Most wargames use the basic accessories of a measuring tape and dice. Often a protractor is useful to measure the permitted angle of firing from an infantry or artillery base. Some rules use standard dice, numbered 1-6 (often referred to as D6). Others use special dice, such as Average Dice, numbered 2, 3, 3, 4, 4 & 5. There are also 10 and 12 sided dice, plus some with special symbols rather than numbers. I probably have acquired most of them over the years. Some wargamers like to keep a record of casualties using small dice so that the upward face shows how many figures the unit has lost.
At one time I did have Measuring Sticks, Cannister Cones and Shell Burst Indicators, as used by Charles Grant in his book “The War Game”, but I no longer have these.
Several rules also use counters to indicate if a unit is disordered, and if so, the different colours will indicate to what degree.
Some rules require written orders, and it is useful to have pre-printed slips for these.
General de Brigade is one of these, and also has Fog of War cards, which can be placed on the wargames table in lieu of units, so that the enemy is unclear of your layout until that unit is “discovered”. General de Brigade also has card markers to represent many aspects of a unit’s status. I made a simple storage box for these, from a plastic Ferrero Rocher chocolate box (my wife did share the chocolates).
It has two layers inside it, with plastic dividers. The top layer has Fog of War Cards, Orders Sheets, Dice and a Protractor. Different coloured dice are useful for some aspects of the rules.
The Fog of War cards look like this and are slightly larger than a unit would be. The cards each have a number on them and the player records which units are represented by each card. The General de Brigade rules allow some of these to be “feint” so as to mislead the enemy still further.
The second layer has Unit Status cards. Having them all in compartments makes it easy to find the one you need.
Other rules might use counters for such unit status but use cards for particular circumstances, such as Charge and Rout.
A lot of the recently published rules require casualty markers. Some players simply use small dice, others a card marker and others a more complex one. I decided to make one of the latter. It is a converted Airfix prone figure and has a dial to show the number of casualties. It took quite a long time to make, and I really prefer casualty removal, but I might make some more.
An alternative system system, which some rules recommend, is card casualty markers.
These are placed behind the unit with the number touching the base indicating the cumulative total casualties. This particular one has 1, 2 & 3 on one side and 4, 5 & 6 on the other, but it would clearly be possible to have up to 4 casualties on each side, so going from 1-8. It is far cheaper and less time consuming to make than one above.
Some rules use cotton wool to indicate that an artillery battery has fired, as in the picture here. I have seen rules in which such “smoke” is allowed to drift across the battlefield for a number of moves, thereby decreasing visibility.
Some rules also have artillery ammunition re-supply rules. Rather than a status card or counter to indicate that a battery has low ammunition, I thought it might look better with a simple visual indicator.
I thought that batteries ammunition status could be indicated with a pyramid of cannon balls, those in full supply having a large pyramid, whilst those in low supply would have a small one (perhaps making them fire at half rate, to conserve ammunition), and those out of supply having no pyramid.
The pyramids are made from ball-bearings, the large stack layers being 6, 3 & 1, and the small stack 3 & 1.
Rod's Wargaming 