My parcel of 8mm wooden cubes has arrived from www.spielmaterial.de, and they look very good. I'm pleased with the size, the pieces are accurately made and the colours are good. Under artificial light, to be picky about it, the pink and the magenta are a bit close, and two of the finishes are natural wood, glazed or plain, which are hard to tell apart. To maximize the number of useable colours (and 14 is already more than adequate), I'll add a bit of dilute acrylic colour give the pink cubes more of a crimson shade and find something suitable for the raw wooden ones.
These will certainly be more of a success than my previous attempts to colour-code my army structure with miniature beads (disadvantages: kept dropping the things, and they roll forever, and the craft shop people seemed very uneasy about having a male customer) or 16mm tiddlywinks (disadvantages: too big, too clumsy, too ugly and not enough colours) - all I need now is to get one of those nifty little handicraft boxes with compartments for coloured threads or needles, which means I'll have to take my chances in the craft shop again...
These look like a brilliant idea. Can't wait to see them in action.
ReplyDeleteHere in Oz we have a large chain of large craft and haberdashery stores. When I first started going there I felt very much like a chicken at a fox convention. However over the years I have seen more and more chaps of a certain age lurking furtively about in the aisles. These days we saunter around like we own the place and the staff smile at us. I am not sure what happened, but I suspect lots of gamers, reenactors and such started sliding out from under their rocks.
I need unobtrusive-but-visible markers which enable me to see a brigade commander and all his units at a glance - where they all are and whether they are contiguous, so that they may be ordered as a brigade. It is easier to give a command to "that pink lot near the village" without missing anyone than it is to keep checking whether the 2nd Battalion of the 59e Ligne are officially part of Berlier's brigade of Clauzel's Division on the OOB.
DeleteIf the cubes do show any signs of sliding off the unit bases, a discreet blobbette of BluTak will do the trick.
Yes, it's rather a neat solution. I am considering getting some and painting dice pips on them so they can also be used to track losses.
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