AEG Smash Up Big Geeky Box Game

This box is pretty great, but has a few small caveats to it. First, I will explain the box, followed by the Geek faction included within.The box itself is very pretty on the outside, and fairly unremarkable on the inside. It's large (from memory it's maybe 1.5x as long as the base box, about as wide, and about 1.5x as tall), and has 3 length-wise channels for cards. The 3 channels are deeper than the cards themselves by a little bit, but the dividers that it comes with help you find things well. The dividers are beautifully made of hard, shiny plastic, with pictures of each faction on them, and the name of the faction on the top so you can quickly find a faction in the box. There are also large, black foam dividers that you can use to keep the box sectioned however you please, and stay in place to give the cards as much or as little wiggle room as you'd like. The problem is that, with only 20 cards per faction, the space between dividers is very little (maybe half a centimeter), so if you don't give them any wiggle room, it could become difficult to read one divider over another, and if you give them too much wiggle room it's possible for the cards to fall over and become difficult to get out.The space in the box is tremendous, for better or worse. I have every expansion currently out, minus the new Halloween expansion that comes out this month (September 2014), and I could fit every one of them in one channel if I wanted. I have the main 8 factions in the center channel (taking up maybe a 3rd of the box's length), followed by a block, followed by the first expansion (Plants, etc), followed by another block, followed by the third expansion (Time Travelers, etc), followed by another block to hold it all in place, and there's still more room in the center. On one of the outer channels I have the Cthulhu Expansion (which I don't use much) and its chips, and in the other I have the base cards and the remaining chips, with one left over block. With all the cards on one side of the box, I need to make sure to carry it from that side, since it is decently heavy, and holding it from the wrong side caused part of the box to tear slightly. Obviously you can redistribute the weight as you see fit, but this setup works for me, and I don't see a realistic way to divide up the cards such that it balances well otherwise.The box comes with dividers for every expansion so far, including the unreleased Halloween one, which is nice. I am slightly concerned of what will happen when future expansions come out, however. If they do not come with dividers (and maybe more foam blocks), they will not fit well into this kit, because the depth of the channels and lack of natural divisions would make it impossible to find loose factions otherwise. I assume they will release more dividers when they make more expansions (I certainly hope they make more, since this game is great and the box is barely a third full), and I just hope that they release them with the expansions themselves.As for the new Geek expansion itself, it is a fun, if not a little broken, addition to Smash-Up (aren't they all?). The cards revolve around drawing more cards and manipulating the game in various ways. Several key highlights:- Not one, but TWO cards that let you cancel another person's action out of turn as they play it (Wil Wheaton, a minion, and Force of Wil, a special action)- 2-Power minions that can be discarded for more cards- An action that lets you play the effect of another action in your hand without using it, effectively letting you do any instant effect twice- An action that lets you name a card and remove any instances of that card from another person's hand (seeing their hand in the process)- A minion (Felicia Day) that moves EVERY SINGLE MINION on the field to her, which can pretty much guarantee a base scoring and help remove almost anything from the fieldOverall, I'd say the box is worth it, so long as you have both Smash-Up and a decent amount of its expansions. If you have less than maybe 2 expansions (since the main game box can fit 2 expansions worth of extra cards), you'll be paying for probably around 5x as much space as you need and a lot of unused dividers. But if you're like me and have/intend to get every expansion they make, this is a great way to store your cards, and a nice bonus faction to boot.UPDATE (3/12/15): I just got my hands on the new Pretty Pretty Smash-Up expansion, and it fits well in the box. The expansion comes with 4 new plastic dividers for the new factions, so they join the rest of my collection perfectly. My new organization has the bases in the first channel of the box, the Cthulhu and Monster Smash expansions in the third channel (since they have unique mechanics and we don't play with them as much), and the remainder of the factions in the middle channel, separated by foam blocks. With this approach, the middle channel is completely full, with a nice amount of wiggle room. If they come out with another expansion, I may need to rethink my organization, and might need some more foam blocks to hold everything together nicely. I will probably write a short review of Pretty Pretty Smash-Up on the page for it here, for anyone interested.

(Updated, originally gave one star due to moldy box, but replacement clean box is excellent and so the combi ed average is 3 stars)I recently ordered a "Big Geeky Box" to hold our many expansions (we have all that are currently released) and original set of Smash Up cards. When we opened it and before I put any cards inside (fortunately), I noticed what I at first glance thought was dust on the top edges of the box's section dividers. I began to wipe it off (with my fingers, ew) but then quickly observed spots at the bottom of the box throughout. I took it into a room with better lighting which confirmed what I can only believe to be mold growing in the box. At that time I removed a divider sponge and could smell and see mold on them as well. I immediately took to the internet to see if this was an isolated incident and have found several other reviews (on here as well as another game website) that had the same issue or complaint. I will attach a few pictures so that you can see what we are dealing with.Update: We contacted Alderac Entertainment to see if they could offer explanation of why some boxes are having these problems (I suspect the divider sponges must have had some moisture when the boxes were sealed and the resulting trapped moisture caused a mold problem in older boxes that have been unopened for longer). I also wanted to know if they were aware of this and had made any precautions agaisnt it happening in the restock. My son and I were very excited about this box and the dividers and we would like another one but we are afraid of simply returning it and playing roulette by ordering another one if we are likely to find the same problem. They didn't have an answer but I am at least happy to report that Alderac is an excellent company that stands by their products because I have not only had the courtesy of a response, they also replaced the box for me directly from their distribution center. Good to know considering we have spent over $160 on Smash Up with expansions thus far (NOT including the original Big Geeky Box which will need to be thrown out).

But it's a great box. Very roomy, even with all the current expansions (sleeved or I sleeved) there is a TON of room for future expansions. Nice foam blocks are included to keep things from moving around the three designated rows. It comes with these really nice plastic dividers to keep the different factions separated. They're printed with illustrations of the factions, they include the upcoming expansion's dividers as well. I assume any future expansions will now come with the plastic dividers.It also comes with an entirely new faction, the Geeks. Having not played with it yet I can't speak to the strengths and weaknesses yet.It is just a box, and you're probably not looking at this as a complete newcomer to board games or Smash Up in particular and you probably know what you're buying. But for everyone else looking at this know that it's just a storage box, not the base game or anything.The box is big but certainly not the biggest box in my collection, too wide to store vertically now (at least on my shelves, they're not that deep), but that's fine.All in all if you love Smash Up I'm not sure why you're hesitating. Just buy the thing, it's great.

To others considering this. this is the Big Geeky EXPANSION!NOT the smash up game. I bought this game as a gift by mistake so I gifted an expansion without the original game.