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Those clever elves at e-Raptor have been making storage solutions and accessories for board games for a number of years, and over time have been innovative with design and are always looking to improve their products based on consumer feedback.
Recently I was lucky enough to be able to try out and give an overview of their new range of inserts for the Revised 4th Edition of Talisman, which you can read about following the links at the bottom of the page. It’s a great cost-effective idea for those that want to use the original boxes to store their game, and comes in two flavours with components that you can mix and match to achieve your ideal load out.
Sometimes though, you want to make a bit of a statement when it comes to your favourite game, and I was very pleased to be asked to take a look at an exciting storage solution for this behemoth of a game, the new and improved ‘Big Box for Talisman‘. It’s more a piece of ‘furniture’ than a box, and is certainly big enough to cope with a complete set of Talisman, along with some gaming accessories. In fact, you can use the available space as you see fit and tailor it to your particular needs!
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| It really is a big box! | |||
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| Well packaged AND already assembled | It’s still a big box! | ||
As there is a little more to the outer shell of the box than just slotting together a few sheets of HDF, the Big Box for Talisman is supplied fully assembled with just a few tweaks being necessary after you’ve unpacked everything.
Make sure you’ve had a hearty breakfast when your box is delivered by the postman, as you can see in the images above the package is rather large! You will also notice that after you unpack the beast of a box from its packaging, it is still rather large!
*A small word of warning for this step. The underside of the box has a number of exposed screw heads and although they are smooth, you might want to put something underneath the box, or add some felt pads that you can get for protecting hard floors.
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| A little project before you start filling up the box! | |||
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| Token Boxes (x18 Small & x1 Large) | Assembled! | ||
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| Small Card Dividers (x50) | Assembled! | ||
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| Handle in situ | Remember! There are two layers of plastic! | ||
After you’ve got over your shock at just how big this thing is, you’ll find that one of the trays is filled (literally) with the parts to make 19 token storage boxes, 50 card dividers and handles for the outside of the box.
The token boxes come with an instructions sheet, but they aren’t really necessary as the are intuitive to put together. Once you get into your rhythm of removing the plastic coating from the clear lids, they snap together really easily. These all fit perfectly into their tray and you can arrange them how you wish.
The small card dividers just need their plastic coating removed to be used and once again, when you get into your rhythm the time passes quite quickly, a bit like when sleeving cards! Fifty dividers might seem a lot, but it allows you to store your cards in a host of combinations.
The handles for moving the box are supplied separately so that it will fit in the packaging. There are 8 small nuts and bolts to hold them securely in place and, although I wouldn’t want to do a stress test on them, they haven’t been straining at all under a full load.
Oh, and don’t forget (like me!) that there are two layers of plastic coating on the acrylic parts. Luckily I’d only assembled a few token boxes when I realised!
Originally I had planned to do a joint unboxing of the complete reprint of Talisman by Pegasus Spiele, but sadly the main game and the first few expansions haven’t arrived as yet. Hopefully stock will be arriving soon and I’ll get my recent competition prize, but for now I am going to use my current playing copy of the game from Fantasy Flight Games.
I mention this as there are a couple of differences with certain components, like the sizes of the corner boards and rule books, plus all bar one of the character miniatures now have a unified base size. So with that in mind, onto adding the game to the box…
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| Tray One – Character Figures & Large Cards | Your minis on display! | ||
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| Tray Two – Token & Dice Storage | Tray Three – Other Storage (see below) | ||
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| Tray Four – Boards, Rule Books & Card Holders | Tray Five – Small Cards |
Starting at the top (and why not?) with Tray One which has been custom made to store your character figures and large cards from the game like Characters, Alternative Endings and more. I’ve not added all of my minis as they are tucked away in a display cabinet, so for the moment have put some spares in to show how they fit.
There are 81 spaces on the left of the tray, and the small section on the right is for the toads and the two larger figures, the Ogre Chieftain and the Dragon Rider. Behind you can see the sloping section for the large cards, of which I have ‘a lot’! There are a number of HDF dividers to separate a normal amount of cards, but you can see I’ve removed a few of these to fit my expanded decks of characters from the digital edition of the game and other home brews.
This tray sits at the top of the box, where there is a clear acrylic top section so that you can see your minis as a display, painted or otherwise.
Tray Two is for the token boxes and you can see that there are plenty of options for storing them. If you notice, the larger box in the bottom right has three sections which would actually fit the coloured cones from the base game quite easily. I’m undecided as to whether I might prefer more of the larger trays for other sets, but for now I am happy as I use a smaller plastic tray for the Character Tokens from The Woodland expansion plus a number of dice bags (hand made by Board Game Solutions!) for the Dragon Tokens, Runestones and a couple more.
The next tray (Three) has been made for gaming accessories, which you may already have or you may get as part of the fully loaded version of the Big Box Set for Talisman as shown below. You’ll notice that my ‘overspill’ of token boxes fits perfectly into the space on the left, though it was made specifically for the Character Organisers that e-Raptor is famous for.
*Note that the character organisers you can see in the image are the smaller ones from e-Raptor and not the ones that come with the fully loaded Big Box Set.
There is a dice tray that comes with the box, which can fit an e-Raptor Slim Dice Tower and the last section is made for a couple of their 3S Solid Card Holders. Of course, you can arrange this area depending on what you actually have or want to use and could also be used to store additional decks etc with the right containers.
The larger tray (Four) has enough space for all of the current edition’s boards and rule books, including a bit of extra height for anything else you might want to store in there. Maybe The Darklands or The Realms of Legend home brew expansions or others that are available in the Resources section of the site (blatant plug!)
To the right is enough space to store two 5S Solid Card Holders, though as they are slightly longer when stored together (like a crocodile’s mouth!), e-Raptor have cleverly left part of the wall blank at the rear so that they can overhang. You could even use the space for storing cards in a card holder if necessary.
Finally we have Tray Five which holds all of the small cards for the game that can be as nature intended them, or sleeved. My full set of unsleeved cards fits easily, including a number of home brew decks that I keep with my set. The dividers allow you to separate the decks as you wish, for instance I have the Adventure decks separated by expansion to help with specific setups.
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| Character Organiser (x6) | Slim Dice Tower (x1) | 3S Solid Card Holder (x2) | 5S Card Holder (x2) |
Above you can see what you get as extras in the Big Box Set for Talisman, as opposed to the lower cost version. Of course, you may already have some of these things or a different version of them, but at least the option is there!
So, here are some thoughts about the new Big Box for Talisman from e-Raptor…
Well, with a couple of caveats, I think it’s fabulous! I’ve always liked the idea of a ‘deluxe storage solution’ for Talisman, and up until now most available options have involved storage in a combination of original game boxes, or have repurposed other solutions. This has been made from the ground up with a full set of the Revised 4th Edition of Talisman in mind with associated playing accessories.
If space is at a premium for you, then this might not be what you are looking for. The external dimensions are (approximately) 495mm tall, 460mm wide (including handles) and 360mm deep. Storing in the gamer’s favourite – the Kallax – is definitely out, and if that’s what you want then you should probably look into using the “three box” solution with e-Raptor’s Inserts for Talisman.
However, if you have the room and want to proudly display your game – which after all is a considerable investment in itself – in an impressive bit of ‘furniture’, then the Big Box for Talisman is an excellent solution.
Hopefully the pictures of the filled trays will help you see how you might fit your copy of the game into the box. A handy thing about the trays is that they slot together easily and you can modify each tray if necessary by removing walls and dividers. For instance, if you have even more large cards than me, you can remove the slanted dividers in Tray One and store the cards flat, perhaps in another container. If you have more card holders, you could take out the dividing wall in Tray Three to fit them in there.
As I mentioned above, for my copy Tray Three will be more or less empty, but the space will not be wasted as I tend to have a number of projects on the go for the game and I’ll be able to keep the various components separate from the official products. I also have a couple of trays from Play Tray UK that I’m quite fond of that will no doubt find their way into the box!
It’s probably safe to say that the overall cost of the Big Box for Talisman might put some off because of possible ‘sticker shock’, but then again this is no ordinary storage solution. If your copy of Talisman is your pride and joy (as mine is!) then you want something to show it off and keep it safe. Bear in mind that this is definitely not an exercise in saving space, but storing the game in a substantial bespoke solution.
I’ll be returning to the Big Box for Talisman as soon as all of the new reprints are available to me, so keep an eye out on Facebook for an ‘ultimate unboxing’!