These are photocopies of the card counters from Bloodbath at Orc's Drift. They aren't that interesting in themselves, but it got me thinking about the role of counters in miniatures games
Dwarves from Orc's Drift
I mentioned these counters in my post about the scenario pack, check it out if you want to see my thoughts on the set as a whole. The card counters were an excellent idea, and they were present in most of the early Warhammer Fantasy products essentially allowing you to play the battle without miniatures. Even the scenarios in the Journal and Compendium had them, I remember one in particular, The Dolgan Raiders I believe, which not only had counters for the minis, but cut out and build wagons. Citadel even produced metal wheels to allow you to build sturdier models.
Some of the counters were coloured, which helped with paint schemes. They were even supposed to represent specific models. You may recognise the bottom left counter as C06/08 Decrepit Wizard (you can see the actual mini here). Of course, being a miniatures manufacturer, Citadel hoped that you would go out and buy the minis eventually. I wonder how many gamers back in the day used them? If you did, why not leave a comment with your thoughts.
Even the new Warhammer 40,000 rules had counters for the Battle At The Farm to copy or cut out in the back of the book. These are more generic than the Warhammer ones tended to be, and most, though recognisable, bear little resemblance to actual minis.
Enough Marines and Orks for The Battle At The Farm. Those Orks are going to struggle
Whilst it's tempting to comment on how GW used to provide a more complete gaming experience, don't forget that the early starter sets included many of the miniatures needed for any scenarios inside. And here we find the spiritual successor to the card counters, standees.
Fourth edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles contained multiple sprues of monopose High Elves and Goblins, but as the set was supposed to recreate Grom the Paunch's invasion of the High Elves they also included standees for the special characters.
High Elf Bolt Thrower from the fourth edition starter set
Many years later, GW included standees in their collaboration on the excellent Strategy Battle Games in Middle Earth part work. These were intended to provide stand-ins for minis that would be available in later issues. Again, the idea was to allow play before the collection was complete. As they were photos of actual painted minis, they were also good painting guides.
I'm not aware of any more recent examples of GW including card substitutes for minis, though I've been out of the Games Workshop loop for many years now.
No comments:
Post a Comment