Grouping components together

By tomkat364, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

I am working on a storage plan for my components. I have not opened any of the expansions (own them all) as I like to ration my unboxing so I always have something to look forward to. I can look up the quantity of cards and such, but would benefit greatly from your experience to decide how to group components best.

1.) Overlord Box : Already planned out, will include Overlord cards, Plot cards, Threat token supply, and the threat tokens the overlord has earned.

2.) Hero Box : Already planned out, has places for all four hero's class cards, item and search cards obtained, carry-over tokens (health, conditions, and fortune), and the color coded hero tokens, hero sheets, and the ID cards that correspond to the colored tokens.

3.) A box for Hero sheets and class decks - not planned out yet.

4.) A box with shop cards, search cards and artifacts.

5.) A box for monster cards.

6.) A box for lots of tokens.

The things that I don't really know about are rumor cards and servants. How do these fit into play? Are the rumor cards more akin to travel cards or overlord/plot cards? Are the servants attached to specific quests or specific monsters or specific overlord cards?

Anything else I have missed other than figures and tiles?

Edited by tomkat364

To each his own, but I found that a large monster pool greatly enhances the the strategic and tactical choices and possibilities for the OL. Personally before adding a good chunk of monsters from the expansions, I found the OL role severly lacking. So I would at least add the monsters from the expansions, or a few monsters from the get go.

I think everything else is fine. Servants (I guess you mean lieutenants?) are best added to the monster cards (because they basically are a really unique monster tied to quests). If you got the lieutenant packs you can summon them as agents if you have the corresponding plot deck. So I would put the agent cards to the plot decks and the lieutenant cards to the monster cards.

I would group the rumor cards with travel cards, but you won't use them very often. Once in play I would probably put them to the OL box or the hero box.

One last thing about the tokens: Damage, Fatigue, Search- and Condition-tokens can be mixed together, because you will have to use them often during gameplay. I recommend sperating Quest-tokens (the ones with the "?" on them) and Villager tokens from all the other tokens, because you often need specific colored quest tokens which can be hard to find if they are mixed with a lot of other tokens. Last but not least I would seperate the rare class tokens that are limited by suply from the more common ones and group them together to make them easier to find (conjurers images, bard's songtokens, geomancer stones and bounty hunter's aim and so on...). This would leave lieutenant tokens (which you don't need if you got the lieut. minis), the familiars and the not so rare class tokens (hexer, champion,...), the latter two can easily be grouped together imo.

I think everything else is fine. Servants (I guess you mean lieutenants?) are best added to the monster cards (because they basically are a really unique monster tied to quests). If you got the lieutenant packs you can summon them as agents if you have the corresponding plot deck. So I would put the agent cards to the plot decks and the lieutenant cards to the monster cards.

All monster cards will be in the same box. Two rows, left hand Act I and right hand Act II. Each row separated into Simple Monsters, Agents, and Lieutenants. By servants I mean the Raven Flock and the new one in Chains that Rust. How do these enter play? As monsters or as OL cards, or what?

Servants enter through overlord cards and have a small cars like a familiar instead of the typical monster cards.

Here is what I have in my 'OL box':

1 space for OL Cards

1 space for Plot cards

2 spaces for monster cards, separated by act.

2 spaces for lieutenant cards, separated by act

1 space for smaller cards like Servant cards, Tainted cards as well as the tokens for the Servants

1 space to hold a container that keeps the Infection tokens from the Infector deck.

I'll take a picture of it tonight if you need some inspiration

Edited by Atom4geVampire

Here is what I have in my 'OL box':

1 space for OL Cards

1 space for Plot cards

2 spaces for monster cards, separated by act.

2 spaces for lieutenant cards, separated by act

1 space for smaller cards like Servant cards, Tainted cards as well as the tokens for the Servants

1 space to hold a container that keeps the Infection tokens from the Infector deck.

I'll take a picture of it tonight if you need some inspiration

That would be great. Was unaware of the infection tokens, thanks for the heads up.

I use the labyrinth of ruin box for all cards. I added some thin carboard dividers to make compartments. I keep all the game cards in bags in said compartments. I keep tokens elsewhere.

That would be great. Was unaware of the infection tokens, thanks for the heads up.

You can find the pictures here: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/228693-atom4gevampires-custom-descent-storage-box-wip/

Though it seems from reading the topic again that you are looking for something that actually has spaces for whatever is happening in your current campaign as well, so it might not be that helpful.

I mix everything together.

Regarding storage, I have found that the most practical way FOR ME is to separate the ongoing campaign material from the rest. I have a checklist making that split for me. So that all I need to take with me while on my way to a game night is one large sized box plus the minis we're going to use on the side. Another thing I can recommend is to use small screw boxes (emptied of their original contents obviously) to store the tokens. That's if you're cheap like me. Cheap but pragmatic :)

Edited by Indalecio

Can someone please tell me how many door-type pieces are there currently? I can see 7 doors in core, 3 foliage in LoR, 4 portcullises, and 5 total stone walls. Anything I'm missing?

Also, can someone please tell me which is the largest tile thus far? Only having opened the first three boxes, LoR has the largest dimension yet on tile 37.

Thanks for the help.

I think you've got all the doors. See the expansion info in the "index of useful links" topic pinned at the top of the forum for detailed component breakdowns.

I believe the largest tile is 37 (at least in terms of a single dimension of 9). The next largest are 36 and 87, which are each 8x8. If sizing things, remember that the puzzle cut ends stick out further than the straight edges.

I don't understand why you would not open everything if you own it all to get a better idea of how to sort everything. You're restricting your ability to understand what's inside and asking everyone else for help instead. It'd be different if you couldn't afford it and was planning ahead. :/

I don't understand why you would not open everything if you own it all to get a better idea of how to sort everything. You're restricting your ability to understand what's inside and asking everyone else for help instead. It'd be different if you couldn't afford it and was planning ahead. :/

The main reason is that I like to ration my opening of things. It makes me feel like I'm getting something new, and since we are playing through one campaign at a time, I really don't need EVERYTHING open. I normally would not have bought them all at once, but I splurged just before they restricted online discounts, saving about $50 overall. So now they are stacked in my game room being opened as we come to them, which gives me something new to look forward to every few months. I didn't think my questions were greatly inconveniencing anyone, and I appreciate being able to plan ahead while I design box inserts.

I don't understand why you would not open everything if you own it all to get a better idea of how to sort everything. You're restricting your ability to understand what's inside and asking everyone else for help instead. It'd be different if you couldn't afford it and was planning ahead. :/

The main reason is that I like to ration my opening of things. It makes me feel like I'm getting something new, and since we are playing through one campaign at a time, I really don't need EVERYTHING open. I normally would not have bought them all at once, but I splurged just before they restricted online discounts, saving about $50 overall. So now they are stacked in my game room being opened as we come to them, which gives me something new to look forward to every few months. I didn't think my questions were greatly inconveniencing anyone, and I appreciate being able to plan ahead while I design box inserts.

I actually think InfinityBlack has a valid point, which is that you're deliberately hiding the information from yourself, for good or bad (for the record I don't think your reason is silly or anything). When it comes to organization there is no secret recipe, I have yet to see two people handle it the exact same way. The community will always give you advice with regards to that, but in the end only you have the full picture of what you own and what your storage possibilities are. Or, you take the risk to having to change your solution as you open new expansions. It can get expensive.

I would also argue that you could just open it all, and that would still leave you with a lot of unplayed content you can explore later in the future, therefore fulfilling your desire to leave pleasant surprises ahead of time, at the pace you decide. Such content is clearly new campaigns, after all they are the meat of the game. And new mechanisms tied to them. That's quite a lot of content? As for items and monsters, I would always advise to play with EVERYTHING you have available, because they enrich the game so much regardless of campaign. They make your choices way more interesting and allow you to test things. The more you have seen card lambda in action in a game, the more you are able to appreciate under which circunstances it's good or not.

But at the end of the day, it's your decision and I don't think anybody here is trying to judge you for that. We´re just pointing out that you may make things difficult for yourself :)

I don't understand why you would not open everything if you own it all to get a better idea of how to sort everything. You're restricting your ability to understand what's inside and asking everyone else for help instead. It'd be different if you couldn't afford it and was planning ahead. :/

The main reason is that I like to ration my opening of things. It makes me feel like I'm getting something new, and since we are playing through one campaign at a time, I really don't need EVERYTHING open. I normally would not have bought them all at once, but I splurged just before they restricted online discounts, saving about $50 overall. So now they are stacked in my game room being opened as we come to them, which gives me something new to look forward to every few months. I didn't think my questions were greatly inconveniencing anyone, and I appreciate being able to plan ahead while I design box inserts.

I actually think InfinityBlack has a valid point, which is that you're deliberately hiding the information from yourself, for good or bad (for the record I don't think your reason is silly or anything). When it comes to organization there is no secret recipe, I have yet to see two people handle it the exact same way. The community will always give you advice with regards to that, but in the end only you have the full picture of what you own and what your storage possibilities are. Or, you take the risk to having to change your solution as you open new expansions. It can get expensive.

I would also argue that you could just open it all, and that would still leave you with a lot of unplayed content you can explore later in the future, therefore fulfilling your desire to leave pleasant surprises ahead of time, at the pace you decide. Such content is clearly new campaigns, after all they are the meat of the game. And new mechanisms tied to them. That's quite a lot of content? As for items and monsters, I would always advise to play with EVERYTHING you have available, because they enrich the game so much regardless of campaign. They make your choices way more interesting and allow you to test things. The more you have seen card lambda in action in a game, the more you are able to appreciate under which circunstances it's good or not.

But at the end of the day, it's your decision and I don't think anybody here is trying to judge you for that. We´re just pointing out that you may make things difficult for yourself :)

Thank you. I'm not trying to judge, but it's easier to plan most things when you have it in front of you and that's all I meant by it. I'd recommend only to not look at the card details if you want to keep the surprise of not knowing.