Boardgaming in 2018!

I mentioned before, I bought 4 Plano boxes from Amazon. Cheap, and plenty effective.

Edit: basically this:

People have made printable guides for them, etc. Check the file section.

Ooohhh … that’s awesome and super-cheap. Thank you.

I use envelopes for the monster stat and ability cards, and two fishing-stuff boxes for the tokens.

I’ve been watching the price on Amazon, and it keeps fluctuating pretty significantly. A few days ago it was actually priced at about $115 before jumping up to $200.

I pulled the trigger today at $135. Super excited!

Yup my copy is officially on the way!

My only regret about buying Gloomhaven is that I can’t play it yet! My wife has been super busy at work and doesn’t have the energy to play a game at night, so we haven’t made any progress in out Pandemic Legacy Season 2 game we need to finish. We’ve been stuck in August for a couple weeks now.

I’ve organized the same way.

Tokens and overlays in two Plano boxes, organized and labelled from @Don_Quixote’s link.
Monsters in CD/DVD sleeves.
A small box with frequently used cards (Monster attack, bless/curse, current items, scenario goals).
Cards not in immediate use are bagged and stay in the box.
Boards slide in small gaps along the sides and stack on top. I try to keep them in alphabetical order to limit time hunting for the correct tile.
Current characters each get a small box with their stuff. These don’t fit inside the game box, but @Scotch_Lufkin’s dice solution might allow the removal of the HP/XP dials for a smaller footprint which might fit.

I ‘finished’ my first game of Mage Knight a few minutes ago. I use finished in the loosest possible manner, because it is more that I gave up about 1/2 way thru (solo)

I didn’t give up because I was frustrated, I gave up because I was tired of learning the rules. I will now let it sit for a few days or a few weeks so I can absorb the basics I learned and watch some videos on YouTube.

My first impressions of the game are extremely positive. It is clear to me that once I figure out all the in’s and out’s, the game is going to be something I pull out all the time and play. The warnings about the complicated nature of the game were well warranted, but I actually didn’t find it to be as bad as I feared.

I only played the tutorial scenario (recon). Normally when you play solo, it recommends that you play with a dummy player… but since I was a complete noob the game recommended playing without a dummy player so you don’t have any pressure. This is what ultimately made me shelve it for today - as after two rounds I realized that going from turn to turn was kind of pointless without the pressure of another player clearing their deck and declaring the end of the round.

Still, I was able to defeat a few orcs, hired a couple of units, got some advanced actions, explored a couple of tiles, and generally had a good time with it. I made two critical errors

  1. I didn’t play on a big enough table, so that became frustrating
  2. My first round I discarded my entire hand at the end of my turn, rather than keeping unplayed cards and drawing back up to 5

I had a little confusion around mana tokens vs mana crystals (they appear as the same thing, but the language used to acquire them seems to determine whether they are a token or a crystal)

With that being said, I didn’t get any items, or wounds on my hero (my units got wounded), or had any spells, or attacked any keeps or mage towers, or…

I’m hopeful that next game I complete the tutorial level, and then after that I complete a normal scenario… and hopefully then I will know enough to possibly bring someone else into the fold to play it with me.

Great game - I can see it being a lot of fun.

If you stick with it, especially for solo play, I highly recommend picking up The Lost Legion. Volkare is a much more engaging opponent than a dummy player.

I’ve been watching the series of videos from this guy on YouTube:

He is generally a solo player, and does a really good job of playing a solo game explaining his thought process as well as all the obscure rules. So, far, it looks like I wasn’t too far off from the correct rules (I noticed that I messed up the mana source as well).

He talks about the Lost Legion, and if I can get through a few games, then I think I will pick it up. I also found a mobile app for the dummy player, but i haven’t really been able to make heads or tails of it yet.

My Gloomhaven upgrade pack arrived today. Aaand apparently I also ordered Forge War, the designer’s first game, and immediately forgot all about it, because I received that as well.

Does anyone have any experience making foamcore internals for their boxes? I tried making one and it’s uneven and the pieces slide out the bottoms. Thinking I may have to glue the bottoms down. Any ideas?

I just purchased Gloomhaven from a guy who spent three hours punching its counters and setting up the broken token organizer, then decided it wasn’t for him. So its basically mint. I got the game, the organizer and the removable sticker set for $210 including shipping. Not a real discount, but it saved me hours of tedious punching. He packed it up carefully and shipped it two-day.

So now its in my grubby little paws. Hoping to find time this weekend to play the first scenario and learn the game!

One of the guys at my weekly meetup makes these and his look and work great. I asked him how he made them and he said with foam core, glue and a very sharp blade. I gathered that measuring the dimensions and cutting the board precisely were the keys. He wanted the angles as square as possible and the connections as flat as possible. He brought Dinosaur Island 2 weeks ago, with inserts, and the packaging worked great.

I did make two for Eldritch Horror. Planning is important, which is why I made two!

I did glue my foamcore dividers down. I use PVA (craft) glue, with small map pins to hold things in place until the glue sets. For cutting the foamcore you’ll want a steel ruler at the very least to measure and guide the cut, and a very sharp blade. In my experience, light pressure when cutting into the foamcore is best, gradually increasing to neatly slice through it. Essentially, I’m making multiple passes into the board which helps in making a nice edge. Unfortunately, getting the slice straight I find difficult, and in a sense the map pins help to cater to any uneveness with the edges when it comes to gluing.

In my experience, it was and is a time consuming process that takes patience and practice admittedly. I say that as someone who needs to make an insert for a few other games yet.

Anyone here play Lords of Hellas? I’m now regretting not kick starting this and want to here how it is.

Played Yokohama for the first time yesterday. I thought it was decent but not in my top tier of Euros. My current favorite Euros are Feast for Odin and Gaia Project.

On the topic of Gaia Project, I tried playing some Terra Mystica on Steam this week and I just couldn’t go back. The less insanely-locked-in map of Gaia Project, the better implementation of the tech track replacing the cult track, and a few other refinements just made Terra Mystica seem old and busted. YMMV.

I’ve made a few. Here’s my tips, a lot of which will echo Strato’s advice.

  1. There are a ton of plans over at BoardGameGeek. There are some who like to make their own plans, but I find it a lot easier to look through existing ones and go from there. Don’t forget to account for things like sleeves and such.

  2. A few basic tools are important. Long metal ruler - I prefer one that’s cork-backed to reduce slipping. Sharp blade - I use a box cutter with a new blade for each project. Glue - lots of different opinions here, but I like Aileen’s Tacky Glue because it gets tacky quick but still allows some give when you join the pieces. Dressmaker’s pins for holding the parts together. Square - I have a short square to help making sure my lines are straight. Self-healing mat or some other surface you don’t have to worry about cutting into.

  3. Take your time with the measurements. If your first lines aren’t straight, you’ll end up getting worse as you cut additional pieces out of the foamboard, not to mention you’ll have a harder time joining pieces.

  4. Don’t try to do your cuts in one pass. As Strato mentioned, a soft initial cut to break the surface of the board is best, then 2 or 3 additional cuts to get all the way through.

  5. For trays and such with multiple dividers, I like to put marks on the walls before joining so I don’t have to worry about measuring and aligning.

  6. Use the pins when joining to help hold the pieces in place. Some people leave the pins in for extra reinforcement. I will do this on the pieces I think might get the most strain. The pins are really, really cheap.

  7. Have fun with it. I made a ton of mistakes in my first insert, but learned a lot. My second one had a few issues, but the cuts were a lot straighter. Like anything, you’ll get better with each build.

There are some sites with pre-developed plans and some tutorial videos.

I can’t believe how well the foamboard sticks to itself with simple white glue. It’s amazing, if I had known it was this easy I would have done it years ago.

I was intimidated because I thought I was going to have to cut out a bunch of joists and stuff but the glue works like magic. I guess I’ve done too much woodworking. Took me about 2 hours but I made some nice trays. Will post pics later.

I did see some next level stuff online where a guy was making detailed foamcore buildings with textured brick and wood, rust spots, rivets, the whole nine yards. That’s more for terrain building though for miniatures.