[unofficial weekender] Yo, I hear you like organizers. So we got you organizers.

[sundancer 42900xp 3]

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First time visitor to OTT? Then please introduce yourself in the New Member Thread and look around in the Project System. Then come back and read on…

Introduce yourselves (New member thread)

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/

Read all of this before you start as it will save you any trouble later.

First thing you must do is make your “pledge”. It can be anything gaming related, big or small, and you don’t even have to finish it. No, in here, happiness is the road. Have fun doing whatever it is, but it is not a race. Accompany your work with pictures or we might think you are do something sinister and just using us for cover.

You are also presented with a few questions. It is to get the conversation started. Try and keep your answers ‘conversational’, no text speak, and certainly no “basically”. This is how we all get to know each other better. While you are here feel free to tell us a story, show a picture, joke, tales of love or woe, or just add your own little bit. This is the whole point…in here it is just us.

If you have never taken part before we may bark and bite, but we also like a cuddle! It is all done in the best possible taste and it is character building. feel free to give as good as you get.

A few other things to note: NO RELIGION & NO POLITICS! Glasgow pub rules are in effect. If you need to make a better point then it is fine, but don’t take the piss. And always keep it civil.

Play plenty of music to go with your work. Loud and through proper speakers. Write us a playlist of things we might not have heard before.

Now, after all of that there is only one ‘real’ rule in here and it cannot be broken: NO DICKS! (Exceptions may be made for little fighting men with little plastic/resin/metal wieners)

And don’t forget the highlights of the weekend: The Weekender on Friday and XLBS on Sunday. And the little show that is the unofficial Hobby Hangout over at twitch.tv

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This weeks topic:

Yes my friends no questions as such but a topic for discussion. Organizers and inlays.

We all know that our wargames usually don’t stay at a size level from where we started that will fit in the original box. We are used to and expect it to grow. Be it by the means of more minis, additional books and cards or new factions. So us wargamers are often using clever things to keep things at a manageable level of chaos. Compartmentalized boxes, bags of tokens, magnets and metal sheet for storage and transportation etc. Usually the amount of small fiddly bits does not directly reflect the level of complexity in a game and also the need for an ever expanding storage solution is taken as a fact. It’s how tabletop wargaming works.

Enter: board games. Here I feel the amount of boxes, bags and organizers you need to get things sorted directly tell you something about the complexity of the game. Also most games that are above a game piece count from Monopoly and the like tend to never go back into the box. And that’s something that drives me mad. You buy a box, everything fits in it. You remove the tokens and pieces from the card board punch outs and suddenly the lid doesn’t close any more… even though there is now less material in the box. And some games get so convoluted with tokens and pieces that you either need an extra hour for gaming (because it takes so set up when you need to search for every piece) or you need boxes and inlays and inserts to keep everything manageable.

So how do you feel about the correlation of game to “organizers” in regards of fun, complexity and all? Discuss!

And now back to the show.

[sundancer 42900xp 3]

Pledge: continue work on my Heresy Miniatures minis

Answer: So from what I have written in the initial post you might have guessed where my stance on this is. For discussion sake I’ll try to make some short statements.

Tabletop miniature wargaming (aka “our hobby”): The need to organize the shit out of stuff comes as something that’s just backed into the DNA of the games. Army Lists, companies, rank and file. It’s all part of it. And for some it’s an enjoyable aspect of the hobby to have everything sit neat and tidy in some boxes or shelves.

Board games: Dear manufacturers, could you please fucking NOT? I get that people like different complexities in their games but when I get a game like Descent that has 3 books (one for rules, two for campaigns with even more rules), dynamic maps with tiles that are just not organizable in any reasonable way, a butt load of different cards and tokens… the sheer prep work for every game setup is mental. Also, while I’m at it, do a fucking prober index. If your cards and tokens all have different names that are not easily assigned to them (aka you read the text and can see what card it refers to) then do a bloody index and a list of “this is a card for such and such” and put a fucking picture next to it. That adds one, maybe to pieces of paper to each box but makes it much more easier to set things up if your not gaming 24/7 or something…

All in all I don’t mind organizing with miniature wargaming. It’s a collectible hobby. But boardgames… *sighs* I don’t want organizers in my organizers to organize my organizers so that I can fit some more organizers and bags…

I need a drink.

[vladvondrakParticipant 278xp 1]

Trying to figure out how to get built models cards tiles etc in the original dungeon  box. Presently models are in smaller boxes no padding loose. Gee Dub models are rather fragile to say the least. So looking for ideas.

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

Have you looked at things like foam inserts from companies like Feldherr?

https://www.feldherr.com/

[vladvondrakParticipant 278xp 1]

they have 2/3rd Ed inserts for normal and blitzbowl. To be honest money is tight so looking for alternatives which I can diy . Have plenty is polystyrene (styrofoam)sheets.

[sundancer 42900xp 1]

Well then look at the way companies like Feldherr cut their foam and replicate that? Takes some time and patience but you only need to do the handy work as the thinking has been done by others.

[demonsub 12746xp 2]

My pledge is to paint a giant Mr Hyde style teddy bear that’s drank something it shouldn’t have. Also we’re playing Gaslands tomorrow and that’s always fun.

 

So I recently got an all in pledge reward for Corespace. It’s come with so many tokens, cardboard terrain, miniature and cards that it took quite a bit or organising. To be fair it kind of straddles it gap between board game and wargame but the shear sorting of all of the tokens took a bit of though, but most of it does fit in the box.

In general I save all of my ziplock bags and use them a lot with the board games I have. I also put excess stuff that won’t fit into Really Useful plastic storage tubs.

I would prefer to fit everything of a board game into the one box, and games like Escape The Dark Castle offered a very big box with inlays capable of storing the whole set, including add-on.

I’m not too fussed if the miniatures from a board game no longer fit into the box, especially when painted as I have plenty of miniature cases, and cheaper cases like KR Multicase are pretty good.

[danlee 22433xp 2]

This weeks pledge is to finish my ork “toy”. I had to decide to paint that rather than the 10mm elves as its too big to actually store away anywhere.

 

I’m not a massive boardgamer but the few I have I find to be variable in organisation requirements. Kingdom Death has a lot of setup but is really well thought out in terms of sorting cards etc. Tainted Grail isn’t that complex but I found it was easier to buy a 3rd party laser cut player station to hold all my player cards. It makes setup so much quicker.

[limburger 21668xp 1]

I’ve got a few boardgames from various kickstarters that came with build-in organizer (‘gametrayz’) …
I’ve also got a few boardgames that have more air than actual content, which kind of changes the problem from ‘not enough’ to ‘too much’ space for storage.

I think the problem is that boxes are designed to make shipping games easy.
There is either a magic minimum size (or maybe a factory standard?) that is supposed to make games look ‘big’ / ‘cool’ at retail.

As such ‘storage’ is the last thing on the list of things that they are designed for … so they tend to ignore it.
And it kind of sucks, because there are boxes with wonderful artwork that would look very cool if they could contain the game inside.

The insane amount of tokens and cards that (some) boardgames use also makes me wonder wether that is something manufacturers/designers do in order to make the game ‘worth its weight in gold’ …
I’m pretty sure that a lot of those tokens could be eliminated if they were to streamline the mechanics (do I really need a specific token for every status effect ?).

Which kind of reminds me of the idea that Warren had a while ago (I think it was before he moved house and was without internet) where he wanted to make a game with minimal rules.

Another way to eliminate clutter/tokens it to make an app that handles the rules … but I’m not a fan of apps that become essential for the game to work.

I haven’t had much time to work on my own app (and getting distracted by Cyberpunk 2077 … ), but I am hoping to have a little bit of me time this weekend.

[irredeemable 3742xp 1]

Hails all,

Pledge this week was supposed to be continuing work on my AdMech Datasmith. Base layers and washes are all down for the most part so I was just moving onto the more interesting detail work.

Sadly, Covid has finally caught up with me. Three days in and while the worst of the fatigue and headaches have subsided, I still have a noticeable blur in my vision when I look at anything closely. Painting just isn’t going to happen but I did build up some deck organisers I ordered from Feldherr.

Which ties me into today’s discussion quite handily. I’ve used Feldherr’s  organisers before but the only boardgame I got one for was Space Hulk and that was mainly to protect the painted minis. I was really impressed with the quality though. It came with a cardboard section complete with dividers for all the tiles and tokens and then a foam layer with shaped cut-outs for all the minis. You also got a map showing you where everything was supposed to go. Works brilliantly.

I have a long list of other boardgames I’d like organisers for and most of them are Fantasy Flight games, especially anything that had expansions. No amount of zip lock bags make Tannhauser’s hundreds of tokens organisable.

Zombicide Black Plague was another offender. Plastic trays inside that fit everything except the tokens when they’re punched out.

[limburger 21668xp 0]

I’ve seen MDF organizers designed to be inserted into the original boardgame boxes.

Google gave me the answer :
https://thebrokentoken.com/

 

[ced1106Participant 6224xp 0]

Plano boxes and similar soft-plastic trays. Inexpensive at the Walmart fish tackle section. Main problem, though, is that they’re not efficient for space, and what if you have a particularly large miniature? I organize by game or manufacturer, since most of my mini’s are 28mm generic fantasy.

3D printing. Haven’t done it yet, but I’m seeing an impressive amount of 3D printed not just storage trays, but accessories, such as deck holders, and player aids. These accessories are not financially feasible on the market — it’s a niche product that depends on your purchase of a niche product, and, of course, 3D printing has other hobby uses, such as paint stands, miniature holders, terrain, miniatures, etc. Also, 3D printing for storage and accessories can use plastic filaments, which avoid resin fumes, etc. of resin 3D printing.

[limburger 21668xp 0]

I think 3D printing has merely made the production of these kinds of niche things more visible (and possibly a bit more profitable as shipping a binary file is easier).

It’s not like people never used foamboard to create inserts for boardgames.
The big challenge was that you need to write instructions for others to replicate your ideas, which is hard.

With 3D printing people can publish their creations for others to replicate at practically zero effort (in part because 3D print hobbyists have ‘accepted’ the need to tweak such files …).

[sundancer 42900xp 1]

Main problem, though, is that they’re not efficient for space

@ced1106 I feel that’s a problem with most generic use boxes. If you buy stuff I feel you are left with two choices:

1. Buy custom made boxes/inlays/inserts for any given (mostly board-) game and be space efficient. But those are costly
2. Buy generic boxes and be prepared to waste some space.

@limburger that challenge reminds me of an episode of Twilight Zone where some kids wished that their parents would “only do what they tell them”…. went as well as the video you linked ,)

[limburger 21668xp 1]

there’s a reason why it’s called ‘generic’ aka ‘one size fits none’  😉

I do wish companies would put a bit more thought into re-packing a game once it has been unboxed.
Even if everything ‘fits’ it feels like playing inventory Tetris.

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