Hello and welcome to another insert review! Today’s insert is one of the largest ones I’ve ever done. I’ll be showing The Broken Token‘s insert for Gloomhaven (second edition)!

~|Assembly|~

Unlike past inserts, I didn’t take pics of the pieces individually as I assembled them (as there are a lot), but here are all the finished pieces together (and in the Transfer section below you can see what each is for and how they look separately). The large tray on the right suggests taping the bottom to keep it more secure, and I used packing tape. It seems plenty sturdy via that method.

~|Transfer|~

First we have the small terrain pieces trays. These hold the miscellaneous, smaller pieces of terrain (that you would use on top of the large pieces to mark specific items or blocked areas). All of these tiles are double-sided and some have different terrain on the reverse side for a thoroughly expansive array of possibilities.

The bottom tray holds the status/affliction tracker tokens and the top 2 hold the miscellaneous bits (such as summon trackers, damage, money, elemental trackers, etc).

This is the large tray filled up with the big map pieces as well as the elemental tracker and party sheet pad. Even in the suggested orientation of filling the tray, the topmost pieces hang over the edge a little which concerned me because this tray goes on top in the box, but after having the box filled and stored for awhile I haven’t noticed any damage to the map pieces so it seems okay after all.

The small and large card trays. Movable dividers are present in both and there’s plenty of room for sleeves if you use those.

These are the player trays that hold your character’s cards, tokens, health tracker, mat, and character sheet. There is room to add additional items (such as acquired gear) so they can store whatever you need anytime you need to pack up and pause the adventure. The orientation of the insert in the box doesn’t have space for all 17 of the character tuckboxes, sadly, which means that you’ll have to have at least 3 characters emptied out into the player trays at all times, even just to pack the insert for the first time (which is annoying as I don’t know what characters we’ll be playing yet and so I had to just randomly pick 4 of the starting ones to put into the trays). You also have to find someplace else to put the empty tuckboxes as well which is a further annoyance as you need to keep them in case you change classes later.

Standee bases, player class figures, and the sweet boss/enemy cards and sleeves are what’s contained in these pieces. I really like the way the enemy cards work, having several levels on each side of the card hidden by the sleeve so you only see the level you’re currently fighting. The tall but skinny box holds all the cards and sleeves quite nicely.

Finally we have the main reason why I chose to go with Broken Token’s insert instead of one of the other available ones. TBT provides you with custom, individual small tuckboxes for each unique enemy type in the game. They hold both the combat cards AND the standees for the associated enemy type all in a convenient tray that is easy to organize and grab what you need.

~|Inserting|~

Here’s how it all fits in the box.

Top row: Summons bits tray, standee bases, enemy tuckboxes. Bottom row: Player figures, player trays, unopened character tuckboxes.

Top row: Enemy cards/sleeves, large card tray, small card tray. Bottom row: Both of the medium-sized terrain trays.

If you have it, the solo scenarios book fits here, next to the status tracker tray, the damage/money/elemental tracker tray, and the small terrain tray.

The map board fits on top of the solo scenarios book and the status tracker tray.

Finally on top goes the large terrain tray. The sticker sheets didn’t have a specified place in the insert diagram so I just put them on top of this tray.

~|Conclusion|~

I have mixed feelings about this insert. It works for what the purpose is, but there are definitely some things I don’t like about it. Rather than give an opinion on whether I recommend this insert (1. because I’m honestly not sure, and 2. because I haven’t tried any of the other ones to be able to compare directly), I’ll just list some thoughts.

Pros:

• Custom enemy tuckboxes are GREAT and such a good way to organize those.
• As with all TBT inserts, there’s a place for everything and everything has its place.
• Card trays have room for sleeves.
• Fits well in the box (with a potential exception mentioned below).

Cons:

• The designated space for the character tuckboxes can only hold up to 14 of the 17 (and that’s if you really squish in the last one). I recommend storing 13 and having all 4 of the character trays filled even if you aren’t playing with 4 people.
• Linked to the above point, you have to find somewhere external to store the 3-4 empty character tuckboxes while their contents are in the character trays.
• The map boards, in the suggested orientation, hang over the edges of the tray and could potentially be damaged if you store anything on top of the Gloomhaven box once the insert is inside (I haven’t noticed damage but I haven’t had the insert for all that long).

Have you tried this or any other insert for Gloomhaven? Feel free to let me know here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!

Game on!
Scott – The Solitary Meeple