Star Wars Imperial Assault Storage Solutions - The Cards

Now for something completely different. Click for more!

So, this isn't painting minis, but for the OCD of us that do paint minis for gaming purposes, storage is always the enemy, and never moreso than with Imperial Assault. This is what I call a "road map" game; it won't fit back together ever again after opening. Its packed really well from the factory, but once you punch the game tiles, tokens, cards, and minis out, its chaos. Throw in two decent sized expansions that only add to the chaos, and you have a recipe for madness. Hopefully for anyone with all three expansions, this can serve as help for a way to keep everything organized.

Since I just can't bring myself to even start playing until everything is painted (which I'm working on in the meantime!) and organized, I've really buckled down to get it finished up. First, I spent a few days coming up with a plan. There's no way it will all fit in one box, especially once you get the larger wave minis like the AT-ST and whatnot. So I messed around with different options, but I knew I wanted to keep the original boxes, not go the Plano route. So I decided these were my criteria:

• Fit all minis into the core SWIA box
• Fit all tokens/chits in the Twin Shadows box (the smallest of the three)
• Fit all cards and other campaign/skirmish material in the Return to Hoth box

I started off cutting the base out, simple enough, just 11 1/4 by 11 1/4 with rabbet cuts down the sides:

I then started making walls for the base layer, and the first cut I made with my rabbet cutter shredded the piece. I figured it was time to change the blades....and then discovered I had no more blades. So immediately after starting, I was shelved. I waited a week for my new blades to arrive, and then picked back up. The bottom layer was created a little taller than the top, and contains all the character and item cards. I designed it so that if new card types are ever released, the larger campaign hero cards can actually sit on the walls and I can use the space they occupy for new cards:

Then I made a thinner top layer, with the campaign cards and skirmish cards and missions in there. Just like the bottom layer, I have options to move that larger skirmish battle sheets into a notebook and use the space for more cards if I need to, so even if more things come out, my design isn't devastated. Even the skirmish summary cards (below, lower right) can move out to create room for a new campaign, or I can consolidate all campaign cards if need be. Lots of options to counter any future FFG releases.

To keep the build log manageable, I'm going to do it in sections instead of one large item. If you want to keep up with it, click here for all entries in the Imperial Assault Storage log. Hope you enjoyed this little departure from painting and building for a bit!