You've spent a fair chunk of change buying some nice Euro-Games and have a game collection. I've found these board gaming accessories to be useful in replacing cheap paper money, storing items, etc. If you ever decide to move you'll find that storing game items in bags or containers prevents spillage. These accessories are definitely not essential but handy to have around.

Automatic Card Shuffler $7 at walmart.

Set of 300 Poker Chips 11.5grams $15 at walmart. Can use in games like For Sale, Power Grid, Modern Art, etc. Saw they have a $38 one that I may get eventually. Don't get the cheaper $11 poker chips one as it only has set of 100 chips and it won't suffice for most games. If they don't advertise there weight most likely they are 8grams chips (lightweight).

Lunch bag for Carcassonne games $1 at walmart. The tiles will barely fit in a 5" x 7" dice bag, however, it's impossible to reach below and get a good random draw from the dice bag, thus I prefer these cheap lunch bags. I'm not about to lay all the tiles face down on the table like it suggests in the rules as it'd take way too long.

Wooden dressers to hide money from opposing players $1 each at Michael's. Sure you can use the cardboard screens that come with Modern Art but I find these useful in many games.

4" x 6" ($1) and 5" x 7" ($2) Velour Dice Bags from fairplaygames.com

Hefty OneZip Slider Sandwich Bags. The top two are $1 each at the 99 cent store. OneZip lock securely compared with the regular kind it's hit and miss usually. See picture below for comparison of bag sizes.

If they made OneZip bags in 3 1/2" x 6 1/2" then I'd be in heaven. Unfortunately the smallest OneZip is the green one pictured above that I could find.

4 pack of square containers $1 at 99 cent store.
4 pack of round containers $1 at 99 cent store.
I much prefer these small containers to sandwich bags. Just makes for neater organization within the game box.

Niagara using 4 square containers. Also bought 4 toothpicks of round cylinder containers for $1 at 99 cent store. Using one of them to store the gems.

Power Grid...note the cheap money. Use the poker chips instead.

Ticket to Ride 45 train cars in each container.

Through the Desert. The big purple container I believe is $1 for two of them at 99 cent store.

Tigris and Euphrates just 1 plastic bag, rest fit in containers and tiles in the bag.


Settlers of Catan - games with hexes use a rubber mat about $4 at walmart or home depot. Prevents them from moving if someone accidentally bumps the table. Cities and Knights expansion addresses this issue with surrounding cardboard pieces but I find this rubber mat much quicker to setup.

Shadows Over Camelot - white plastic container was $1 at walmart in the crafts section.

Player aids, Instructions, etc.
Laminating You can laminate color printouts but it comes to about $0.80/page. When you buy a 10 pack of self laminating that is good for 5 pages. Are you can buy a laminator for $100 and it'll still cost a pretty penny. Kinkos cost $2 per page to laminate.

Printers
For inkjets you can buy about 50lb glossy photo paper and it'll come to around $0.20/page + cost of ink which is expensive.

Or you can buy a color laser printer and print on thick stock color laser paper which is cheap. Expensive intial cost but longterm cheaper. I bought a Konica Minolta magicolor 2430 DL for $369 at Costco and it'll be about $0.01/bw and $0.05/color at 5% coverage of page. Much cheaper than inkjet ink.

Make own cards best is to buy 110lb paper $5 for 250 sheets (67lb feels not quite heavy enough). It cost about twice as much as 20 or 24lb paper which costs about $5 for 500 sheets. .

To make rounder corners of cards bought these scissors at Michael's for $4.

Used 110lb paper and the rounded scissors to make these homemade cards for Ave Caesar.

Updated Nov 25, 2005


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