Great AH storage found!

By macgowan, in Arkham Horror Second Edition

If you have a Hobby Lobby in your area, they have the perfect storage for AH and expansions:

Wooden Artist Case

I was considering those ugly plastic drawers they sell for scrapbooking, but then I found this. The lid holds rulebooks nicely, and the entire main game (plus all expansion Investigators and GOO's) fits in the top rack.. I was able to easily fit Dunwich, Insmouth, and Lurker in the bottom. If you do have a Hobby Lobby, you can probably find a 40% coupon in your local paper or online. Plus it looks pretty snazzy!

That's nice, indeed. And only $15. It fits the boards, too? I'd like to get that, but I really don't want to almost fit everything. Either it all fits, or I'm sticking with my craft boxes plus base game box in a duffel bag.

I've been looking around for something just like this. I have to agree, though, that I don't want it to fit almost everything. All I have right now is the base game, though so it will work for me. Is it possible for you to post pics with all the stuff inside of it?

macgowan, are you there? I'm still hoping for an answer about whether the boards all fit in this thing.

Well, you had to go and dare me to buy the last big box expansion, didn't you? I hope you're pleased with yourselves!

I'm happy to say the wooden case holds the core game and ALL big box expansions quite nicely!

Dunwich, Kingsport, Innsmouth cards all fit on the bottom in plastic card boxes. Kingsport monsters wouldn't fit in the card boxes I have, so I stashed them with my tokens in the tray. The removable tray holds every component from the core game, all investigator, heralds, guardians, and GOO's. Boards and rulebooks sit on top, but it closes tight enough that things don't move around too much. I'm considering a layer of foam to keep my chits and investogator markers in place, but the small boards seem to do a good job of that. Maybe if things get rattled around I'll do that, but for the time being everything fits nice and snugly.

The box closes almost completely with no pressure on the lid. Push down a little bit and the clasps shut easily, without too much pressure from the inside.

I can't get the pictures to upload, but here's the link to my picasa album so you can see for yourself.

And to reiterate, the only work I put into the case was to unscrew the slider tray from the top lid. Everything was ready to go.

If you wanted to store other expansions, you could easily ditch the tray, stand card boxes on end, and probably have enough room for every expansion. You'd need some way to keep them from rattling around, but it could work. I just keep mine in a separate card box, because I like the tray.

Now I just need to see what other board game boxes I can replace with these...

Thanks for the pics! It looks good and all, but I think I'll wait and eventually build my own. The biggest draw for me on these type of boxes for this game is the ability to open the box and start playing. I'll keep in it mind for other games, though. Thanks for sharing!

Hmmm... Perhaps Call of Cthulhu...

That's awesome, thanks. Definitely getting these for AH and BSG, though it'd probably work for nearly any sequel/expansion-heavy game that's outgrowing its original boxes (which is sort of a quintessential FFG problem, but I'm also looking at you, Klaus Teuber, Kris Burm, and Alan Moon.)

Unfortunately I'm apparently like 200 miles away from the nearest Hobby Lobby, but it looks like they periodically offer shipping discounts, so I might wait for the next one...if I can muster up the patience.

Well, the price is certainly right. I'll have to give this a try until I come up with my "perfect" AH storage solution.

I'm thinking maybe painting it in the same green on the game box and putting a big blue elder sign on the lid.

Macgowan, any plans to pimp out your box? Incidentally, where did you get those plastic card boxes? I'll probably use tuckboxes, but those are nice too.

Thanks for sharing the idea and all the photos!

Wow!! Great find! I went to Hobby Lobby after seeing this, but they didn't have any in stock.. :( I'll have to wait until later this week.

No plans to pimp it out as of yet. That would take too much time and effort.

The cards on the bottom are in 1" plastic deckboxes for sports cards etc. I was able to rearrange a bit and fit 4 more boxes in, so my Lurker stuff is happy.

Oh and for all you Settlers fans, yes, this is the same box. Yeah, capitalism! Those dowels glued to the bottom are totally worth the extra $55+.

So, in your box, I see all kinds of plastic boxes. What are those?

Those are UltraPro 50-count boxes (Storage Box series 81173). It holds 12 of these plus four 100-count boxes on the bottom and three 50-count boxes on the top.

My new setup is much more stable. The boards fit perfectly under the tray, and I put a sheet of foam in the lid to protect cards in the tray. This allowed me to fit 150 more cards worth of storage. It also fits a felt monster bag I picked up on Halloween clearance.

I could probably condense further if I need to, as the small Investigator Cards fit sideways in the 100-count boxes.

If you plan to build and sell your AH Storage Box in mass, let me know cause my boxes are getting beat up and I would like something to store them in. BTW great find and you don't have to "pimp" out the ones you sale (or at least not to me).

Try as I might, I could not fit everything into this box... and that's even without any of the encounter cards or Other World cards (I use my iPod for those). But that's okay, it's still a great container for this game and I'm going to get another one and split everything between the two. That should hopefully allow room for all of the minis when I get them.

Grudunza said:

Try as I might, I could not fit everything into this box... and that's even without any of the encounter cards or Other World cards (I use my iPod for those). But that's okay, it's still a great container for this game and I'm going to get another one and split everything between the two. That should hopefully allow room for all of the minis when I get them.

MINIS?!! What's this about minis?

Give a look here!

Grudunza> Did you take off the drawer-thingie that's screwed to the top lid? That was giving me fits for a couple days. Also, how many expansions are you trying to cram in there?

macgowan- how many expansions do YOU have in there? also, where did you get the ultrapros and how much did they cost?

macgowan said:

Grudunza> Did you take off the drawer-thingie that's screwed to the top lid? That was giving me fits for a couple days. Also, how many expansions are you trying to cram in there?

All expansions. No problem, though. I got a second box and everything fits great between the two, with plenty of extra room for the minis and probably another expansion, if there is one. I kept the drawer thing in one of them... it holds the rulebooks and expansion boards very well.

I wonder how difficult it would be to combine two of these boxes together. If you removed the lid from one and the base of the other, then combine the two bottom halves, making one case but deeper. It would make storage more convenient.

What plastic storage case is that in the top tray? I have been trying to find one that fits like that, but with no success. Thanks

Like I said, I have base game, Dunwich, Innsmouth, Kingsport, and Lurker. All fit comfortably, and I even have a 1/2 sheet of foam on top.

The shop I work at sells the cases two for $1.75, or one 100-count for $1.75.

The plastic storage tray for my tokens is from Wal-Mart, in the sewing/crafts section I believe.

Excellent. Thanks for those answers and for finding and sharing this great storage case with us! happy.gif

I'll be picking one of these up ASAP... but the question I have is this:

You mentioned that you have the big box expansions and Lurker.. what about the other 3 small ones? Is that just pushing things to get it all in one case?

Athenor said:

I'll be picking one of these up ASAP... but the question I have is this:

You mentioned that you have the big box expansions and Lurker.. what about the other 3 small ones? Is that just pushing things to get it all in one case?

As I said before, I have all expansions, and I don't even have any of the encounter cards or Other World cards included (I use a program on my iPod for those), and I still couldn't really come close to fitting everything in the box. With two boxes, yes, there's plenty of room, and probably all of those encounter and OW cards would easily fit, too, if I needed them to (but I'm saving the extra space for the minis and future expansions, if any). But I can't imagine all of that fitting into one box.

Regardless, it's a really nice fit for storing this game... the place for the investigator and GOO sheets is a perfect fit, and it just seems meant to work for this game.