A game that comes with as many components as Star Wars Rebellion is a prime candidate for a foam core insert. I think it is a well-established fact that Fantasy Flight inserts aren’t the best but, honestly, I don’t blame them. Coming up with an insert for this game was a challenge, at least the way I wanted to approach it.
One of the main reasons I create an insert for a game is to reduce set up and tear down time. Storing the game is just a useful by-product of this. This means, not just getting everything in the box, but getting everything in the box so that the game comes out as set up as it can be.
The plans you refer to will soon be back in our hands.
Darth VaderWith this insert, setting the game up is simple. Each piece that comes out simply sits on the table. The Rebel and Imperial component boxes come with the starting leaders, their mission and action cards, and their units and loyalty markers – everything in one box. The remaining leaders are in a half box that stands up on the table to form a gallery so players have easy access. The cards that go on the board are in a small separate piece that doesn’t have to stay on the table taking up space. The rest of the tokens, dice, and tactics cards are in their own piece that just sits down the table. All card storage was designed so that cards can be easily drawn from them.
I have no idea how Fantasy Flight can possibly expand this game. It seems so complete as is, but who knows. There is still plenty of room in the box (there is a 32 mm riser to lift everything else to the top) for expansions if they ever come.
Anyway, that’s probably enough. You can check out the pictures and pick up the plans below to make it yourself if it strikes your fancy. As always, if you see something that needs to be fixed please contact us or leave a comment.
Please note: The starting Leaders are stored under the Mission Cards in the faction trays.
EXPANSION UPDATE:
I have not acquired the expansion yet so I was unsure of how I was going to tackle adding it to the insert. Fortunately, Kevin (from the comments) has given us a work around until something more permanent materializes. I have not tried this yet. Here are his suggestions and a couple pictures to illustrate.
New Miniatures – I put the new figures in with the old that have a summary resource icon, so now I have to do a little searching.
New Objectives – The new objective cards fit nicely with the old.
New Advanced Tactics Decks – The new mission cards make the deck too large to rest over the starting leaders as they were, BUT the new advanced tactic decks, two for each player, take up that space nicely.
New Mission Cards – I threw all the damage tokens on top of the destroyed planet markers, and the remaining space holds one mission deck, then I removed the old tactic cards from the game, removed the divider, and that holds the other mission deck.
New Action Cards – The new action cards fit lovely in their assigned space, albeit a wee bit tighter.
REQUIRED TOOLS/MATERIALS:
5mm Foam Core
Self-healing cutting mat
Metal ruler with cork back
Elmer’s Glue All
Retractable Utility Knife
Dressmaker pins
If you haven’t built a foam core insert before check out our Foam Core Basics post.
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BUILT BY YOU
I love to see other people get good use out of the plans I create. This section is dedicated to you who have created and shared this foam core insert. Thank you! If you have built these plans and shared them, contact us and let us know so we can add your pictures to our gallery.
Building this right now, so first and foremost thanks so much for all you guys have done with your blog and for providing these plans!
I did want to ask, where do put your starting leaders? It was only after I built the leader trays that I quickly realized there wasn’t near enough room 🙂
I’m really glad our website is a useful resource for you! The starting leaders go under the mission cards in the Rebel and Imperial boxes. You can see a reference for this in one of the pictures in the post above.
I’d appreciate any feedback you can give on your experience building the insert from the plans. Is there anything that would have made it easier?
Ah-hah! That makes perfect sense and I assume would help the cards lay flat in storage. I’ve built everything except the last two trays up to this point, and to be honest the only thing that would have helped was if you could magically improve my inability to cut straight 🙂
I fully intend to post pics to BGG when done, with credit to you for your plans of course. I’ll link here when It’s complete!
Excellent! I’ll look for your post. Welcome to the Pub!
Brian, my pics and thread on BGG as promised. Thanks again!! https://boardgamegeek.com/article/22576852#22576852
Hi,
Used these plans for my insert as well. It does look very beautiful.
Huge thanks for this, my first foam core insert, and it was really enjoyable!
Couple of suggestions if you do a version 2 though.
I think one of the component sizes is off on the top layer (CARD/TOKEN STORAGE). I can’t remember which one now, but I had to redo a wall as it was short. Believe it was on the Token Tray – maybe the Damage Dividers?
As you sleeve the cards they stand proud of the Rebel/Imperial trays, think you could make the wall height 5-10mm higher on those trays to accommodate – will still fit easily in the box. Also reduces the riser need under the trays.
The character trays aren’t quite long enough (limited by box size as well) for all 12 and 13 cards. Maybe a way of storing these on there sides rather than flat would work?
Here are my pics on BGG
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2992937/star-wars-rebellion
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2992936/star-wars-rebellion
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2992935/star-wars-rebellion
Thanks so much for the suggestions. They will be considered for future versions. And congrats on creating your first foam core insert. Welcome to the club!
Quick question. Did you put the starting leaders under the Mission cards in the faction trays? This makes the recruitable leaders fit much better in their space. I think I need to make this clearer in the instructions as it has come up before.
The sleeved cards suggestion is a good one. I usually don’t sleeve cards so I don’t think about it but I need to incorporate this into my designs or at least note in the plans the alteration needed to make sleeved cards fit.
Glad you found the plans useful and thanks again for the feedback.
Ahhh no I did not do that, which explains why lol.
I shall do that tonight, which will make them fit much better for sure.
It’s the damage dividers I think. There are 2 listed in the plans (although only one is shown) and I believe they should be 70 x 25 n not 60 x25. And shouldn’t the card divider be 75 x 25?
You are right. I will get this fixed in the next version. Thanks again for the feedback.
All of this should now be fixed as of v 1.1.
You da man.
Out of curiosity, what do you guys use to cut your foamcore? I’ve got a small box cutter now, but considering moving to something that’s got a little more weight to it, or a specific tool made for foamcore cutting. My biggest issues is that my cuts are pretty clean but quite often are at less than 90 degree angles….
I currently use an extendable/retractable box cutter – the kind with the blade parts you can break off. I’ve had good luck with those but I know some people prefer the weight of an Exacto. I find that if I take my time while cutting and focusing on the angle helps me get square cuts. When I get in a hurry is when I end up slightly off.
A suggestion:
Something really helpful would be a bill of materials: A list of how many sheets of foamcore are needed for your plans, plus anything else you think would be necessary for assembling this insert.
I’m working on it tonight, and planning to go buy two sheets of 24×36″ 5 mm foamcore. Hope that’s enough.
This is a great suggestion. I usually order foam core in bulk from Amazon so I don’t pay too much attention. It’s also hard to keep track of since I do a lot of experimenting before I land on the final design but I could still give a good estimate. I’m pretty sure I used 2 20×30″ 5mm foam core sheets so you should be good with your purchase.
Other materials I use on every project, some obvious:
– Self-healing cutting mat
– retractable box cutters (the kind you can break off)
– Elmer’s Glue All
– dressmaker or sewing pins
– rulers of various lengths
I’m about 2/3 through building mine right now. Your plans are terrific and make this easy. Thanks!
I believe I’m going to be able to make this one on a single 20×30 sheet of foamcore. I’ve got an extra now. So I’m going to start looking around at other games I own that could use the foamcore insert treatment.
Thanks for some great plans. Made the insert last week and it makes setup a breeze!
Quick question. Where do you store Luke (jedi)? He doesn’t fit properly in the recruitment tray, so I ended up placing him on top of the mission cards (and underneath them after setup).
I had to slightly overlap the Lukes in the recruitment tray. It isn’t as pretty as the Imperial tray but it works.
I’m glad you found us and that the plans worked out well for you!
Quick question. Do you leave the pins in after the glue dries for added strength or do you take them out?
Thank You
I take the pins out of mine. The pins I use have the round ends so they wouldn’t sit flush with the box. If I had the kind of pins with flat ends I would consider it.
Brian thanks for the pin reply. I have another question for you. How did you install the risers in the rebel component box? Are they pinned or floating on something else? Thanks again for the great plans!!!
The whole riser piece (supports, base, and dividers) is assembled as a whole and sits free floating in the space. I didn’t glue it in so that I could reuse the space if I needed to later. I made sure it fit tightly into the space so it doesn’t move around. Does this answer your question?
Yes!!!! Thank you so much!!!
Thanks so much for these plans! My sister and I are making this for my dad as a Father’s Day gift and I think he will love it!! The instructions were great for newbies to this whole foam core insert thing, and I think we managed to pull it off!
What a great gift idea! Thanks for the feedback too. It’s good to know the plans work for people.
Brian, thanks so much for putting this up on bgg’s foam core geeklist. I saw it there and decided your approach was the one I would try to imitate. I’ll post some pics of my finished product soon. I really like how you stored the larger cards, and the standees for the leaders is brilliant. A couple extra things I did was to use the original insert to line the bottoms of each bin, looks pretty cool. I also did not realize you had a riser underneath, so my trays are a lot deeper (I made it before finding your instructions). Thanks again!
I’m glad you found the insert. And making it before having the instructions – impressive. I like your idea of lining it with the original insert. Good way to get some Star Wars artwork on it. Can’t wait to see what you did with it.
Leader Storage: Does the exact positioning of the leader riser matter. The distance from any edge isn’t clear. I’m guessing wide enough for the bases of the leaders + a few mm.
Great question and something I need to add to the next version. I put it 15mm from the edge. The pieces isn’t actually required but it makes the leaders sit flat in their storage. Thanks for catching it.
Thanks!
Followed these plans and they worked a treat, even with sleeved cards (only barely mind).
It took me about 6 hours to do, think I need a bit more practice!
Cheers for sharing.
I was wondering if there was a printable template available for the pieces? It would increase assembly time if you could print out the templates and cut the pieces without having to make all the measurements .
There currently is not a template available. But this is an interesting idea. I’ll have to look into the feasibility of creating templates like this.
First of all many thanks for your fabulous work !
I was just wondering if you ever tried to build things like this not with foam but with wood pieces (with exactly same measures). I would like to try …
Thanks! It really is fun to design and build these things.
I have thought about building these using laser-cut wood. I am hoping I can afford a machine to do it someday. If you try I would love to see your results.
Thanks for your anwer. I’m working on it, and i’ll put pictures as far as it will done.
Ok, it’s done ! My pics here :
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/3147340/fyrdyn
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/3147342/fyrdyn
I’m using sleeved cards, and inscrease wall height of 10 mm is perfect but width is very just (too narrow). As I didn’t want to inscrease width, I just grate the wood (barely 0,5 to 1 mm) and all was OK.
Thanks again Brian for your plans, I wouldn’t have done that without them ! 🙂
Wow! That is really impressive! It looks great.
I’m a bit confused; I don’t see a price listed anywhere?
There is no need for a price. You can download the plans to make the insert for free! 🙂
Oooooh, okay; I misunderstood, I thought you were advertising your services to make these.
Thanks for these plans! Worked like a charm!
Finally I can get rid of the ugly plastic bags…
Greetings from Munich!
You are very welcome! I’m glad people are getting good use out of these plans.
Please let me know if you have any feedback.
Thanks for the great plans. I used a 3mm PVC hard foam board instead. It’s a bit sturdier.
I’ll have to look into the PVC hard foam board you mention. I like the idea of sturdier and that 2mm can save some space. Glad the plans worked out well for you!
I’ve never made a foam core insert before, but I decided to make this one for Rebellion as my first one. It took a while to make, but the instructions were easy to follow and everything turned out great! My only suggestion would be to explain a little bit more about how to create a 32mm riser – as a newbie I wasn’t 100% sure how to do that. Also, for those unsure of how much foam core this takes, I used almost an entire 3-pack of 16×20 foam core; there’s probably a more efficient way to do it, though. Thanks again for the schematics, Brian!
It’s good to get feedback that the instructions are easy to follow. I’m always a bit worried that they make sense to me but not anyone else. Great suggestion on the riser details. And thanks for the foam core usage – that is useful information.
Hi and happy new Year.
I want to ask how did you make the 32mm riser ath the bottom of the box?
Hello and happy new year to you as well, John! Great question. I probably need to add this to the instructions.
Basically, I made an upside down tray that sits in the bottom of the box – the top being 285×285, 2 walls 285×27 and 2 walls 275×27.
Does this make sense?
Not quite as exact as Brian’s approach, but I made the riser in an even easier way that used up some of my scraps. I took a square of foam almost but not quite 285×285, then I cut out 20 30mm x 30mm squares. Using the squares, I made 4 stacks of 5 squares. I then glued each of the stacks around larger square, about 70mm or so in from from each edge. That way the height of the riser was 30mm (plus some height from the glue at each level). This way rather than the weight supported by walls at the edge, it’s supported by 9mm-square platforms.
This is a great idea, Ryan. Put those scraps to good use!
I made this over the weekend, and it looks awesome. Thanks for making the plans available.
One minor issue is that the pieces tend
s to get scrambled around if the box isnt stored horisontally. If i would redo this I’d make the boxes 5mm higher and make a lid. I made a work around with some pieces gled into colloums that presse the board down ontologisk the boxes as a lid. Works ok.
Wow, what a mess, I think i’d better stop posting from my phone 🙂
I made this over the weekend, and it looks awesome. Thanks for making the plans available.
One minor issue is that the pieces tends to get scrambled around if the box isnt stored horisontally. If i would redo this I’d make the boxes 5mm higher and make a lid. I made a work around with some pieces glued into colloumns that press the board down onto the boxes as a lid. Works ok, but not perfectly, as some of the smaller ships really wants to go visit the others in their boxes. Naughty!
I made this over the weekend. It took me roughly 5 hours (or the runtime of A New Hope, Return of the Jedi and 3 episodes of Arrested Development minus the times I got distracted by watching). I’m very pleased with how well these inserts came together. I did have to cut back the outer measurements a bit because 285×285 was a bit too snug. I also made the box riser so that a) the box would be filled completely and b) I had some clearance for any cards or other pieces that might be sticking up out of the faction trays. On that note – be sure you have enough room for the mission cards to lay down within the profile of the faction tray. The piece of foam core that my Imperial mission cards was a bit too close to the end of the box, so my cards stick out a little bit.
Overall, this guide made this WAY easier than the Twilight Imperium inserts I made a few months ago using only images of the finished product. My non-gamer wife said that looking at the finished product was very soothing to her “OCD tendencies.” My only wish is that there were a way to separate Super Star Destroyers and maybe display them in a cool way like all of the Rebel ships and the Death Stars.
Thanks for such a detailed comment, Andrew! Great pointers and feedback. I’m glad the plans helped!
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the plans. I’d like to start this project and adapt it to fit sleeved cards but I’m unsure what changes to make.
You say “If you want to fit sleeved cards make the faction trays 10mm higher (decreasing lift height to 22mm)”
Does this mean for example Box Long Wall dimensions would change to 285 x 48, Box Short Wall 132.5 x 48 etc etc ? Any wall or divider coming off the Box Base gains 10mm on the vertical measurement ?
Thanks in advance.
You are correct. Anything that was 38mm becomes 48mm. I might leave the Card Divider at 22mm to make sure the sleeved cards have enough room.
Thanks for using the plans!
After I completed my insert I added some photos to the Board Games community on google+ as I noticed Pub Meeple was on the member list.
Thanks again for the plans.
Hi! Will you be redesigning the insert to accommodate for the changes with the expansion?
Some cards got bigger and there are more leaders…
I am planning to. Once I get the expansion I will see how much effort it will take to do the redesign. My plan right now is to utilize the empty space at the bottom of the box to add the expansion components. But I will also look into changing some of the original design to accommodate. Of course, life will dictate when this happens so I can’t make any promises yet.
From what I’ve seen, I think it will work just fine with the empty space. I had made a few little pillars with leftover scraps so that it would keep the board pressed agains the insert and allow me to store the box vertically. The first time I tried storing it vertically i heard all the pieces falling out of their trays. I’m grateful you intentionally designed the insert with an expansion in mind. I haven’t had a chance to play it much, but the insert is amazing and is extremely useful in keeping everything organized during game play. I’ll be picking up my expansion next week and I’ll likely take a crack at making an insert for it. Since this expansion replaces the tactic cards from the base game with regular sized cards, I might remove that divider and use that slot to store the new ones. And if you make one, I’ll likely replace it if it fits the current design.
After doing your design and it working out so well it inspired me in creating an insert (not as intricate) for dominion, I was able to fit the base game with 3 expansions and it’s components into the base game box (1600 cards and components)
Glad you are liking the insert and thanks for the feedback. I’m also glad you were inspired to create your own! That is very encouraging to know that work I’ve done has helped others in this hobby.
I just got the expansion and it fits fairly well into your insert
I’m a bit lazy and didn’t want to ruin my AMAZING insert I already had, so the changes I made were minimal
I put the new figures in with the old that have a summary resource icon, so now I have to do a little searching,
The new objective cards fit nicely with the old
The new mission cards make the deck too large to rest over the starting leaders as they were, BUT the new advanced tactic decks, two for each player, take up that space nicely,
I threw all the damage tokens on top of the destroyed planet markers, and the remaining space holds one deck, then I removed the old tactic cards from the game, removed the divider, and that holds the other mission deck.
It’s quick and dirty, and the main issue I see for you are holding the new leaders in a way that’s as intuitive and user friendly as you had it previously,
As you said before there’s plenty of room for expansion so new trays for the new units shouldn’t really be an issue, just a little work.
Oh and the new action cards fit lovely in their assigned space, albeit a wee bit tighter.
I’m thinking drawers under the lifts. When I’m less lazy when I’m less lazy
Thanks so much for this Kevin!
I haven’t gotten the expansion yet so I wasn’t sure yet what I was going to do. Thanks for blazing the trail!
I’m going to feature your suggestions up in the main post until I can rework the plans.
Sweet! I can’t post pics in this comment but if you want them, just tel me where to send ’em!
Send them to pubmeeple@gmail.com. Thanks!
I got the expansion tonight. And I’ve started re-working some of it. My original plan to use the remaining space isn’t going to happen. I’ve changed a bit of the philosophy of how the insert works. After reading some of the other post on creating your own design and what you should prioritize, My original thought is to Have the bottom tray to only hold the components, while removing the cards, and starting characters. That will open up the space for the new components. I plan on creating a setup insert that will include the characters, cards and possibly the loyalty tokens and starting units. I have done the following changes to the Rebel insert.
– Added a divider where the starting leaders used to be, and placed the “Rebel vanguard” and “Golan Arms Turret”
– I removed the divider between the Corellian Corvettes and the Mon Calamari Cruisers, moved it closer to the Corvettes, the cruisers were placed side by side, and inserted an identical divider, that provided the space needed for the Frigates.
– Lastly the U-Wing, I will elevate the former action card deck section to hold them
Empire:
– Interdictors were placed with the star destroyers
– Tie Striker and Assault Tank – Staring leader space with divider (same as rebels)
– Shield Bunker, divider was placed separating the loyalty tokens, but I might elevate the action card section and move those there.
I just need to think about using something where the mission cards used to go that will keep the items in place. But I’ll get to that after I get some sleep.
Some great ideas here! Y’all are going to have this thing redesigned before I even get a hold of the expansion. 🙂
Hi Brian, love your inserts. I’m not sure from the comments—are you still planning on redesigning this with the expansion in mind? And if so, when do you suspect that might be?
Hi Tyler! I would love to add the expansion into the Rebellion insert but I haven’t gotten it yet. I hope to change that soon. Once the expansion is in my collection I’ll work on incorporating it. Thanks for your interest!