Marker madness

[Deleted User]

New rules call for the making of the various devices to mark formations, morale states & casualties unique to the rule set.

Called “markers”, they are often printed labels or dice but sometimes more imaginative & less distracting.

I’ve always aspired to more creative markers. I had a Napoleonic rule set that demanded cavalry, post charge, should be marked as “blown”. If I had a suitable supply of buglers, I would have used them. “Blown”; get it?

With my new Colonial rules( ‘The Men Who Would Be KINGS’) I’ve definitely hit my straps.

Units, if shot at & shaken, become “pinned”. To show this I’ve impaled a suitably landscaped disc with a small nail.

And units, whose commanders have been killed, need to be marked as “Leaderless”. The Waterloo1815 Dervish set has a plethora of useless donkeys. These, painted & mounted on a washer, make a suitably wry marker.

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=746

Do you have an interesting markers?

donald

[Darryl Smith]

Appreciate the wry sense of humor!  Might have to try a few goofy markers myself.  I pretty much have markers that represent the standard statuses for Fire and Fury, so an ammo chest for artillery low on ammo, a loading figure for infantry low on ammo, a charging figure for breakthrough, etc.

Buckeye Six Actual
https://checkingmy6.blogspot.com/

[MartinR]

I hate cluttering up the table with a load of crap. If the cavalry are blown, just jiggle the figures around a bit.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Deuce]

I always prefer markers that look at a glance like they’re part of the battle, rather than obvious mechanical counters (I guess that answers the “looks or game” question from the other thread more succinctly than I managed there!)

Casualty figures are a given but I try to apply a bit of thought to other status markers. For Hail Caesar I am thinking of putting together some spare standard bearers (or just freestanding vexillia) painted an appropriate colour and with the status marked on the standard itself (disordered, shaken, etc.) I am trying to work out a good way of doing the same in 6mm for Polemos and Pike and Shotte.

Jiggling bases is fine up to a point but it can be hard to tell the difference between units that are deliberately disordered and those which have just been nudged, fallen down a hill, etc. It also assumes you have enough bases to jiggle, and aren’t using a movement tray or the like, so it’s useful to have some markers for them.

The problem I tend to run into is my own lack of modelling and painting ability, as well as that I’d always rather spend money and time on a new unit than on painting up counters or the like.

[Author]

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