Boardgaming in 2020: the year of the, uh, post-minis era? We can only hope!

Yeah, I’m waiting to see if Broken Token (or another insert company) does an update to reflect all of the current TM content, personally.

I think you’re just going to run out of box space, frankly. With the new player mats and the Turmoil boards, the lid is resting about half a cm above the base.

It might need to use an expansion box, yeah. Or do one of their crates. But the current one was designed for base game plus Venus Next, Preludes and the two other Mars boards, not Colonies or Turmoil.

Do you log your play on BoardGameGeek or through an app that syncs with it (like BG Stats)? If so, you might get a kick out of this:

https://playback.geekgroup.app/

See your played games appear and switch position as the plays are added chronologically in the graph.

Found here:

Speaking of box inserts, I recently started carrying Folded Space inserts at the store and I really like them. They’re foamcore instead of wood so cost 1/4 as much as their Broken Token counterparts. The one I got for Terraforming Mars holds all of the expansions (and extra board) in the core box. Really liking these.

I have the Mysterium Folded Space insert and it’s neat. Nice organisation of the tokens, cards and components. It also holds the expansion cards.

For games that don’t have a ton of heavy components, I think they are worth considering as a replacement insert at a reasonable price.

Game night last night, played more 4-player Root, still loving it. Got to be Vagabond for the first time and pulled off a win with Harrier (who starts with crossbow and sword and can play very aggressively). Landed a 10-pt turn to jettison me into the lead by slaughtering a family of moles and razing 3 of their structures while sipping on some tea. Vagabond is definitely my favorite so far, as he has so many interesting ways to score points. He wins perhaps too easily because there’s no immediate incentive to attack him - you don’t get any VP for breaking his stuff. But it’s clear that someone needs to take a potshot at Vagabond, early-game, before he has 2+ swords to at least set him back a turn.

At it’s best, Root is a fascinating endeavor in staying in the running while deflecting attention away from yourself, collaboratively balancing the board-state with the other players, until you find that sweet opportunity to pop 10+ points, absorb a last desperately intense barrage from the other players, and limp across for the win. At it’s worst, it’s a game where you feel the designer standing behind your shoulder whispering, “That’s not how you’re supposed to play that faction…”

Doesn’t foam degrade overtime or are they doing something to avoid that. I have a really, really hard time paying more for inserts than I do the game. I generally don’t use them as a result.

I think they’re laminated which probably helps.

Yeah the foam is sandwiched between another material.

Typically a coated 10pt paperboard.

It does look nice (and I might have gone for it instead of the e-Raptor one had I known about it), but they do say it doesn’t store all the Turmoil components in the core box, and also that if your cards are sleeved, it can’t store Colonies. If I hadn’t sleeved my cards, I don’t think I’d have any issues fitting everything in, and even as it is, it’s all in the box, just not quite as neat as I’d like. It’s nearly the same cost as I paid for the e-Raptor one though, so it would be a bit of a toss-up. The Folded Space one does look better for playing with though as the individual trays can be handed around.

I managed to get the turmoil stuff in there as well, but I do not sleeve my cards.

Yeah, it’s foam core, not foam (most likely).

There are tons of instructions out there for making your own foam core inserts for games. It’s pretty straightforward, if you’re at all handy (I’m not, and I still kind of mangle the stuff together), and it’s pretty cheap to do.

Yeah, my buddy James’s brother is pretty handy with tools and the like and makes him nice foamcore inserts for a couple of elaborate boardgames every Xmas and birthday. He’s got a decent little collection now!

I wish I knew someone like that. Or had better spatial layout skills myself. I think I might be able to do the actual cutting out, but my problem is the stuff I really want better inserts for are expensive games with small audiences (which is to say, Kickstarter stuff that’s more niche than your Gloomhavens or CMON releases or similar) and I haven’t seen foamcore designs for them, much less insert company support. And I can’t imagine me coming up with one on my own.

I say we just take old memory foam pillows, stick it in a box and cram our pieces into it. Like storing them in marshmallow fluff! Except, you know, less sticky.

Big week for new games!













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I was like “wait why is Anachrony at retail when I don’t have mine from Kickstarter yet?” but it looks like that’s just a reprint of older content and not the new expansion I backed (w/ older stuff bundled and special box). So that’s all right then.

Regarding Folded Space inserts, I found this page about the material it’s made out of: