Counters used as infantry

[SSgtBuck]

I hope I won't be burned at the stake for heresy, but I was wondering how many gamers use counters for their infantry rather painting up the actual figures? I just never seem to find the time to paint up all the infantry I need so I am resorting to counters for now, just so I can get units on the table for scenarios.
Just wanted know what others, do, or have done and if there are any interesting/imaginative ways of making counters a tad more appealing.
(these counters would be used GHQ minis, of course!)

Thanks,
Mike

[jb]

I hope I won't be burned at the stake for heresy, but I was wondering how many gamers use counters for their infantry rather painting up the actual figures? I just never seem to find the time to paint up all the infantry I need so I am resorting to counters for now, just so I can get units on the table for scenarios.
Just wanted know what others, do, or have done and if there are any interesting/imaginative ways of making counters a tad more appealing.
(these counters would be used GHQ minis, of course!)

Thanks,
Mike

I used to use 1/2"X1/2" blank boardgame counters before micro infantry appeared. Each counter used to represent a squad. For asthetics I used military symbols to denote what they were.
Good luck on your games and enjoy...

[Timothy OConnor]

I wouldn't call your comments "heresy". Sounds very practical to me!

But the unit symbols also sound very "70s" with respect to microarmor's reputation among gamers and trends in games. Based on my experience (so this opinion only and worth what you paid for it!) microarmor had a reputation for three things:

- spray painted minis on bedsheets thrown over books

- so many hub-to-hub AFVs that "maneuver" simply meant moving straight ahead

- rules so complex that they required a calculator and a flow chart several pages long

But now people like Mark Luther and Troy are putting on presentations with microamor that are better than most 15mm and 20mm games. And with less time in their busy lives gamers are gravitating to simpler rules, especially after they realized that modeling detail does not always result in an accurate simulation (a lot of times it's frankly inaccurate) and that spending an hour to resolve a few shots is not exactly "fun".

So counters can make perfect sense, but with GHQ's amazing infantry figures it seems to me a step backwards at this time.

Even board games are moving away from counters and towards figures (e.g. A&A Miniatures, Tide of Iron, Memoir '44, Heroscape, Heroclix, BattleLore, etc.) And many board games that still use counters are moving towards more visually pleasing counters with full color pictures of troops that echo miniatures games (e.g. the Lock 'n Load series, Command & Colors, Combat Commander, Great Battles series, etc.) Heck, some gamers are even using miniatures in their boardgames! (e.g. swapping out their blocks in Command and Colors with 6mm miniatures).

That being said, I'm now using some types of board game mechanics to make my miniatures games more enjoyable. I now use squares instead of rulers (in fact when I play a game with rulers I really dislike it after my conversion to squares!), and I use nicer markers than gamers are used to. For example, instead of the usual "casualty caps" made from little rubber caps or rings I now use double-sided thick counters with a photo of an explosion/burst. One side has a "1" to indicate 1 hit and the other side has a larger explosion and a "2" indicating 2 hits (as stands accumulate hits they go pinned/suppressed/broken based on their morale type).

And I've acutally made my miniatures bases function like counters. I print out labels with stand data and stick them to the bottom of a stand. During a game when a new player needs to know a value (eg range) he simply picks up the stand and looks underneath (and since I use squares all he has to do is place it back in the right square rather than worrying about it's exact postion).

So, counters at one level sound like a very good idea. But there's also an opportunity to take the best of miniatures (ie visual presentation) and boardgames (ie measurement precision and data/status tracking) and combine them.

If your goal is to get visually attractive counters on the table ASAP try this:

1. get photos of nice wargame figures (or real soldiers!!!) off the web

2. make up counters using these photos in a program such as Publisher

3. print the counters onto whole-sheet sticker paper (Avery makes this)

4. Cut the counters into approx. 4" x 6" blocks and stick to .06 styrene (you can make these double sided)

5. Cut out the counters with an xacto...make sure to cut through the sticker paper and score the plastic...snap the plastic counters apart

6. carefully stack the counters and then spray the white edges green/olive drab

A friend of mine and I use this process to make counters for games and they look great! (he runs a vietnam game using period images that look very good).

Check out this to see some nice counter art...

http://www.locknloadgame.com/

hopen that helps!

[SSgtBuck]

The games do look much better with the actual infantry figures, and I have plenty of figures, just unpainted I just don't seem to have the time or the ambition and I'm not one to just slap a little green paint on and call it good. Ritters work is certainly gorgeous, and inspiring, but for me, it also makes me not want to try sometimes because I know I'll never achieve that level of quality.

Those were some good suggestions for the counters. Back when I started gaming in the mid 80s we didn't have photoshop or color inkjet printers, heck I didn't have a computer. I just used plain white counters with the appropriate infantry markings in a reasonable color for the nation they represented. Sometimes I forget what we are able to do now, from our laptops

[taskforce58]

When I first started using GHQ models for wargames I used the infantry counters from the boardgame MBT.

[Timothy OConnor]

The games do look much better with the actual infantry figures, and I have plenty of figures, just unpainted I just don't seem to have the time or the ambition and I'm not one to just slap a little green paint on and call it good. Ritters work is certainly gorgeous, and inspiring, but for me, it also makes me not want to try sometimes because I know I'll never achieve that level of quality.

Don't let perfection become the enemy of good! You're just like me. I too have lots of unpainted lead and little time to paint. And I too have been paralyzed at times for fear of "screwing up" the paint jobs. I look at work by guys like Ritter and Mark L. and realize that I'll never have that level of skill.

But then I have a friend who games WWII in 20mm. He can paint well when he wants to but his collection is a Frankenstein of his own painted infantry (pretty well done), Dragon pre-painted infantry, and various manufacturers of AFVs including plastic kits, Corgi, Dragon, resin kits, etc. In theory he's collecting 1/72 or ~20mm but vehicle sizes and scale are all over the place from true 20mm, to 1/72, to 1/87.

As for his terrain it's not even close in quality to Mark's. It's a hodge podge of solid green felt scraps for forests, miss-matched buildings from different manfactureres including resin pieces and HO-scale railroad buildings.

And even though his presentation is a menagerie (sp?) of many different items (and even scale to some degree) he has loads of fun. He runs a game every week at his house and once per month at a local shop. He won't field unpainted stuff but he never lets a less than perfect paint job or weak terrain stop him from playing with his friends. As he says it's about toy soldiers!

So now I follow his lead in terms of "getting it done". I accept my limitations and still strive to do as well as the best on this forum. And while I know that I won't hit that level I still try to get troops on the table as fast as possible while meeting a minimal standard for quality. Over time things improve but at least I get the toys on the table and try to do better each time.

If you do a search I believe there's another thread or two on painting infantry. My own approach is intended to achieve a decent minimum standard for quality but as fast as possible (I call it a "speedy and forgiving" process.) The gist is a white undercoat with thinned base coat, opaque details, and a black wash. The thinned base coat over the entire figure provides instant shading and covers the whole thing so if you miss a detail nobody will notice at this scale. The opaque details and black wash combined with the thinned base mean that you only need to paint the raised details which are readily visible with a dark outline. A minimum of base uniform color, flesh, and weapons will get you 60-80% towards a very nice figure which can be ultra-detailed later (like when we retire.) And the result looks light years better than flat sprayed figures (which are waaay too dark in 6mm).

[Peter_Fitz]

I have no philosophical objection to using counters rather than infantry figure bases except this: the reason I play wargames with miniatures rather than boardgames or computer wargames like the "Steel Panthers" series is because I like playing with toy soldiers. I'm not a top-notch micro painter, but I do OK. I find painting micro infantry a bit of a drag, but I do it because it makes the actual game more visually satisfying to me.

If those things aren't as important to you, then by all means do whatever will expedite your own gaming. If we ever end up in a game together, you certainly won't get any complaints from me

[chrisswim]

I have used both counters and figures for infantry in micro armor games.

I have some figures that have been manufactured to the base. The poses of the men are lying down. Hard to destroy. Over the 15 years using these figures, sometimes they have been dropped on floor and step on, not much harm or foul. I only spray paint them. I have not done any detail work. Us these again immediately after being stepped on.

Counters are used, if I should need more infantry of a particular force than I have, as backup.

The GHQ infantry look very nice and certainly with the paint jobs of some people is wonderful. I am not wishing to be that detail oriented on infantry, although if any of you are selling your nicely painted infantry, let me know.

Some years ago, I did cut a few of the individual figures at chest height and glue the upper torso to the turret hatch opening to represent a commander of a tank. Have about 10 tanks configured this way.

Also, my eyes are not as focused as they used to be. So painting eyes on a 6mm figure is out of the question.

[hauptgrate]

I have used old Avalon Hill Squad Leader counters since 1989. I chose these because the silhouettes look cool, are about the right size, and back then the counters were easy to get and very cheap. I painted out the SL numbers, and wrote in my own ID tags -- PZGN; RIF; WPNS; etc. Little by little I have been replacing them with painted miniatures but am only about 1/3 done...