I got Russian destroyers in ANZAC color instead of ANZAC cruisers.
My Piece Compartments Solution
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Hi folks, I decided to start a fresh thread on this topic after seeing this one: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=16418.0 . Primarily, the solution in that thread points to another site, so I though you might like a local alternative.
If it’s an Avalon Hill game that I love (started with Advanced Civ), then I’ll want compartment storage for all the many parts. I never did care for sifting through game pieces as though it was a box of Legos. That desire had never been more evident than when I opened Pacific1940. I could tell right away from the sheer number of different types of pieces that I wouldn’t be able to buy a bunch of plastic organizer boxes and have them fit in the game box without raising the lid height.
So I knew I would have to compartmentalize the existing boxes. But would there be enough room to stick your fingers in all the little compartments, and what would I use for the dividing material? It couldnt be too thin because it needed to withstand frequent use. It couldnt be too thick because that would use up too much room.
To look at me, one could tell I was truely pained as I stared at the predicament. And what nubile comments would my friends make as they realized I had done nothing to resolve this tired recurring dilemma? My girlfriend apparently felt enough empathy for me that she kept her eyes out when she went craft shopping.
As such, she found herself in WallyMart the next day, eyeing a 24x36 sheet of black foamboard. Not only was it black on both sides, but the interior foam was dyed the same color, and it was only $3! She picked it up without hesitation, texted me that she had a surprise, and then dropped it off later that night before heading out for a babysitting gig.
When I saw it in the living room, I knew it was perfect. I could cut board strips with scissored knocks and then Elmers glue them down into the boxes. It would be detail work, but if done slowly with lots of rechecking, I would have not only the best, but the cheapest compartment solution of all my games. I set about the deed in the following order…
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Measure the lengthwise strip and cut a test piece. The test piece (as all pieces) was cut with a radial arm saw for perfection. Ahhhh, what cant the mighty radial arm saw do?
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Once I had cut and trimmed the lengthwise piece (of which I would need 10), I did the same for the perpendicular pieces (of which I would need 20). I cut a few extra for each for the inevitable mistakes.
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I then used scissors to cut knocks into the lengthwise and perpendicular pieces as my “molds”, if you will. The knocks were half cuts about the width of the foamboard so that they would connect together like lincoln logs.
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Once I was satisfied with the placement of the knocks, I used the molds to cut all the remaining pieces.
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I then fitted all the gridworks together and placed them in their boxes to ensure a clean fit. Only a light amount of trimming was needed.
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For USA, UK, Japan and ANZAC, I cut off a piece to make room for the infantry.
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For China, since they have only infantry, I cut a few extra pieces off for a special gridwork to contain all the nonCountry specific parts that could be used by all the players.
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I then used Elmers glue to line the bottom of the gridworks and seated them firmly in place.
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Then I dripped some additional Elmers down the sides of the vertical edges (around the perimeter).
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I then took the 5 boxes and then lined them up against each other on my work bench, with bricks on either side to mash them together (to properly set the vertical glue).
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I also set a weighty object on top of each gridwork to properly set the base glue (everything needs to be edge to edge to avoid pieces sliding under the walling).
After that, it was a matter of waiting 24 hours. Elmers is very strong and dries clear, but it takes a long time to set. Below are some pics of the finished products. I apologize for not having pics of the work in progress. I did not realize at the time that other folks might be interested. If you’re curious, I’d say it took about 4 to 5 hours at the snails pace I was working. There wasnt a whole lot of the foamboard left (about a foot square), but that’s sufficient wiggle room for additional blunders. When all was said and done, I had no trouble reaching in and selecting pieces as needed.
Here is Japan and the USA. Japan of course has the most pieces, but everything fit without difficulty, with the exception of the US bombers. I had to do a little wiggling to get them all in. I had the same problem with the 2004 Edition A & A. The US planes are always bigger.
ANZAC and the UK. You’ll notice there’s slightly more room in the middle compartments than in the left two sets of compartments. This is true of all the boxes because I used a mold to cut them. I did not actually intend to do this. It was accidental, but it turned out to be necessary!
I knew China would be my “everything box” because of the available space. I added a pair of tweezers for fear that it might be difficult to get some of those cardboard naval bases and the like out in a convenient fashion. Note that I haven’t needed the tweezers, but I dont want to have to even think about the concern.
Here’s a shot of the remnant of the foamboard. It’s about a quarter inch thick and has little flexibility. You can see I used the radial to slice a series of strips before I cut them off to reduce individual measuring. I realize radial arm saws are a rarity in households, so you’d probably have to use scissors, but I would not recommend exacto knives. They tend to stray off course. And once they have, it’s hard to get them back on track without seriously messing up the edge.
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Nice job. You could probably sell those.
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You use a radial arm saw to cut foam board?? What kind of blade are you using? Although I haven’t tried it, I can only imagine the mess my rough-cut blade would make of the foam board! There wouldn’t be anything left!
I have been using a utility knife to cut my foam board, but it is a major pain in the a$$. If a power saw really worked, and left a nice edge, I would do that in a heartbeat!
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It wasn’t a perfect edge, like you’d see on thick plywood, but it was very straight. This foamboard is foam in the center and thick cardstock on the outside. That reduces the ripping a radial might do if it was pure foam. I used a standard crosscut blade, taking into account the thickness of the blade in my measuring. I grew up with a radial arm saw and purchased one the moment I bought a house, so I have a few decades of experience with them.
Edit: For a handheld alternative, you might consider a jigsaw with very fine teeth. Thinner blade and lighter tool.
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@Brain:
Do you still have all of your fingers?
It’s easy to get complacent using any tool when mired in many cuts. But a radial arm saw can send a 2x4 through a wall. One must exercise caution when using any tool that operates on a track.
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@Brain:
Do you still have all of your fingers?
It’s easy to get complacent using any tool when mired in many cuts. But a radial arm saw can send a 2x4 through a wall. One must exercise caution when using any tool that operates on a track.
Yes, all power tools are dangerous. I used to watch Tim Allen on Tool Time. :-D
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That’s a nice job.
In the end though, since I’m stripping my A&A 1942 Ed. for extra pieces anyways and I need more room, I went with 5 plastic “bead sorting boxes” from Michaels (craft store) at $2.99 apiece. The only modification they required was that 3 of the 25 compartments have walls removed via exacto knife so that they fit my infantry, carriers, and battleships.
I figure I’ll pick up four more when they have a sale and we’re close to the Europe A&A 1940 release and I can get between 25% and 40% off.
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I went with 5 plastic “bead sorting boxes” from Michaels (craft store) at $2.99 apiece. The only modification they required was that 3 of the 25 compartments have walls removed via exacto knife so that they fit my infantry, carriers, and battleships.
How about some pictures?
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When I was on the hunt for plastic boxes for A&A 2004, I found several product types for which to compare storage bins. For example, in Walmart…
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You can hunt in the crafts sections for sewing organizers.
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You can eyeball the cosmetics and costume jewelry aisles for those types of organizers.
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The sporting goods section has small flat transparent tackle boxes (which I found the most useful because you get dividers).
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Occasionally, the large storage bin section has small organizers.
Effectively, these are all the same thing, but the supposed different functions gives you more choices in shape and option.
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@Brain:
How about some pictures?
Why certainly!
A picture of -from left to right- my Axis AA Gun, Allied AA Gun, Major IC, and Minor IC. You’ll see that the Minor IC has had the 2nd smokestack lopped off at an angle to match the contour of the roof, and then been painted to match the rest of the building and roof. Came out quite well I think.Major IC has fire engine red sides, a black roof, and silver stacks. Minor IC has dark red “wine” colored sides, brown roof, and black stack.
Another picture of my currently painted pieces.
This is my standard box. The only compartments that were modified in each were the infantry, battleships, and carriers which were doubled in size by removing 1 adjacent compartment partition.
This is my China & General Box, which you can see is modified slightly differently to accommodate my Major and Minor ICs. I’ll also have room for the custom Naval Base and Airfield tokens arriving from LITKO soon.
Here’s all my boxes filled and stacked. Boy I have a lot of painting to do!
This is the brand and only packaging (other than clear plastic) for the boxes I bought so you can find the exact ones I got. Again, I got them from Michaels, they were $2.99 apiece. -
Those boxes look perfect for A&A, Thank you for the pictures
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WRT the original poster: Your solution reminds me of the original white foam boxes that came with the old A&A (2nd Edition it is? Not sure)
It’s the first A&A game my playgroup used, after which we jumped to Revised (no boxes at all), onwards to AA50 (yes, boxes!..but with only 3 huge compartments) and now AAP40 (yes, boxes!..no dividers at all…).
It’s amazing to see that the original AA, fabricated and published in what, the 80’s? …had the best boxes of all versions, and that how the game evolves, such attributes get lesser and lesser in quality and usability. (You’d think that the test playgroup would notice such annoying things aswell?)Anyhew…I went with the boardgamegeek solution yesterday, and it’s not bad…but looking at yours I think I might have to do it all over again.
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@Craig:
(You’d think that the test playgroup would notice such annoying things as well?)
We playtesters don’t get material from the company, especially not things like plastic parts, containers, etc.
Well…that explains a whole lot of things.
I thought the playtesters would get the actual thing before launch aswell, and there’d be room to adress remarks still.No wonder. I kept thinking “Why did those playtesters didnt get pissed or frustrated by the lack of <insert all=”" those=“” random=“” issues=“” here=“”>"
Thanks for clearing that up.</insert>
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GDFTigerTank - what are the dimensions of those boxes? Ive seen several like that, but the ones I’ve seen would never fit in the game box. My goal is always fit comfortable organizers in the original game box without raising the game box lid. But that’s probably just my own personality quirk.
Woodstock - The 1984 A&A, which wasn’t actually the original, had white styrofoam containers, not dissimilar than my solution. They were very fragile and didnt fit the poker chips very well, but it was a good design for sure. The original game was released in 1981 by Nova Game Designs, although I’ve never seen that edition. Thank you for the compliment! I was very pleased with the results myself.
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No these containers will not all fit inside the original box. They are each about the side of a generic hard cover book.
I agree it would be awesome if they all fit inside the box - like the old Styrofoam containers . However, I now have the luxury of having a 94"x44" permanent war gaming table and I intend on leaving most of the game components out on that table, thus these boxes will work perfectly because I’ll have virtually no need to ever put the game or compents back in the original box. :evil:
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We he said they got the rules and Map files from Larry. That doesn’t mean that when WOTC drew them up/typed them up for printing in the factory that they copied them over correctly. And you never know, maybe they were using 1980s word processing software with no spell check to save $$$ on corporate Microsoft Office licenses.
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@Brain:
@Craig:
(You’d think that the test playgroup would notice such annoying things as well?)
We playtesters don’t get material from the company, especially not things like plastic parts, containers, etc. We have to use whatever we already have. We just get the rules and map files from Larry and go from there.
Well at least you could have fixed the rules.
I wonder with what setup they played. Major IC & Minor IC for Anzac?
Woodstock - The 1984 A&A, which wasn’t actually the original, had white styrofoam containers, not dissimilar than my solution. They were very fragile and didnt fit the poker chips very well, but it was a good design for sure. The original game was released in 1981 by Nova Game Designs, although I’ve never seen that edition. Thank you for the compliment! I was very pleased with the results myself.
Sorry 'bout the error about the original (Heck, I’m from 1982, my bro got the game in '89, so Im allowed to make mistakes :) )
As for fragilness (sp?): Those white styrofoam containers still are intact, and that after +20 years of usage. I actually don’t see that happening with the paper containers now included.
As for the poker chips…these fit perfectly in the containers we had?Oh well…doesn’t matter anyways…it still amazes me how WoTC craps up like this in every single version of A&A that I bought.
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@Craig:
We concentrated on our work as it related to the Europe and Global rules and map. I think that we did a good job of making sure things are in good shape for those games.
Have you seen the official map?? ;)
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