Review of Founders of Gloomhaven Organizer

Blurb from the publisher: 'Build faster, increase influence, and spend less time setting up with The Broken Token Founders of Gloomhaven Organizer.

Officially licensed by Cephalofair Games.'

What you get: Your USD 41,99 or equivalent will buy you the Founders of Gloomhaven Organizer, the officially licensed organizer for Founders of Gloomhaven.

Upon opening the organizer one is greeted by 9 sheets containing around 120 laser-cut wooden elements. These can be assembled into 15 different trays that house the game's different components. The organizer is not only about better arranging the game's components inside the box; it is about presenting the game's components in a more expedient and effective way during the game. Each player receives a dedicated tray with all his personal tokens, the named buildings are fitted in a tetris-like way inside a dedicated compartment, cards are hosted inside custom-made card holders, unnamed buildings receive another dedicated tray, while a clear acrylic overlay helps keep the cubes in place over the resource tracker.

As the blurb explicitly states, measurements take into account the size of the cards with sleeves. I confirm that, seeing how all my cards are permanently sleeved; they all fit perfectly in their dedicated trays.

The strong points: If there was a game that needed a well-designed organizer that was Founders of Gloomhaven. This had to do both with the difficulty of keeping its components safe in-between each game dye to the game tetris-shaped buildings, as well as the inefficient set up times and the impossibility of presenting everything during the game in a cohesive, tight way.

In comes The Broken Token and solves all of these problems with a single product.

To start with, the game can now be set at only a fraction of the time that was previously needed. Just open the box, remove every tray, and you have finished with the biggest chunk of the setup.

The game's footprint is now smaller, since each player keeps his own components inside a dedicated tray. The non-named pieces are substantially easier to locate and build, while the named buildings are inside their own low-depth tray. Incline it against something else (e.g. the game's box), for all the players to have an immediate visual of what they can build and what its exact shape is.

The product nailed it when it comes to the organizer's dimensions. Everything fits smugly inside the box, even though you will have to watch the video on the publisher's website to understand how exactly that happens. Nothing will ever drop out of its own little tray, seeing how tight everything is. Thus, you can store the box at any angle. I store mine vertically; any organizer that doesn't allow me to do that is a waste of time, money and effort. This kind of tight storage is exactly what I am looking for in an organizer.

I enjoyed the transparent overlay for the resource tracker board. If you are inherently clumsy, grab it for this piece alone. The cubes are now entered in small rectangles above the tracker, making it far harder to ruin a game just because you displaced everything because sneezed or hit the board in excitement.

The trays are easy to assemble, even though I made a couple of mistakes; keep on reading. I didn't use glue in any of mine, even though the publisher recommends it. Seeing how I hammered each component inside the other, I don't see how these trays will break unless I wantonly start throwing them on the floor.

You don't play Founders of Gloomhaven? The Broken Token line supports more than 140 (!) different games up to now. You might want to consider an organizer for those you play systematically.

The weak points: The laser cutting process didn't work as expected. I damaged 35% to 40% of the components while disassembling them from their initial trays, and that while following the publisher's instructions. No harm was done in the end. The damage is barely perceptible, and it did not influence the assembly process or the stability of the final products. Yet when one starts like this, he is very apprehensive of the whole process.

Here we are back to tons of wooden residue, splinters, sawdust, wood shavings and whatever else have you. I am thoroughly disappointed by this publisher's insistence on wooden pieces that leave so much dust behind. I very strongly recommend to assemble this outdoors, or inside an area destined for dirty chores like a workshop or a garage. Do it in your office like I did, and you will be vacuum cleaning and dusting for a long time.

Speaking of workshops, you definitely need a mallet or a hammer. There is no way you will assemble some of these items without one. Where other publishers go for innovative engineering, this one goes for brute force. I take it for granted that you will graze yourself here and there while assembling this organizer; the mallet is here to help reduce the effect. Have some medicinal alcohol around just in case. I didn't need it, yet I removed quite a few splinters from my hands.

The lack of innovative engineering has another very unfortunate side-effect. Where other publishers' products can be assembled in under half an hour, The Broken Token's go way past that. It took me around an hour and a half to assemble mine, as well as clean after the mess I made. You have been warned.

I wouldn't recommend assembling the trays and then tearing them down again. Each time you go through this exercise the interlocking pieces will wear down, thus losing some of their initial stability. If you want to glue everything together, do it from the first time already.

I was cocky and I did not watch the assembly video up to its end. I very strongly recommend that you do. I made at least two serious mistakes, one of which cannot be undone. Namely, I hammered some of the components on the back side of a tray's floor, meaning that the markings are now on the side that never sees that light of day. Crap. As I said, I disassembling these units is likely to lead to their destruction (you would need pliers to remove the hammered elements), so I let the tray be. At the end of the matter this is not a biggie. The position of each item is obvious enough, aesthetically speaking however my finished organizer looks worse than it was supposed to.

The units fit the box very tightly. Nothing moves, nothing wiggles. That is all good, until you clumsily drag a unit out of the box, damage it, or damage the box, or another unit. Be attentive if you want your game to remain spotless.

It bears repeating: this is a luxury item addressed to hardcore gamers who play Founder of Gloomhaven often. It practically costs as much as a game. If you can't have it, probably you don't need it.

Conclusion: The present organizer makes Founders of Gloomhaven a much more enjoyable game, and very few accessories can make that claim for the game they support. I am 100% satisfied by the end result, I am not happy at all however by the assembly process: the wooden splinters, the sawdust, the need for hammering, and the time it all consumes. Were it not for those, the grading would have been an effortless 5/5.

To find out more about The Broken Token and its range of Organizers take a look at http://www.thebrokentoken.com.

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