Skies Above Britain – Storage Solution From Rails on Board

It’s that time of the week again!

No, not time to wash out all of your delicates.

It’s time for another wargame storage solution from Rails on Board!

This one is from them as somebody else actually put it together.

Skies Above Britain is the latest solo air combat game from Jerry White (this time co-designed with Gina Willis) from GMT Games.

Just like Storm Above the Reich, there are a lot of blocks and cardboard pieces and lots of other detritus in the game, making it really hard to bag and store.

Leave it to Rails on Boards/Cube4Me (and some of its users, like me! But not in this case) to come up with a great storage solution to keep things organized and easy to get out on the table.

Let’s take a look at it.

The set consists of two small trays (12 compartments), one at 15 mm depth and one at 8 mm depth.

I found it best to get a lid for both rather than trying to nest them, because you do need the room in the compartments.

The 8 mm depth tray holds the German fighters that you may be facing, the Intercept Phase order counters, the “Fuck, there are Krauts on my tail!” maneuver counters, the inevitable “low/no ammo” counters, green pilot counters, and others.

For the deeper tray, you get all of those beautiful “Fallen/Destroyed” counters, individual bombers, all of your pilots, the dice and cubes, and others!

There are then 5 trays that are usually for cards but can hold a bunch of the other counters.

There’s one for the damage counters, one for the hit counters, one for the formation blocks. The latter also includes the 4th fighter if you’re using that optional rule.

The other two hold all of your fighters, separated into Spitfires and Hurricanes (and you will only be using one set during a campaign).

Finally, there are five trays that are just for cards, and this is where the one problem I have with this set comes in.

One tray holds all of the fighter cards for Hurricanes (Head On and Tailing, along with Tailed) and one holds the fighter cards for Spitfires.

The bomber cards hold both Medium bombers and Light bombers (the Stukas).

Finally, the Advantage card tray holds RAF Advantage and Luftwaffe Advantage cards.

All four of these are just a bit overfull.

The Escort Reaction tray isn’t completely full, but do you really want to shave 3-4 cards off of each other tray and mix up the decks?

I suppose you could if you’re concerned about card damage.

As long as you’re careful, it does fit and the lid locks.

But it’s a bit annoying.

You could separate a couple of the decks into their own trays (say Luftwaffe Advantage and RAF Advantage), but then the set won’t fit in the box.

Anyway…

How does it all fit in the box?

Of course, there are the boards and player aids and all of that stuff that goes on the bottom of the box before anything else.

Then comes the narrow tray and three of the card trays.

It’s pretty snug, but fits well.

On top of that goes the other tray and three card trays (one with actual cards and two of the ones with pieces).

Finally, on top of all that are the remaining card-sized trays with pieces along with the bomber tiles and the Escort Reaction card tray.

Surprisingly, even though it looks jam-packed on its own, the box lid fits with no lift.

But just barely!

See what I mean about separating the card decks?

Not going to happen.

As long as you’re careful with the cards, this Cube4Me set works like a dream.

And if you have the table space to lay the whole game out (which I don’t, really, having to make do), it all works wonderfully!

I’m glad I bought this one, even with the caveat about the card decks.

It will make getting Skies Above Britain to the table so much easier.

What do you think of this one?

Let me know in the comments.