Organizer for Gloomhaven (First Edition). Gloom Tavern Insert

Summary up front: This is a great product. It's not cheap, but the design, material and manufacturing quality are superior. It is time consuming yet logical to assemble, but this is time well spent given how much this organizer improves the ease and speed of playing.It's very clear the developers put a lot of thought and care into this, and that they care about quality. The 107 or so parts come in a stack of nine laser cut sheets made from sturdy, high clarity birch plywood. It smells so pleasantly out of the box, with not a hint of green wood. What impressed me endlessly was that not one piece in my kit had to be scored, cut, or sanded. They all came off the sheet clean and ready to go, and there was none of the overburn you see on a lot of laser cut things, either.Sometimes, removal was almost too easy a process. The parts are ID'd with a sensible letter-numbering system, with all parts sharing the same letter belonging to the same organizer tray (out of six you assemble). Small parts tend to come off their sheet with a firm push, but most of the medium to large pieces just fall out. This sometime seperates the parts from their labels (which are on the sprue). This can be an issue as there are several parts that look really similar but that are not interchangeable. It wasn't hard to regroup most of the parts that slipped out, but I would advise having a big flat space to lay this out before opening the packing box. Also, there are about 8 parts that are orphaned on sheets other than those with the same letter, that made them a little hard to find. However, the designers really did a great job engineering the sheets to keep parts and assembly instructions in harmony.A note: If you want to stain this kit, I would go in extra for the prestained kit offered by Gaming Trunk. Most of the sheets cease to be sheets the second they are unstacked, and at least half the trays are full of nooks and crannies that would make it quite hard to apply a finish after assembly. There are also etched graphics that won't show under spray paint.Assembly is done mainly by snapping together interlocking teeth or grooves, with no tools needed. This is mostly easy to do, but this is a wood product so the fit varies. It is going to take time if you are going to glue it together and put it together neatly! The assembly manual says it takes 120 minutes to put this together, but I just don't see it. I am an experienced modeler and woodworker, and it took me about 5 or 6 hours even though I didn't need to backtrack on an assembly step. Two of the trays are built from 33 and 45 parts respectively, and one complex step required 28 points to line up at once. Don't get me wrong, most adults or older teens can do this, but it takes patience and care. The parts do go together really nicely, though, so I actually enjoyed the process a lot.I put mine together with Titebond III wood glue, which made the bonds extremely strong and also aided assembly by lubricating the joins. Plus, it was easy to wipe off the excess glue with a piece of card. Forget using superglue for this assembly as there is way too much snapping together and sliding of parts to use an instant glue. In theory you could assemble this without gluing it (*maybe* even in two hours). However, while most parts fit crisply and snugly, many of them must be glued to stay firmly attached and aligned to the slots and holes they must be fitted to in later steps, and some would fall out during use. In my opinion, assembly with a good wood glue or other PVA adhesive (like tacky glue) is about the only reliable option.As far as playability goes, I have high praise. It makes a ton of sense. All the game components get to stay put in their trays, which also fit in the Gloomhaven box. The vast reduction in time use during setup and in finding game pieces while playing is where this thing shines. I mean, I love the game, but counting the cards and tokens, Gloomhaven has almost 2,000 components that took us nearly two hours just to punch out and unpackage. I could not realistically get this game going with my employed, adult friends in the time available without this. Some people can manage using 25 sandwich baggies or using a stack of plano boxes, but after trying it out, I felt those required me to be a little too expert in "knowing my system" to keep track of everything.Lastly, this organizer is part of a rather crowded space of similar products, as a trip to Etsy or the Board Game Geek forums will quickly reveal. I shopped and compared carefully before settling on this one. There are tons of cheap also-rans out there, but my priorities were functionality, time savings/ease of use, and quality, and I was ok with paying for something that will last and work well. It came down to this or the Broken Token offering, and I preferred this after seeing them both on the table at the local games shop. Both are great solutions, but the labelling, build and fit are better with this one, and (as many have pointed out) this one works well with less than four players. This fits entirely in the game box, too, which is strangely uncommon (the Token one leaves the box slighgly lifted on closing)I am very satisfied. Recommended!

Overall the organization is great. I love the layout of pieces, especially the token organizer and monster organizer. Both are great designs.My only issue comes to the fit. The pegs that fit into the slots are TIGHT. TOO TIGHT. You will need to sand the edges and sides of every peg to get it to fit together.With sanding, gluing, and assembly. It is more like 7-8 hours. If you didn't have to sand this, I would put assembly time under an hour.If they had given 0.3- 0.5mm increased dimensions on the slots this would be cake to put together. Be prepared for some intense sanding.

Best organizer in my opinion since it clearly lays out all the monster cards and tokens for easy use when setting up and during play. Everything fits well into the original box even with the forgotten circles expansion.There is no separate place to keep your current characters separate other than putting them back in the character boxes but since I am only playing with two characters at a time I was able to find space to keep their cards and tokens out in a combination of the card organizer and the map tile organizer.Assembly could be confusing for some who aren't great at construction but I did not find it difficult. The pieces fit together pretty tight but i was able to tap them all together with no breaks or problems of any kind just tapping them together with my cellphone case until it was flush. It took some time but it is better than having to glue/clamp loose pieces IMO.Overall great product and I will be looking to Gaming Trunk for other products in the future before looking elsewhere.

Received my copy qnd immediately started building. Pieces are cut wrong and either need intense force to slot together, or don't slot together at all. On the second step, i tried putting the first 2 pieces into the third, and the pegs underneath were too big for the holes, preventing me from progressing. Just buy another brand.

Very wonderful product! I decided to stain the wood while still in the sheets and it worked perfectly. The stain was able to penetrate the cut outs enough to not worry about the sides looking different once popped out of the sheet. The wood is thin and flimsy when not built so be careful popping the pieces out. I ended up breaking one piece but was able to fix it with some super glue and you can't even tell. Once assembled the wood becomes incredibly study. Alittle glue here and there and a hammer are needed to assemble but it is very easy. I'm extremely satisfied with this storage solution!

Great product. only had a couple of connections be a bit of a challenge and a handful of spots where I wanted glue. The monster tray is especially ingenious. It doesn't show you anywhere, but the books go on the overlay tray. The map box images show all the parts small enough to combine in a layer. Everything fits perfect and I'm very impressed with the insert. Could definitely use better docs or a video.