Identifying squads, etc

[blooddave]

Hello! I'm coming to Gruntz from Full Thrust and other "space navy" tabletop games. In those games, each ship has a number on it's base, and the number goes on it's profile card - so it's easy to know who's who and what's what.

How do people do this for Gruntz? If I've got 3 squads, all of the same models, how do I tell them apart?

Thanks!

[muncehead]

I tend to put a coloured dot on the edge of the base of each figure, although as my eyesight gets worse (stupid varifocal glasses) I find these harder to notice.

[billbartlett45]

I usually use different colored shoulder pads on each squad, or if the model doesn't have them, I'll put a stripe on the helmet. I have also seen people paint the edge of the bases different colors.

regards, Bill

[inrepose]

If the squads are the same you don't actually need to mark the profile cards because models are either on the table, waxed(on their sides) or removed from the table. When I play I mostly select 5 or 6 Gruntz squads and keep the same profile for all of them. It saves me from having to keep looking at cards if I know what range weapons and shoot skills they have. I know gamers love to get into the detail and engineer fine differences in squads but at least when you start playing I would strongly recommend gruntz squads in your force have the same stats or you could have one elite "infiltrator" unit in the mix.

So from a Gruntz squad perspective you are normally Ok with no markings because you can simply remove the figures when they are KIA and not worry about marking the cards.

However if you have slightly different profiles for troops I usual paint a coloured pad or stripe somewhere on the model and then write the colour on the card. Or use a token if you don't want to paint a colour marking. I would restrict the colour marking to the squad leader because this figure remains with the squad - so you only need the one model with the captains red shoulder pad etc.

For tanks you could use decals on the models "Tank with 01 on side" or you could go for a small blob of colour somewhere on a wheel/track. My tanks and vehicles often have something minor different about them that makes them easy to recognise. Unlike my gruntz squads I actually prefer lots of different weapons on the vehicles for variation, so it is easy to write something on the profile card to identify it.

[blooddave]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

I've not played yet (my mins should show up this week - shipping to the USA from the UK takes forever) - but I guess I was worried about to squads getting intermingled if they got close together. I guess that's not that big of an issue. I'll know how many gruntz each squad has from the profile sheets, and if I accidentally "trade" minis between squads, they were so close that I confused them, they were probably too close to matter, as far as position goes.

Thinking out loud:

So, I paint all my guys with a similar scheme, and put a colored stripe on the squad leaders. Then if I want to break them up into 2 armies - say to play with a friend who has no minis of his own - I could just put a colored token with each squad - say blue ones with one side and red tokens with the other.

Maybe put a colored token on each vehicle. It seems that would easily identify the sides at a glance.

What I'd rather not do is make 2 distinct armies, as far as painted color schemes go. That would seriously reduce flexibility. I'd like to be able to make up sides from anyone in the mix, or play the whole force against someone elses whole force.

Anyone with more experience than I (which is all of you) care to comment? Thanks.

[infojunky]

I too have been pondering this issue:

One idea is to paint the rims of each squads bases in matching colors.

Another idea I am having is using Litko's MicroNumber tokens with each squad/vehicle.

A third Idea is to make some stand-up markers/tokens using shrinking film (i.e. Shrinky-Dinks) either a micro markup of the units card or a specific logo etc. etc...

--

To be honest it probable will be two until I get three done as I have two sets of the Litko Micro Numbers one red, one blue. And have a couple of pack if Grafix brand shrink film, and am having a very rough 1st quarter (One paying contract, and three grants kicked back for re-write/submission, so tons of work, just no cash, the joy of being in non-academic basic research).

[GJD]

I played a WW2 megagame a few years ago, where I was in command of an entire division of German troops, something like 90 stands split into 3 regiments. I used the small stickers you get for marking days on calendars stuck under the base and folded over the edge. I used two, first one indicated regiment and second indicated which formation they were part of. I could then see all the red stickers were the 251st, all the blue the 271st and all the green the 175th. Red blue was infantry, red green support weapons, red blue command and so on.

They un-stuck easily, so when a unit was destroyed it had the stickers taken off and went into the reinforcements box. They were also fairly unobtrusive, just covering the base edge and a little overlap on the top.