Hi All,

I normally hang out on the Legion and X-wing boards, but I’ve been kind of curious about this game since it was announced. I picked up four decks on Friday night and finally got to play them today with my brother. I’m impressed. It’s a fun game and each deck plays differently. Anyway, in honor of the games unique decks, I thought I would make unique tuckboxes for my four decks:

Sorry the pictures are kind of crummy. I made the boxes with a combination of the Super Deluxe Tuckbox Template Maker at www.cpforbes.net/tuckbox/ (Thanks Craig Forbes and Elliot Evans!) and the free GIMP 2 photoshop like program. I scanned the Archon image off the deck list/Archon card for each deck and the rest of the box Art is cut and paste from the PDF of the Rules and from the KeyForge page on the FFG website. It took me until version 3 to get the size just right for my cards in the sleeves and version 5 is “perfect.” My printer isn’t robust enough to print in good card stock so it’s coverstock. A little flimsy but gets the job done - the cards provide most of the structural support. Maybe someday when I’m feeling the love I will print them off at a print shop on glossy stock and do them up right. But these work and seem more in the spirit of the game than a bunch of cheap Ultra Pro Boxes.

Anyway, thought people might like to see these. Cheers

Would you mind sharing the dimensions you used for the Template Maker? Did you make them for sleeved or unsleeved decks?

22 minutes ago, twinstarbmc said:

Would you mind sharing the dimensions you used for the Template Maker? Did you make them for sleeved or unsleeved decks?

Not at all. I sleeved the cards using Ultra Pro sleeves that purport to be 66mm x 92mm. But they really aren’t and in fact the KeyForge cards generally poke out a bit from the end. This doesn’t bother me but your mileage may vary.

I’m reasonably sure I did 66x92x25mm but I will have to check when I get home. But honestly, you are better off making one without any art in it and test fitting it. If you are looking for a nice snug fit to the mm then the paper you are using and even how you tend to cut and glue it is going to matter. And if you use bigger sleeves you will need to test those dimensions too. I have a lot of practice making similar boxes for holding X-Wing ships so it takes me 10 minutes to cut and glue one. If you’re new to the task it will take about 20. Definitely use a small, sharp exacto type knife and a metal straight edge if you can. Otherwise you are likely to have a lot of variance in your cutting.

these are incredible. I want to make some. What thickness stock paper would you recommend for a box?

edit: found this too, super helpful. http://www.ee0r.com/boxes/

2 hours ago, Poposhka said:

these are incredible. I want to make some. What thickness stock paper would you recommend for a box?

edit: found this too, super helpful. http://www.ee0r.com/boxes/

Thanks man! As far as the paper, that’s a great question. The thickest card stock you can run through your printer would be my recommendation. Having said that, I have used “coverstock” for these which is pretty flimsy. The cards inside provide most of the substance of the box.

The units of thickness for cardstock are pretty arcane. So, for example, 75lb coverstock is actually a different strength/fitness than 75lb cardstock. Then when you buy the same thing twice it’s not always the same. So I don’t have a prescription. But the thicker the better as far as I’m concerned. My printer used to work fine with 65lb cardstock but the last time I bought it either it’s thicker or the printer is worn out because it won’t go through. I just had the coverstock lying around and it works okay.

TL:DR - I would use the thickest thing that works for you.

That link is helpful. If you are patient and careful it’s theoretically possible to print the art on one side of the paper and the template lines on the other. If lined up correctly then you need not have any lines running through your art. However, this is really difficult to do and my printer doesn’t have the tolerances to really line up the front and back perfectly so I find it not worth the hassle.

Bit I forgot to mention how critical it is to hit the “print actual size” setting. If the stupid printer is fitting your print to the page margins it messes up your carefully measure dimensions.

@twinstarbmc if you still want the dimensions I used my final model is 6.6cmx9.2cmx2.3cm. The program converts this to inches on the printout, which is not super helpful. The thickness needed to be as little as possible for me because the paper I’m using is thin and it gets bendy across the front unless the cards are pretty snug. But as I said, if you use thicker paper you might want to loosen that up a bit.

21 hours ago, BigBadAndy said:

Anyway, thought people might like to see these. Cheers

I hate you for being awesome... (also these look amazing)

Awesome work, making some of my own in photoshop. If they come out well I'll happily share the PSD file with anyone that wants it where central/archon images can be changed in and out on their own but the sides/sizes are all done.

@BigBadAndy

@TwitchyBait

This is great work guys. Any chance you might be able to save your templates over on BGG?

22 hours ago, LilRuub said:

@BigBadAndy

@TwitchyBait

This is great work guys. Any chance you might be able to save your templates over on BGG?

BGG? Not sure what that is. Happy to share just haven’t had the time to print mine up yet just to be sure it’ll fit all the sleeves cards.

BGG = boardgamegeek

28 minutes ago, 10Ten said:

BGG = boardgamegeek

Ah then yes once I’ve had the time to print and verify the size works I’ll be happy to upload it there.

On 11/28/2018 at 1:47 PM, LilRuub said:

@BigBadAndy

@TwitchyBait

This is great work guys. Any chance you might be able to save your templates over on BGG?

I am at the airport and won’t be home for two weeks. So this might take me a while, but I’m happy to share.

EDIT: I’m aware of the site but I don’t really know much about it. If you can link to instructions on how to post that would be helpful.

Uploading to BGG is pretty simple, just sign in and go to the files section: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/257501/keyforge-call-archons/files and press the upload button.

On 11/30/2018 at 11:27 PM, cramill said:

Uploading to BGG is pretty simple, just sign in and go to the files section: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/257501/keyforge-call-archons/files and press the upload button.

Finished my PSD version and tested it out. Everthing fits snugly and works fine with standard card stock. Alas BGG says the file is to big. I'll have to find another way of uploading it for use later.

Thanks, I read this and thought it was a great idea, so i made some boxes for my decks too.

Wow... these look awesome..... Twitchybait: were you able to find a way to make your PSD available for these boxes? I would love to be able to make these for my decks but not as "techy" when it comes to things like this.......

Thank you for all your work on these and looking forward to being able to make some of these myself with your help.

On ‎12‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 5:36 PM, yamaneko77 said:

Thanks, I read this and thought it was a great idea, so i made some boxes for my decks too.

Those look great. My first design used that image on three sides too, but I didn't print it in favor of the more specific house images. Looks like nice cardstock. Can you tell me what you printed on and what printer you used?

@dakoris73 Here are the two blank tuckbox templates. One is sized for FFG sleeves and the other for Ultra Pro. 1 This gives you the outline size at least. For adding art and cleaning up the tuckboxes, you can use the free GIMP 2 program. It's a bit wonky, but if you futz around for a while it works.

As an aside, Staples by me wouldn't print my boxes because they contained copyrighted art. I guess I understand this, but it's not like I'm selling these. I'd love to ask FFG for permission but I'm not sure how to even go about it. It's hard to see how they would not want players doing awesome stuff that hypes the community and encourages more people to play...

FFG sleeve template.pdf tuckbox design 5.0.pdf

I made a set of these as well. They really work great. Thanks for the idea. For size I used 3.625" X 2.625" X .75" It perfectly fits a sleeved deck.

I printed on 90# cardstock with an HP Laser Jet Pro 200 Color printer. I sprayed each box with gloss varnish before assembly. If you are printing with toner and do not varnish your print will crack! so be sure to coat your prints.

There's a decent editable word doc tuckbox template on boardgamegeek that I've used. Haven't printed them out yet, but I have high hopes.

Where can one find image files for their Archons like that?

On the backs of your cards. You'll have to find how to scan or photgraph your cards....

On 12/14/2018 at 2:07 AM, Greymarch2000 said:

Where can one find image files for their Archons like that?

Yeah, I scanned the card from my decks.

A sample of mine. much nicer for organization and just looks great all in a row in the box.

21 hours ago, BigBadAndy said:

Yeah, I scanned the card from my decks.

Thanks. I was hoping it was something simpler.