Regular readers will have observed I use a variety of hit markers to record unit statuses.
The old favourite are tile spacers. Cheap, effective and sit well on many types of unit bases, but perhaps a bit unsightly at times and you can end up with little piles of them following units around.
I also use cotton wool puffs in white and black. Also OK, but can get a bit overwhelming en masse. I know Waterloo was a bloody battle, but really...
I've also been using 8mm mini dice on magnetic mounts on my sabot bases for a while. These work OK and are quite unobtrusive. As they are mounted on the unit bases they also follow the units around neatly. The biggest problem is that it is very easy to forget how many hits are on the dice when adding (or removing) extra ones, a problem with using dice to track hits in general. It is worse when you manage to drop them on the table with your big fat fingers.
Anyway, most of my models have magnetic strip mounted on the rear edge, so I thought I'd make some magnetic hit markers to mount on them.
Not very exciting perhaps! They are are steel paper mounted on both sides of 10mm card squares. I marked them up using dice style markings as I find them more immediately readable than numbers.
Now, I already have piles of similar counters for Megablitz, but they are single sided, with the number portion hidden, so not much use for what I had in mind.
They are also reversible so each counter is 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, with a different tone for the even numbers. I did the different tone deliberately as it is much more visually memorable if you accidentally knock some off the base and they flip over.
I did consider doing them as opposed dice sides (1/6, 2/5, 3/4) but it is easier to flip them from 1->2 etc.
Anyway, they can either be mounted on the magnetic squares on the bases or just dumped on engine decks or whatever. Mmm, perhaps they are a bit big? Well, time will tell.
I'll see how I get on using those, even if they are only useful in certain circumstances they give me a few more options and didn't take long to make. I can always make slightly smaller ones if needs be but I'll try these first.
On my sabot bases they look OK. But on my first trial here I discovered the black spots were all rubbing off the markers. I must have used a non permanent pen by accident. I redid them all with a Sharpie and then they were fine, although I later discovered that Id missed a few.
Yes, using status markers of all sorts alwas are a bit awkward, as they break the visual spectacle (and that's why we have miniatures in the first place, no?).
ReplyDeletePersonally, I use numbered dials (0-9), which themselves are flocked, so they blend in. Sometimes I use pebbles (white and grey ones, one of the colours counts as five), so they look part of the scenery.
But it's also a matter of using the 'right' rules. I usually write my own rules, but I try to design them in such a way that tracking status of units is limited as much as possible.
Some more methods I use in one of my blogposts: https://wargaming-mechanics.blogspot.com/search/label/UnitStatus
Thanks Phil, markers are always a compromise between aesthetics and utility. I don't like the table overly cluttered, but for some environments unit statuses need to be very clear to the players. Anything to avoid a roster, although I've used them sometimes, they can just be a distraction.
DeleteGood idea. I like small dice, and your tiles have the same advantage of dice but with a lower profile - less obtrusive.
ReplyDeleteI like dice too as they are so versatile, but I found that my big, fat fingers kept knocking them all over the place, even in their dice holders. They are all tools in the gamers armoury though!
DeleteThe magnetized markers look good and much cleaner. Some games are better than others with the marker overhead. Iron Cross with the activation tokens and morale tokens can get really bad, especially if you have alot of them.
ReplyDeleteWe had a 20mm IC WW2 game where there were big piles of white dice following our infantry squads around and it occurred to me that clear, plastic markers would have been so much more effective.
I use small green 25mm squares that have numbers 1-4 painted on the edges of side 1 and 5-8 painted on the edges of side 2. They are unobtrusive and a bit cleaner.
Yes, I saw your 1 to 4 markers in one of your game reports Those are a very neat idea too, and save having to pick new markers up (you could even mark the reverse 5 to 8!). I'm actually wondering if I need to make up some rule agnostic status stands with a couple of dice trays and a magnetic strip so I can group a range of markers. I'm still trying to figure out the neatest way to track ammo, temporary and permanent casualties for NQM. I
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