📦 The problem: a box that was never designed for this

The War of the Ring: Second Edition box is large by any standard. But it was designed to hold one game. Not four expansions on top of it.

The base game alone ships with 205 miniatures. Then you add War of the Ring: Lords of Middle-earth (LOME, 2012) with 8 more, War of the Ring: Warriors of Middle-earth (WOME, 2016) with 48, War of the Ring: Kings of Middle-earth (KOME, 2023) with 13, and War of the Ring: The Fate of Erebor (TFOE, 2022) on top of that. Plus the Treebeard mini-expansion from LOME, the Tidings Not Burdens mini-expansion from WOME, and The Seeing Stones mini-expansion from KOME. The total miniature count across everything exceeds 274. That is before you count a single card, token, or board.

The original box insert? A flat tray with a few dividers that was never going to survive contact with this much content.

The question was not whether a custom insert was needed. The question was whether it was even possible to fit everything in the original box. The answer, after several weeks of iteration, is yes.

⚔️ The miniatures: Shadow and Free Peoples, faction by faction

The first design decision was the most important one: how to organize 274+ miniatures so that any player, at any experience level, can find exactly what they need without counting or guessing.

The answer was to follow the logic of the rulebook itself. Miniatures are split into two sides, Shadow and Free Peoples, and within each side they are organized by faction in dedicated rows. Each row is labeled with the faction name at the bottom of its compartment.

Shadow factions:

Free Peoples factions:

Within each faction row, miniatures are placed in order: Regular on the left, Elite next to it, Leader at the end. For example, the Isengard row reads: Isengard Regular, Isengard Elite. The Dwarves row reads: Dwarves Regular, Dwarves Elite, Dwarves Leader. The order mirrors how the rulebook presents them, so new players can cross-reference without confusion and experienced players can set up on autopilot.

The result is a miniature tray that is not just organized, it is readable. Open the box and you know exactly where everything is before you touch a single piece.

🃴 The cards: sleeved at 80 microns, max

War of the Ring is a card-driven game. The decks are central to how both sides play, and sleeving them is not optional for anyone who takes component protection seriously.

Every card slot in this insert is sized for sleeves at a maximum of 80 microns. With this many cards across the base game and four expansions, every millimetre of tray space is accounted for. That is the constraint we designed within, and it is the number we stand behind.

If you sleeve at 80 microns, everything fits even though some decks will be tight
Anything below will be perfectly fine.

🧩 The expansions: modular sections, labeled and ready

This is the design feature we are most proud of. Each of the four expansions has its own dedicated section within the insert. The sections are physically separate, clearly labeled with the expansion acronym on top, and designed to be lifted out independently.

The four expansion sections are:

• LOME War of the Ring: Lords of Middle-earth (2012, 8 miniatures), including the Treebeard mini-expansion
• WOME War of the Ring: Warriors of Middle-earth (2016, 48 miniatures), including the Tidings Not Burdens mini-expansion
• TFOE War of the Ring: The Fate of Erebor (2022)
• KOME War of the Ring: Kings of Middle-earth (2023, 13 miniatures), including The Seeing Stones mini-expansion

The practical result is a setup system that is genuinely fast. Want to play the base game only? Everything you need is in the main section. Want to add Lords of Middle-earth? Pull the LOME section. Adding Warriors of Middle-earth on top? Pull WOME as well. You are not hunting through a mixed tray trying to remember which pieces belong to which expansion. The insert does that work for you.

This is what expansion-first design actually means in practice: not just fitting the pieces, but making the expansions usable independently.

1 Almost flush

The insert holds the base game, all four expansions, all three mini-expansions, and all card decks sleeved at 80 microns. The lid is lifted by exactly the thickness of the rulebooks sitting on top of the last tray. That is the only gap. Given that this single box now contains everything, we consider that a very fair trade.

2 The faction labels

Every miniature compartment has the faction name printed at the bottom and the minis follow the rulebook order. Every expansion section has the acronym printed on top. These are not decorative choices. They are functional ones. A game this complex, with this many pieces, needs a storage system that communicates clearly even when you have not played in three months.

Open the box. Read the labels, check with the manual and set up the game. That is the experience this insert is designed to deliver.

🛒 Get the War of the Ring insert

The War of the Ring: Second Edition insert, covering the base game and all four expansions (LOME, WOME, TFOE, KOME), including all three mini-expansions (Treebeard, Tidings Not Burdens, The Seeing Stones), is coming soon to RiverCross Diorama. Both a ready-printed version and STL files for home printing will be available.

In the meantime, browse our other complex game inserts: Darwin's Journey Collector's Edition, Hegemony, Scythe, or the full Board Game Inserts collection. You can also explore the full Lord of the Rings Universe — The Complete Organizer Collection.

📖 Want to know how we approach every insert design?

The principles behind the War of the Ring insert are the same ones we apply to every game we take on. Read about them in The Details That Shape RCD Designs.