One thing about playing games with stacks and stacks of cards is that you have stacks and stacks of cards. With sleeves, even if they aren’t too tall, they like to slide around and quickly make a mess.
I’ve been meaning to share these for awhile. But I’ve been too lazy busy to create the file, the video, and this post to share them. So now I have.
I’m talking about these quick card shoes, each made from a single sheet of 110# card stock. These are really nothing spectacular, except they are cheap, easy to make, and I quite frankly find them very convenient to have around on table for any game. I’ve used them with Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game, Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game, Combat Commander: Europe, Forge War, Conflict of Heroes: Eastern Front – Solo Expansion, and as seen here Warfighter: The Tactical Special Forces Card Game.
I have mine cut and scored with my Silhouette Cameo, but I’ve uploaded a file that you can just print and cut out. As I said, I use heavy cardstock, but for more permanence and rigidity you can use chipboard or thicker cardboard. There is a template for both front-draw and side-draw models depending on your need (and card slots on the gameboard). For example the wounds in Legendary Encounters work better with the side draw, while the barracks draw pile works better with the front draw. Again, it just depends on your preference.
For Combat Commander, I use two per side… draw and discard. It really helps to keep those stacks from falling over.
Another serving suggestion is to print on both sides of the cardstock a pattern or text or whatever (or hearts, bunnies, unicorns) and then print this overtop of that and cut it out. The skies the limit here, knock yourself out.
Along the draw edge of each model is a little trifold section. This will not only reinforce that edge, but provide just a little “lift” to tilt the shoe toward the back wall and keep the cards from escaping out the front door. There is also for each style, an optional wall height increase section you can use for really tall stacks. Just cut and fold these and insert inside the appropriate shoe to raise the shoe to 2.25″ tall.
Not really much more to say, except I hope you also find these helpful in your gaming. Perhaps you’ll think of me and this little blog everytime you use one. Or maybe just the first time. Or maybe not at all. It’s all good.
To ease with the assembly, I put together a quick video how-to as well.
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