Keeping it Organised–Talisman–An E-Raptor Review

E-Raptor is a Polish company that contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I would take a look at some products in their expanding range. Little did I realise they were going to send me their entire catalogue.

So Today I though I’d take a look at a small selection of the products they sent and review their use during a game of Talisman 4th Edition.

E-Raptor Stand vol.1

So, first up the thematically named E-Raptor Stand vol.1. This single piece black plexiglass stand was designed to work with the 4th Edition of Talisman (FFG Edition) and is a player aid to help keep things organised and reduce the amount of space a player needs.

The first problem I noticed with the tray is that the coins and tokens don't sit nicely while the stand is flat on the table, the addition of small rubber feet to the back of the stand makes for a more aesthetically pleasing look and a better fit for the tokens, but it does mean they will no longer stack nicely when you want to tidy up so it really is swings and roundabouts.

The stand comes with places to put all your stuff, including your character card, plus your tokens for life, strength, craft and fate, as well as two places to put your cards, three slots at the front and a shelf that can hold five cards at the back.

I really like the idea of the slot at the front being where you can place cards you want to remember to use on your following turn (such as spells) or cards that are currently affecting you like the poltergeist or hag. 

However, even with room for 8 cards, we quickly found ourselves running out of space. Perhaps a second ridge in the back shelf would have allowed for more cards to be added to the display.

Of course one thing that the stand allows you to do is pick up your playing area and move it, if for example a spouse or parent wants you off the table!

I like the idea of the stands, especially, as you can see, because space is at a premium on my table, but they only help up to a point. That said, Talisman is not the only game where these trays can be used. Descent 2nd edition for example works perfectly well too and because Descent is less card heavy the tray is not going to run out of room.

Overall then I can see uses for the trays but at £8-£9 each they might be quite an expensive accessory if you don't play Talisman all that often.

E- Raptor vol. 2 (Card Feeder) Talisman and M&M

Next up is the five slot card feeder. This is one of several models that e-Raptor makes and it is designed for the “Mini-American” card size, this is the half sized cards that FFG use, but that also appear in other games like Merchants and Marauders.

 

First up I think I should point our that all the products e-Raptor sent me are very nicely put together and have a good solid feel. This one is quite tall so it will fit a good number of cards in each stack (approx. 130), which makes it ideal for Talisman, especially if you are using all the expansions (which I’m not because they dont fit on my table.) However, with the main game and all four corner expansions you would have one slot for each deck and as an added bonus the tray fits nicely into the Crown of Command space in the centre of the board.

Because the slots are open at both ends the cards are easily accessible to players on both sides of the table. As I have done here, you can also assign an empty slot as a discard pile.

Overall this is a nice piece but I would only use it in games with large stacks of cards because each slot is so big it wouldn’t make sense for small decks. The card feeder comes in at around £16.

e-Raptor Box –S

Finally we come to the small, self assembly box for tokens.

Made from laser cut plywood the box comes flat packed and must be assembled before use. The good news is that it slots together and no glue is required and while plywood might not be the nicest finish, there is nothing to stop you painting and decorating the box with a theme to fit your game.

The action on the lid is really nice, everything moves without problems and the whole box feels pretty sturdy. It also holds quite a lot of pieces, here you can see I have all the tokens and dice for Third Edition talisman in the box with a little room left over.

The small token box comes in at a little over £5 and I think that’s a nice price for it. It is functional and if you are feeling artistic, with a little work it could be also be a beautiful addition to your games.

I’ve included links to each of the featured products at e-Raptor and here in the UK at Wayland games, but you can click here to see if there is another retailer near you. And below you can see the products in use in e-raptor’s videos.