We're switching to using FL3 largely to avoid the faff of
written orders. However, instead of orders it needs a lot more tokens
-- especially if you're planning to have no scribbling or notes at
all.
I though this would work much better with some proper tokens (rather
than photocopied things stuck to cardboard). When I found a
UK supplier for the 15mm round wooden disks which are used as game pieces
in 'German' style boardgames a solution was becoming obvious...
They sell them
individually in various colours or big bags of 50 each of 6 colours. The colours will help distinguish the tokens;
- red - wounds.
- yellow - status markers.
- green - turn-long markers and Command Points.
- blue - activation.
- black - dead.
- grey - objectives and shaken.
I was also going to use blue for hit tokens (the idea being that all
blue tokens go at the end of a turn) but actually that was a bad idea
because it's hard work telling hits from activations. I'm re-doing the
hit markers in pink (because they become red wounds later..)
I also ordered white for some of the undead specific markers; sooner
or later there are going to be Zombies...
So the next part of the problem was how to make the actual token
parts. Laser-printable sticker sheets are the answer here; they're like
address label sheets but don't have any scoring on them. You just
print where-ever you want.
I didn't really fancy cutting out that many circles -- for a
two-section game you need 20 Activations, probably 20-25 "Wound", a
bunch of "Dead" markers, maybe a dozen "Unloaded" and so on. It adds up quite
quickly -- and I want to be doing big games of 3 or 4 sections a side
(otherwise where would the chaos come from?)
Fortunately, I found on Ebay a place selling various scrap-booking
punches -- including a half-inch circle. Punching out the circles from
sticker sheets is easy -- you turn the punch upside down and then you
can line the hole-punch up and click it through.
(I'd like to emphasise I did not pick a pink one. They just come in
pink. Apparently these things come in different colours depending on
the size of the hole.)
The sticker sheets can be a little fragile, so in practice I tend to
put a couple of sheets of scrap paper behind them.
The tokens themselves then needed designs. Fortunately, since I'm a
software engineer, firing up a text editor (GNU Emacs) and writing a bunch
of PostScript solved that problem.. the PS converts easily into a PDF
which can then be printed. Pixel artwork is a bit of a pain in raw PS;
and even drawing stuff is fiddly and time consuming. Fortunately, we're
talking about half-inch diameter circles; there's not a lot of room
for extra stuff. So actually it worked out that I could get most of
the way there by using a decorative font and using the text of the
token itself as the artwork.
The PDF files containing the tokens is free for
downloading if you
fancy using it; it could also be used to create tokens by either
gluing printed sheets or printed stickers to sheets of thin foam
(available in hobby stores in loads of colours). Or just use
cardboard, but you miss having the colours then.
It's actually taken me a while and a couple of iterations to work out
what tokens are needed; I
can't, for instance, see why one needs "Misfire" -- that's just an
"Unloaded". Or "Critical Hit"; you turn a critical hit into a bunch of
"Hit" tokens and those are the ones you need. Nor can I really see
what the "Double Length" initiatives are for...
(If I'm wrong on this, please let me know!)
So after those, and then adding some extras -- objective markers,
fire, blown up and, of course, "Gold!" that fills a sheet. I've
started on a second set of markers for various skills which need their
status recording and undead markers. And the "over the hills and far away.." is, of
course, the marker for a musician who's playing this turn... :-)
And how spiffy have these turned out then...?
