Jackwraith wrote:

Josh Look wrote:

repoman wrote: There is a reason zip lock bags were invented people.

Sandwiches?

No way, man. Wrap-top bags only. Ziplocs seal in moisture, which makes the bread soggy. Wrap-tops keep things dry without allowing them to totally dry out.

Ziplocs: Only for Game Components.

/thread derail

Methamphetamines are sensitive to moisture as well.

I leave the insert in until the moment that it becomes more trouble than it's worth. My Ticket to Ride Europe still has its insert in it (my current record holder), because it still works.

I've given up all romance for the trappings of board games. I want to be able to throw a bag of pieces at someone and go, so anything that makes me segregate the parts in a way that doesn't fit that model is an impediment.

Game companies still seem to be designing them for long-term use, but it's pretty rare they get past two or three plays with me. And frankly, I beat my games, typically advertise them as "playable" when I put them up for trade or sale. Anyone worried about whether an insert is still in the box doesn't get past that word.

So, I'll tell you what affects resale value for me -- getting Silent Victory in a game-trade with a Plano box in it and all the pieces sorted into place -- that's a box insert worth having. Got my Merchant of Venus here in a math trade with a Plano in it too. So apparently I do care about box inserts, just not the cheesy ones that come with the game.

S.

Josh Look wrote: Firefly is probably my favorite game of the last 10 years, and I ponied up for one of those wooden ones. Not the insane Broken Token one, but a smaller one, don’t remember where I found it. The thing is a godsend, I love it. I still have to keep the boards in one of the bigger expansion boxes, but everything else is in the base game box. You can just take the inserts out, put the boards on the table, and you’re mostly ready to play.

For all the bitching about dumb shit like not enough room for sleeved cards (spit) and no solo play (spit) the people do on BGG, you’d think they’d be kicking up a veritable shitstorm over how inexcusably bad FFG’s inserts are.

I had no idea that people were selling custom inserts for specific games. That Broken Token Firefly box is stunning, but I could never justify spending that much on it.

Disgustipater wrote: Almost none of my games have the original inserts. If a box is fairly empty I might keep it to just take up some space, but usually I toss them, especially after bagging everything.

There are a few games in my collection where I actually kept the punched counter sheets in the game, because they fill up the space between the insert and the lid and keep the box top from sagging under the weight of other games stacked above.

One of the best inserts I've seen recently is the one for Ghostbusters: Protect the Barrier. It has a couple large cavities for the ghosts and player pawns - which is fairly unsurprising - but it also has spots for the board, cardboard tokens, Rowan mini and the cards. It also has some neat dripping slime patterns in raised relief in the plastic.

Another good one is for Monopoly Gamer where there's also a place for everything, including a cardboard panel to cover up the storage areas for the expansion characters if you don't have any.

As for hobby games, I throw every insert away because it usually seems like they exist to cushion the contents during shipment rather than aid in organizing the game once it's open and punched. Bags are okay for games with only a few types of tokens, but for anything with a lot of types I prefer Plano containers. One of my favorite storage ideas was to use a smaller, multi-compartment Plano container (I think it had something like 15 or so compartments) to organize the culture tokens from Merchant of Venus. Each compartment gets all of the goods and markers for each culture and it's a hell of a lot faster than lining everything up next to the board.

drewcula wrote: When I find a few spare hours, I'll create my own CW inserts with foam core.

I cribbed the design for a foam core CW insert from a thread on TOS and after modification I was able to fit the following in the core box: the minis for the first 8 factions (including High Priests), the 3D plastic gates, and the first player marker. A couple of the monsters have to hang out with a different faction and you have to play a little miniatures Tetris to get it all in but everything fits pretty well.

SB.
I need to see pics of your CW insert! It sounds amazing. Scary amazing.

I always like the idea of a fancy storage system. I'm a cheapskate, so I never go the fancy Plano route (and I can't even start to understand paying the prices Broken Token wants) anymore. What'll usually happen is that I punch a game, and try and figure out how the hell to sort things. I usually don't want to use one baggie per token type, because that gives you a billion bags with a few tokens in each, so I try and combine, but since I haven't read rules yet, I don't know how to sort them logically.

Then I play it, figure out a better way, and re-jigger things in a really clever way. Then I play it again, go to pack it up, completely forget my clever sorting method, wind up just getting stuff in bags, and wonder why I've got two extra bags at the end.

I really like games where I can stuff all the bits for each player in a single bag, and just hand them out. People have to sort them out, but that gives them something to do while they're listening to rules.

Chaz wrote: Then I play it again, go to pack it up, completely forget my clever sorting method, wind up just getting stuff in bags, and wonder why I've got two extra bags at the end.

Protip: aside from using some labels, one trick is to leave a single token in each bag.

Frohike wrote:

Chaz wrote: Then I play it again, go to pack it up, completely forget my clever sorting method, wind up just getting stuff in bags, and wonder why I've got two extra bags at the end.

Protip: aside from using some labels, one trick is to leave a single token in each bag.

That's crazy talk.

You can write on the bags with a sharpie.

drewcula wrote: SB. I need to see pics of your CW insert! It sounds amazing. Scary amazing.

My plans - with dimensions - are here and here . Disregard the labels denoting what goes where since that's changed with my acquisition of Windwalker and Tcho Tcho. As I said, I didn't come up with this general storage idea, I just made it better. One of the biggest changes I made was eliminating the layer of foam core on the bottom of the lower organizer, giving me 5 mm more vertical storage (why I measured in mm this particular day is lost to the sands of time).

Here are what all the stored figures look like.

The top trays (note the thumb holes in the larger tray for facilitating easy removal, one can be seen near the Windwalker figs):



The bottom organizer:



If one loads each bay with figures from largest to smallest they actually fit rather well with a minimum of fuss, but the Opener's Spawns of Yog-Sothoth have to hang out with Hastur and Cthulhu, and Windwalker's Rhan-Tegoth is in with the Tcho Tcho. The Doom and Ritual tracks sit diagonally on top of the bottom organizer but everything else - cultists and spellbooks for each faction in individual bags, rulebooks, faction boards, base game map, etc. - fits into a faction expansion box. Keeping in mind that I own everything up through Onslaught 2, all neutral monsters fit in another faction box and the neutral GOO's fit in a third.

I'm sure one could remove a faction or two from my organization system to include a small selection of neutrals for transport to a game day but I haven't yet felt the need to add them.