I've been inspired to embark on a new counter project.
It's largely because of my quickie Waterloo game. A reader made a comment about the Prussians arriving, which gave me an idea for a follow-up battle. In this reality, Napoleon manages to force Wellington to retreat, but now he must face Blucher. One problem - I don't have any counters for the Prussians.
So this leads me to a new project. I'm been toying with the idea of creating simpler generic counters so that it is easier to change colors in the file and create a new army. I played around and came up with these.
Note: I don't need artillery, yet. However, I am toying with the idea of adding artillery grand batteries.
As you can see, I created SIX different quickie armies. And these are generic enough that I can use them for ancient and medieval battles as well!
Note: Make that SEVEN armies. I later added a brown army. It'll work great for the Hyenids.
One thing I've struggled with when using generic armies is distinguishing between different types of formed infantry, such as blades, warbands, auxiliaries, etc. Instead of creating distinct counters, I'm toying with the idea of using markers. For example, green marker on a formed infantry counter could identify lesser quality troops.
Stay tuned for more on this project.
You could experiment with the arrangement of the “dots” (each representing either a foot soldier or a mounted trooper). Regular troops such as Blades or Auxiliaries would look quite formed - so distinct ranks and files, whereas Irregular warriors (such as a Warband) might perhaps “clump together” somewhat and not be in such an obvious rectangular block as the Regulars. Irregular levies (such as DBA/HotT “Hordes”) would also clump together and perhaps there might be a few troops lingering towards the rear - so, again, not such a rectangular formation.
ReplyDeleteYour counter colour choices seem ok, but I’m not convinced by the Purple. Would you ever need more than 4 on the tabletop/battlefield at any one time anyway?
Have a great Christmas Kevin and a happy New Year too.
Cheers,
Geoff
Merry Christmas!
DeleteThe concept of using markers rather than distinct counters for each troop type is to make pre-battle sorting quicker and easier. We'll see how the experiment goes.
The purple is for eastern armies, such as Turks or Persians. It feels appropriate to me.