I have a problem with too many counters for wounds and pins etc. on a wargames table, they spoil the look of a good table, and always look a bit odd in photos, maybe it’s my OCD kicking in but I really don’t like them, I have been using coloured tiddly-winks and have really hated them.
So, I spent a couple of evenings putting together some pin markers for Bolt Action, although these could be used for wound markers for other games as well.
I had lots of turn counters and never knew what to do with them until I had a game of bolt Action the other week and my opponent pulled out some pin counter he had made, and I thought they looked great.
He had used MDF turn counters, so I dug out my turn counters and set to work.
The first thing I did was PVA’ed some sand onto the top surface… this wasn’t as easy as I first thought, I covered the top with PVA as I normally do then pushed the thing into my pot of sand, when I pulled it out it looked ok until I tried turning the dial, and that’s when I realized some of the sand went into the centre and destroyed the card number dial when I moved it!!!!
So, attempt number two, I PVA’ed the top and then turned it upside down and pushed it in the surface of the sand…. Much better, none of the sand went in between the moving dials this time.
Then I glued a few very small stones randomly across the bases and then left them to dry.
Once they were all dry, I primed them and then painted them with Game Color Beasty Brown and did a very quick wash with Army Painter Strong Tone over them all, and then when that was dry I did a very quick drybrush of Vallejo Buff on all of the bigger stones and a few sections of the sand.
Then more PVA and I did the same process as I did with the sand, but this time I did it with my flock.
Last thing to finish them off was to add a few random tufts to match the ones on my Bolt Action figure bases, and that was it, some simple pin markers / wound counters in a couple of hours over two nights.
I think they turned out not too bad and should look good on the Bolt Action table.
