How do you organize huge, multi-box board games?

[Blackhawk]

I have a few games that have several boxes. Some prime offenders are Core Space (10 boxes), Sword & Sorcery (about 9, and the KS that I have coming will probably double that), Batman (18 boxes) and Conan (21 boxes.)

Now, some of them can be cut down a fair amount. Getting divider boxes and combining the miniatures shaves a number of boxes off of each one (Conan, for example, drops down to 10, plus one for the minis, and Batman becomes 9.) But that's still a lot of boxes, and they're full-sized board game boxes.

Does anyone have a good trick for consolidating these kinds of things other than buying a $150 pre-built organizer?

[AWS260]

To maximize space, you can melt all the plastic pieces together into a single, solid block.

[Smoove_B]

I do lots of bagging (miniatures, tokens) with a label from a Brother P-Touch and card bundling with plastibands. I have a lifetime supply of baggies from Plymor (off Amazon) in various sizes. Depending on the game you can sometimes get away with those foam block wedges to organize the cards and then strategically arrange the other materials around them.

Bagging the minis works if you seal them after painting and/or you're not overly concerned with the potential for scratching or rubbing. I can't say it's been a problem for me, but I'm painting for tabletop quality. If I put a lot of effort into something, It's going in my display case, not back in a box - I want to see it and enjoy it.

But yes, condensing and trying to reorganize games is how I spend about half my time lately. It's definitely a project. Once you get over the idea of keeping 1/2 empty boxes that are designed to get you the game, not store it long-term, it's certainly freeing. If you're still feeling conflicted about destroying supplemental boxes, I'd probably just cut the covers out and hang them as mini posters (or board gaming art). Slap them in a frame and now you're an official snob.

[Blackhawk]

Bagging is evil. The only thing I normally bag is card decks, and only to keep them together. I get jewelry organizers like these when they're on sale for $2 each:



For smaller games, all of the minis and tokens can go into one. For medium sized games, I have one for tokens and one for minis. If I'm lucky the plastic box fits inside the retail box. If not, it actually causes it to take up a little more space, but the ability to just open the box and play is worth it (and it doesn't take up that much space - all of the organizer boxes are the same size, so they store efficiently in their own area.)

But these would take a whole room of those boxes!

But yes, condensing and trying to reorganize games is how I spend about half my time lately. It's definitely a project. Once you get over the idea of keeping 1/2 empty boxes that are designed to get you the game, not store it long-term, it's certainly freeing. If you're still feeling conflicted about destroying supplemental boxes, I'd probably just cut the covers out and hang them as mini posters (or board gaming art). Slap them in a frame and now you're an official snob.

Yeah, throwing away boxes (especially collectors'/Kickstarter/exclusive boxes) is always painful, but it is a lesson I've had to learn. Luckily, I research the hell out of my games before I buy them, so reselling isn't really a thing for me. The number of games that make it through the vetting process that aren't 'my kind of game' is small.

[baelthazar]

I usually use jewelry or Plano boxes for most things. For my really messy games, like Middara, I spring for the premium wooden organizers. It costs a lot, but the time savings conferred means that I will play the game more frequently. I also tend to consolidate as much as I can into one box (for example, with Shadows of Brimstone) and then discard the empty expansion boxes (or use them for household storage if they are high quality).

Core Space is a bit of an outlier. I didn't consolidate most of the stuff, because the boxes have nice storage places for most of the core elements. For the expansions, I got some Really Useful Boxes (9L, I think) and put the assembled pieces into those boxes.

[YellowKing]

I create a lot of my own foam board organizers, provided I can find plans for them on BGG or elsewhere (I'm not talented enough to create my own from scratch). That's how I consolidated my complete Mansions of Madness 2nd Ed from 4 or 5 boxes into 2.

I do a combo of bags and plastic organizers, depending on the game and whether an organizer will fit into the box (I don't like having to keep up with an organizer outside of the main box).

I do sometimes find organizing and consolidating more fun than actually playing the game. I recently acquired ABOMINATION: FRANKENSTEIN, and I'm totally looking forward more to bagging and punching than I am playing.

[Smoove_B]

Bagging is evil.

I was there for a long time, but if you're going to try and store miniatures so that each individual one is protected? Your storage solution is likely going to be 2x the size of the gaming box. I have used the fishing/hobby/jewelry style boxes as well (still do for some games) but the reason I switched to baggies was because I also use the silicone baking cups for token storage. Transferring tokens to and from these cups is a breeze, so baggies remain my product of choice. If I could play from the "tackle box" style storage? I'd probably still be using it. But at some point, even they become quite large and difficult to manage too.

[Anonymous Bosch]

I have a few games that have several boxes. Some prime offenders are Core Space (10 boxes), Sword & Sorcery (about 9, and the KS that I have coming will probably double that), Batman (18 boxes) and Conan (21 boxes.)

Now, some of them can be cut down a fair amount. Getting divider boxes and combining the miniatures shaves a number of boxes off of each one (Conan, for example, drops down to 10, plus one for the minis, and Batman becomes 9.) But that's still a lot of boxes, and they're full-sized board game boxes.

Does anyone have a good trick for consolidating these kinds of things other than buying a $150 pre-built organizer?

Yes. You're going to need one of these, especially if you reside in cramped, oldfangled Indiana accommodations:

[Blackhawk]

I was there for a long time, but if you're going to try and store miniatures so that each individual one is protected? Your storage solution is likely going to be 2x the size of the gaming box.

It also depends on the game. If it's something (the D&D Adventures line comes to mind here, although it would apply to Core Space as well) where you're having to constantly pull from any one of the miniatures, a divided box really does work best. For games where you get a specific combination out in advance, baggies are more practical. And for Conan/Batman, the trays they come in are actually really good for storage. Not mine, but they're this type:




They're protective, they show very quickly if something has gotten dropped, and they're relatively efficient as far as space goes. The problem is that there are ten plus that size for each game, but they're not standardized. They're not all the same size (each expansion's trays were designed specifically for that expansion), and they don't stack except with the ones that came in the same box. That means that I can't just make one big box to put all of them in, and have to keep them in their individual sub-boxes (they're packed the same way as Zombicide) to make them stackable. Which is a pain in the ass.

I'd really have loved it if they'd made all of the trays the same size and stackable.

The easy answer, of course, would be some version of pluck foam storage, but that's expensive, especially once you factor in a holder for the foam trays. It would cost hundreds to use.