(Nearly) Complete Codex Deluxe component storage and travel approach

[andrewgr]

I got my game yesterday morning and sleeved everything last night.

I have to say I’m disappointed in the box. For all the effort that I know Sirlin puts in on the boxes-- I’ve heard him describe himself as a professional box-designer-- I don’t understand how the the box doesn’t work with sleeved cards. Particularly given that the game almost demands sleeves, as sliding cards into and out of the binder repeatedly would almost certainly lead to scratches and nicks to unsleeved cards.

I wish it would have been possible to produce binders without the third page. If the binders only had two pages, all 6 of them would fit in the box, even with sleeved cards. I’m tempted to try cutting the final page out, but without one or two to experiment on, I probably won’t.

I’m going to experiment tonight with removing the insert, to see if there’s a reasonable way to store everything that way. If it works, I’ll take a picture and post it to the thread.

[Castanietzsche]

He did the right thing, focusing on optimizing the shipping costs.
I plan to use the box to transport my game, so fitting 2/3 codices in will be ok for me.

[jamie_ca]

The three pages is a huge quality-of-life change during gameplay. Front page can hold the starter deck, first two-page spread is all your spells/T1 that you have available every game, second two-page spread has your three options for tech 2/3.

If you try to fit all of that on two double-sided pages you’d spend a lot of time flipping back and forth, especially early game between spells/T1s.

[Vateke]

So, I got my deluxe set with the sleeves included. I was having a good time filling every codex with the three specs, starter cards, heroes, worker card, and associated tokens. Then, when I tried to put it away, it wouldn’t fit. I’ve managed to reach a balance with the codexes only have the specs and two of the codexes being completely empty. Now the binders fit and the rest of the cards actually fit snuggly in the card area. It works, and I’m happy to have everything in the box with the lid all the way down, but I was really hoping I could just keep all of the codexes fully assembled.

Oh well. Now I just need a way to transport my extra playmats.

[TheJTrain]

Having backed deluxe + sleeves + 4 extra mats, I was determined to do everything in my power to make it all fit in the box, and having read some of the other threads about how counters would shift in their places during transport, and the binders being too thick to stack in the insert’s well, I tossed the insert very early.

I sleeved all the starters and specs and loaded them into the binders (page 1 heroes, worker, starters, and specs; page 2 magic; page 3 ultimates and T1s; page 4 & 5 T2s & T3s, page 6 tokens) and yeah, the stack in the insert was a binder and a half too high for the box:

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So I tossed the insert, and reused one of my DIY binders from my PnP for the neutrals (same layout as above), organized the counters into various sizes of my favorite messy-counter-pile-preventers (salsa/sauce cups!), stuck the Mercenary tokens, Map cards, and add-ons into an emtpy sleeve box, and voila!

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That’s 4 binders + the very flat neutral binder + rulebook on the left, 2 binders on the right. Here’s everything with 5 rolled-up mats on top, with plenty of clearance for the lid to close all the way and sit flush on the bottom:

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Of course, if my anticipation is correct and I’ll find myself wanting to be able to oversee 3 separate 2-player games at once, I needed to fit the 6th mat in there, so if I rearrange just a bit I made it work, but the box lid can’t quite sit flush, given the thickness of the rolled-up mats:

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I picked up this 5-piece set of spindown d20s to use for base health (one of each color except purple - the smaller clear blue non-spindown d20 is just an extra of mine), and added a 12-piece set of d6s for Tech building health, and I’m good to go!

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Now to get some games in…

[Rico]

Just put an extra blank line before the details tag, and the images will hide properly. Props to @EricF for the how-to-use-the-forum thread where I learned that.

Edit: Also, seriously nice solution. I might have to do the same for my non-travel set. I’m still trying to find binder pages I actually like though for the extra play folders for my travel set, which will likely make an update to the main post (because I have three different types I definitely don’t like).

[TheJTrain]

Nice, thanks!

@Rico

I’m still trying to find binder pages I actually like though for the extra play folders for my travel set, which will likely make an update to the main post (because I have three different types I definitely don’t like).

Best of luck with that - we’re pretty spoiled with the custom-cut top-loaders in the binders! I’m using 9-pocket side-loaders in my DIY Neutral and they work well enough for my purposes. Better now with the real cards and official sleeves than they were with my PnP in penny sleeves, anyway!

[Rico]

A few people have posted some similar threads about upgraded Deluxe storage or game pieces or whatever. Feel free to post your own ideas here if you want to help keep things all in one place. I didn’t want to hijack a sleeves thread when I created this one, but this one is deliberately more general, so hijack away!

[Serge.EXE]

If you’re planning on storing the game in the Deluxe box and have it sleeved, I found a neat trick!

There’s still some room left in the card bay if you keep the Specs in the binders, but you can fill it with an empty sleeve box! Slides in pretty tight, but it doesn’t bulge the container at all, pretty much making it a perfect fit for your sleeved Starter Decks and Tokens when not in use.

[dontmindlosing]

I’ve done the same, only with extra sleeves in the sleeve box in case any need replacing.

[olanmills]

So here’s what I’ve done. I have the deluxe set. As I described in a different thread, I put all of the codex cards in the corresponding binders by color, in the arrangement suggested by the rulebook, and I also put the Finesse and Bashing codex cards in the red and green binders. I used the official Codex sleeves for all of these cards. I put the starting decks with the included dividers into an Ultra Pro Satin Tower deck box (http://www.ultrapro.com/product_info.php?products_id=1553). With the sleeves and the dividers, they fit sideways. The bottom tray portion of the box holds the mini add-on and spec cards. I had to put the token cards in a separate box. I used the box that the official Codex sleeves came in. All of the starter deck cards are sleeved in the official Codex sleeves, and I’m using clear sleeves for the worker, token, and hero cards (since they have different backs). I’m using 44 x 65 mm sleeves for the spec and add-on mini cards.

I got a little plastic box with little divided compartments at my local game store to store the tracking chits. I also got a couple playmat tubes for the “high quality” Codex playmats. I’m just keeping the three extra paper playmats in the plastic bag they came in. I also bought a set of five 30 mm countdown d20s to use as life counters. They come in a tube.

I put three binders each into small vinyl shopping bags, like the ones you often get at conventions (one bag is a Fangamer bag, and the other is from PAX 2015).

I put all of this in a super sweet GameCube messenger bag. I think a backpack might actually be easier, but I don’t have an extra one, and plus this gives me a reason to make use of my sweet GameCube bag.

I think using a bag will be way easier than a box. I may get a different deck box later, one that can hold all of the non-codex cards, if I find one I like. My local game store didn’t really have that many options for more solid, “premium” deck boxes.

[GRAG]

So here’s one step on my way to a Super Fancy Deluxe Codex Set

Got a Dex Pro case (small) and it’s doing a nice job with, from left to right:
• Finesse starter, tokens, and codex (sub-box can be removed and used in-game as a stand to hold the Finesse codex in-game instead of leaving it sitting around flat). If you look closely, you may be able to see that the double-sleeved hero and token cards serve as physical boundary indicators between the starter deck and codex cards.
• Mercenaries (divided into sets of 1, 2, and 3 for players 3, 4, and 5, respectively) set apart with hard sleeves that each contain the two add-on mini-cards for each player
• Little container of the same sort I got for all of the other chits, holding the Two-Step chits for Finesse
• Map cards
• Bashing starter and codex in its own even littler sub-box that can likewise be used as a codex holder in-game

As for the rest of the set, I ditched the plastic insert and got little plastic chit holders like the one in this photo for everything (I got two for money, putting half in each to make it easier for each player to have their own). I put the heroes, starters, and workers into the first page of each codex binder, with the three spec mini-cards in a hard sleeve stuck behind the worker card.

Overall, it seems fairly promising as, at least, a start!

[GRAG]

Oh, right — I got into a Twitter conversation with the Penny Gems guy, and Codex came up. He said he might be convinced to make Codex Penny Gems if someone shows him the game. I DUNNO ABOUT YOU GUYS BUT

[dontmindlosing]

This sounds good! Penny Gems sound good! Only… they’ve stopped making pennies here in Canada!

[PointyFinger]

What are the chit holders called?

[GRAG]

ummm

…containers?

(they were just these little snap-shut containers they sold at the local game shop in downtown Kyoto for like ¥75 each. They aren’t some fancy brand-name thing or anything)

[olanmills]

@PointyFinger I assume he was talking about something like these:

O Plano boxes, how do I love thee?

My local game store had a box like this. They just had one particular size. I am using it to hold my Codex chits.

[GRAG]

Yeah, they’re similar but my FLGS didn’t have the multi-compartment type

[Mooseknuckles]

When you guys are playing (non-mono games), do you move all of the cards from the 3 specs you’ve chosen into a new binder?

[mysticjuicer]

I do, yes. I’m toying with the idea of printing out additional specs using the PnP so that I don’t have to continuously do this, but for reasons of “not spending all of my money on Codex” will probably just shuffle things around.