Sunday, January 15, 2012

Hail Caesar Status Markers

I've only played a few test skirmishes of Hail Caesar, but I realized I wanted to include some on-table markers to help me remember the status and abilities of various units. Even with only a handful of units per side I found myself forgetting which ones had used their Wild Fighters ability, or which were allowed the "Winning" bonus from victory in the previous round.

Hail Caesar with unit status markers

I thought about creating a unique marker for each potential status, but decided that would be a bit overwhelming, with dozens of extra markers necessary for even my existing units. I settled on a single figure stand with interchangeable color-coded bases to indicate the unit status. It took a little trial and error, but I finally came up with a system that should be fairly simple to both build and use in play. Check out my solution after the jump.

MATERIALS


The materials are fairly simple, and available at my local craft and DYI store.
  • Magnetic Tape
  • Wooden Disk (about 32mm across)
  • 1/2" Washers
  • 1/2" Magnet
METHOD
  1. Cut a bit of magnetic tape wider than the hole in the washer. Glue it over the hole, with the magnetic side facing down.
  2. Drill a 1/2" hold in the center of each wooden disk. Insert the magnet so that it sticks up out of the hole and acts a plug the washer fits over.
  3. Check the fit to ensure that the washer fits over the magnet plug and the magnets touch inside before glueing the magnet within the wooden disk.  
From L to R: Assembled marker base, washer with magnet overlay, disk with magnet plug


PAINTING
  1. Paint each wooden disk with colors to indicate unit status. I used purple for "Winning" and orange for "Wild Fighters"
  2. Glue and base figures on top of each washer assembly. While painting the figure base, weather the wooden disks at the same time to help them blend together.
Winning and Wild Fighters markers for Hail Caesar

And that's it! I plan to place a figure with an orange base next to each of my warband units. Once the warband charges and uses its Wild Fighters ability (only available on the first round of combat in the game), I can remove the marker. If the warband happens to prove victorious, I can easily swap the orange base for a purple to remind myself the unit receives a "Winning" bonus the next time they're in combat. Easy, fun to make and shouldn't clutter up the table with too many pieces of card, beads or extra dice.



5 comments:

  1. A great idea. I'd have to come up with a few variants for each of my different armies, so I thought that I'd look at litko, but the idea of a base colour having a meaning is good. Could even write on it.

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  2. I think the severed heads denote wild tendencies quite well :-)

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  3. Thanks guys! Appreciate the comments :)

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  4. Damn, this is a genius idea. I'm going to have to try it for impetus.

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