Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Mastering Play-aids, Tokens, Cards & Chotchkies
Goatboy here again with another tip for those getting ready to play Competitive 40k again. Use those play-aids!
Beyond the whole – be safe and what not there is a whole slew of things you can do to help you keep your turn aligned and ready to burn thru the competition. These small things are great ways to quickly speed your game up and give you examples of exactly what you need to do each turn.
Cards & Templates
I remember my days of playing the old Flying Circus and creating cards for each of my monsters. The rolls were random so I needed a quick way to reference things as well as ensure I had everything synced up. Of course this isn’t needed now but this type of system can be helpful especially if you have a slew of characters with special abilities you need to keep track of. Admech sure has a ton and building these little cards can be helpful – especially if you need a quick look to figure out how many wounds, attacks, and what not each important cog of your army machine has to get working.
I ended up creating some funky templates and building info on a card to make it easy but there is a slew of things out there. Magic seems to be the one most heavily used and I know a lot of art that looks cool enough to throw down. Heck I drew a lot of it for myself being as that is one my side hustles thru this life and a way to keep my skills somewhat sharp. But – doing this can help you ensure you are always paying attention to your much needed auras, rules, and Psychic effects you can throw out. There is nothing worse then realizing you just moved your important character a half inch out as you forgot their “x” aura is needed for rerolls, bonus’s, and other fun interactions.
Tokens
Beyond just creating a card or having something that is a quick review you can also use tokens to help reference when things are happening. I never played a heavy shooting army but a lot of opponents that used a ton of units would utilize tokens to showcase activated units. This can be especially helpful as it forces you to plan your turn. If you watch the better players they are not spending a ton of time making decisions as they have built thru repetition a series of decisions to help them win their game. But not all of us have the time to throw down 2-5 games a week and know our broken list inside and out so we need these things to help keep our brains working thru the army. Utilizing a token system can make sure you never forget a unit, order your attacks right, and just make it easier for your opponent to know what’s damage you got left on the table top.
Found these on Etsy as an example
On top of the token thing for shooting effects you can also use tokens to represent “rules” you assign units throughout the game. It gets pretty important in AoS as you throw out command abilities but in 40k you have a few layers that can be helpful to have some kind of marking. Things like +’s to hit or wound, damage prevention, Psychic options, and just whatever other rule you could throw down on an opponent. I know utilizing the psychic cards can be helpful but I always found a much “brighter” token or option works better then a card that is harder to move around the table top as you get hot and heavy with the game.
Play Aids Keep the Game Moving
I think the bigger bit of importance to all of these little things is that it ensures you are paying attention to the game, you are trying to ensure your opponent has all the info they need, and you are making sure you never have to ask the question “did I do this right?”. These little things can cause little rifts in the game play and can make a game go from being competitive to being contentious. We are playing a game right? This is supposed to be fun and gives us a chance to get out and see friends we might not have seen for over 15 months.
Let’s hope we can keep playing and all these upcoming events lets us throw down with dice, models, and excellent gameplay. Until next time come say hi if you are going to the Lonestar Open or the GW Austin/Nola Events.
I will most likely be wearing a bright pink shirt of some sort with the Golden Girls on it as my good luck charm.
