@maverick_76:

Ah the styrofoam dividers….those were the days, anyone else find themselves poking holes in them when it’s not your turn though? I kinda destroyed mine…whoops!

I had a buddy, Steve, who would do stuff like that……it drove me nuts!!  Once, while playing Conquest of The Empire I was busy studying the board and I hear “Check this out!”.  I look over and Steve has taken all of the silver infantry pieces that were not in play and stuck them spear down into the Styrofoam tray.  I wanted to knock his block off!!

As for storage, I make my own trays out of cardboard:

Another version:

I haven’t made similar insers for the newer boxes yet but it would be pretty simple.  To me, if I’m going to divide them, I want them divided completely if possible.

@djensen You are correct. I just kinda’ built them as I went. Of course, I figured out general dimensions but I did slightly tailor each box to the nation it was for because unit numbers and sized varied. But I did them so many years ago now that I don’t recall any of the dimensions. I do remember that I made them out of the carboard backers that stacks of USPS stamps came wrapped in. I was working at the post office at that time and they would just throw the carboard in the trash after unwrapping the stamps. It was very high quality and dense cardstock but there were variations in the color of it. Still, it worked just fine for what I was doing.

@djensen You are correct. I just kinda’ built them as I went. Of course, I figured out general dimensions but I did slightly tailor each box to the nation it was for because unit numbers and sized varied. But I did them so many years ago now that I don’t recall any of the dimensions. I do remember that I made them out of the carboard backers that stacks of USPS stamps came wrapped in. I was working at the post office at that time and they would just throw the carboard in the trash after unwrapping the stamps. It was very high quality and dense cardstock but there were variations in the color of it. Still, it worked just fine for what I was doing.

@djensen I just made them for my own use as I hate to have the pieces all jumbled together. It probably takes me about 20 minutes or so to make just one box so it probably wouldn’t be practical for me to make them for others. I would have to charge way more than people were willing to pay I think.

IMO, HBG has far too many irons in the fire and has lost sight of both what we want and what they originally set out to do.  The large number of roads half taken have caused me to lose faith in them.  When they were at the top of their game, the pieces they were producing were excellent.  It’s a shame we have so many unfinished product lines and essentially dead projects.  I used to check their website often.  Now, it’s something like once every six months and dropping.  That’s too bad too because they showed great promise at one point.

About how long do you expect before the new Japanese pieces are available individually?

About how long do you expect before the new Japanese pieces are available individually?

My pieces arrived today.  Clearly this is HBG’s best set yet with regards to detail.  Every sculpt is on par with the Tiger that was included in the German set.  Since nobody has detailed photos to share, I thought I’d provide some myself.  There is a slide bar at the bottom of this post so that you can see the entire picture.  Alternately, you can click on a picture to see it full size.

Aircraft Carrier:

Heavy Battleship:

Battleship:

Heavy Cruiser:

Light Cruiser:

Destroyer:

Submarine:

Jet:

Fighter:

Dive Bomber:

Artillery:

Medium Tank:

Light Tank:

Infantry:

Overall, just an amazing job.  Doug, please don’t leave the base Japanese set on the backburner too long.

Well let’s see some detailed pictures!!

Actually, I have a game a little bit like that.

Not necessarily an error.  The guys modify things a lot on that show.  For example, “Rock Paper Scissors, Lizard, Spock”

I find that, as they die, so does my interest in WWII.  That’s sad because the study of WWII pretty much dominated my life for many years.