Editted: 24th November, Towerrex asked me to add that the organiser by itself is £44, and there is free shipping on Etsy. I was sent the full version with tokens etc.
This isn’t your ordinary board game review, this is a review of what it’s like to own a wooden Wyrmspan organiser from Towerrex, now there are lots and lots of reviews of Wyrmspan, so I won’t cover that. Instead, I’m looking at the wooden organiser from Tower Rex, which offers to upgrade your gaming experience. Through organising your components, offering upgraded components, and a card stand. Normally, I’d talk about gameplay, how a turn works, and then offer a summary. Instead, I’m going to talk:
Design & Functionality & Ease of assembly
Although you could argue all are inherently interlinked. I think it’s important to talk about them all as much as they are separate. And that leads us to start with design, now on face value alone the Wyrmspan organiser is stunning. Every single part has some form of design, pattern, from simple lines to dragons, to some rather fancy shading to give a sense of depth. And with that, the organiser offers a rather stunning piece of artwork (if you can call it that) for your gameplay experience. There’s a sense of quality that probably does enhance the gaming experience to find yourself dealing with chunky wooden tokens, which have been laser finished than say a token.
This is true of all the components in a sense, as is the fact that all the tokens are only finished on one side, which actually detracts from that. As you’ll more than likely find yourself with just a wooden token at first glance, and that, for me, is a shame. Having that quality of design on both sides would have been a nice touch. However, with an expansion already in the works for a 2025 release, how does the organiser hold up space wise? If there are just more of the same, e.g., more dragon cards, more cave cards, and the odd token here or there, then the organiser is future-proof. But if there’s a new size or shape of component, then the organiser is going to struggle and I suspect a bit like the old Ark Nova organiser become redundant unless you are a basegame only kinda person.
However, design is also linked inherently to functionality, and functionality probably comes down to storage and gameplay. And I don’t think this organiser is perfect in either. As much as it all fits snuggly together and tokens are held in place by little plastic overlays that you’ll assemble, there’s a sense of it all being far too snug. Take for example trying to remove the organiser from the box or trying to place it in the box, the pieces leave tiny tiny gaps requiring essentially precision like movements to be able to either remove a tray or put it all back away after you’re done.
The same goes for the little plastic overlay. Again, the slots for these are to the millimetre, which means it is an art of precision to getting these apart and back together. There’s also, I think needs to be another couple of millimetres to hold the overlays to make it easier to lock into place. As it currently works out that you’ll slide in an overlay, but need to carefully prop up the end so that it reaches the locking position, rather than the norm of it’ll slide downwards and miss the lock. The same happens when removing the plastic overlay. The overlay falls in as you remove it, and in some cases, after just two plays, it is already damaging the organiser!
But there is a card stand here, and not only does it enhance what’s on the table, it adds that sense of quality. It looks great on the table. Like the first player maker, it feels like an upgrade. It’s a practical storage solution for both cards, and we found cave cards during the game. But practically, the card stand, well firstly it makes the cards easier to see as it elevates them, however the biggest issue is that the layout means that the cave cards block the lower half of the dragon cards. Yes, it is easy to pick up and put a card back, and from a storage perspective, I highly doubt a tiered stand would have worked. But it’s slightly frustrating to have cards behind blocked, whereas in the original game play components, there isn’t this issue.
And I’m afraid to say pretty much the same thing about the individual player trays/card holders(which are an add-on to the organiser and not included by standard), however, this does appear to be a common thing across card trays, to line cards one behind the other, which works for a game where maybe you only want to see the top corner but where there’s text in the bottom 3rd of the card. It’s frustrating and a slight inconvenience. That’s fundamentally what it is, a minor inconvenience, which detracts slightly from that quality of design and components.
And I think that’s my summary, without even getting into the ease of assembly. The organiser is good but there’s just some elements which detract from this level of quality. In terms of ease of assembly, it’s again a mixed bag, there’s no instructions in the box, and it’s a download, which is great as long as it works. Having past experience of QR codes not working as planned, I’d always prefer a physical copy. I noticed a few misssteps in the instructions. For example, there were at least two occasions where the instructions referred to the incorrect part or displayed a different shaped piece to what was required. I’d love like other companies for a page overview of the sheets of mdf, so I knew quicker where to look. The MDF is engraved with part references, but as they aren’t sorted, e.g., all as on one sheet. A simple reference or summary to make it easier to know which one of the sheets to check would have improved assembly.
All in all, it took me a couple of hours to assemble, which I think pales in comparison to the 20-30 minutes it’s taken me to assemble other companies organisers. This is in part created by the lack of a parts summary, misprints/missteps, and also mdf isn’t as easy to assemble! It requires more force. At least one part required me to shave a little bit off as it simply wouldn’t go together.
As I’ve referenced above, my summary is that the organiser has a great table presence and definitely is going to make people stop and ask, “Where’s that from?” But actually, if you look deeper, there are smaller elements that don’t match that table presence. And ultimately at the price point for the organiser, tokens, and player dashboards. It’s hard to recommend anyone spending £127.74 plus shipping. Heck, you could buy Wyrmspan twice and have spare change!
As you know, I rate games on a scale of
Buy or play
Wait for sale or play if you like game XYZ
Avoid
This isn’t a game, so I’m amending that to
Buy
Wait for sale
Avoid
Honestly, I can’t give this a buy recommendation. It’s too much money for not quite perfect. it’s a solid organiser that falls short in a few areas. At its current price, it’s an avoid. But if you can get it on sale and need an organiser, then the Wyrmspan organiser from Towerex gets an easy “Wait for sale.” However, I’m not sure how often that is likely to happen, as you won’t find towerrex organisers in stock at most retailers, as you’ll need to buy them direct.
