Best way of representing unique units?

The first idea that comes to mind is to have your pieces be compose of two parts, a character part and a player/team part. What if you took the sticker-on-wood idea, but instead of having the sticker directly on colored wood, put the stickers on neutral wood blanks, and place those pieces on top of colored pieces representing the team affiliation. You could use grooved pieces (like poker chips or stacking checkers) to prevent the two pieces from sliding apart, or something like a shallow cup where the sidewall/lip is just tall enough to firmly hold the character piece. You could get away only 40 pieces (20 character and 20 team, assuming 5 bases per team) instead of needing 80 to cover all team/character combinations. Not a great improvement, but maybe this'll inspire you to an even better solution of your own.

Not sure there's another way to do it. Bases, hats, flags, you gotta do it in one of these ways. Of course you could just let players paint their own models a la GW and design them grey...

I think cardboard works best without the stands (highly subjective; they reminds me too much of games I played as a kid, and how after a few plays they would fall apart anyway). Big and thick cardboard counters are very nice. Use wood instead of cardboard to make them feel even more luxurious (I love the feel of some big wooden counters/tiles in children's games I have been playing with my 4 yo). But even very thick cardboard is quite cheap (if you can find an inexpensive way to cut it).

In addition to being cheaper, cardboard also makes it easy to print all important unit stats on it, to avoid having to refer to some off-map tables for that.

I can think of many games where cardboard cutouts/stands are used (if at all). Most of the ones I've seen are pretty mainstream. See Walking Dead by Cryptozoic. That game is not "cheap cheap" but does have real good quality photos on the carboard themselves.

If you're worried looking cheap, use bigger cardboard with your best art there. If you're really worried, you can suggest to players alternate products (like from Reaper) to replace your cardboard bits and for your demo.

One thing here is "Can everyone pick the same unique character for their team?" If they can't, then I wouldn't worry about a team token. Most people divide game board setups mentally into "My stuff" and "Their stuff". Assuming this is a "combat" game, you should be fine. If they can, then I like the previous ideas.

Thanks,
James Rex

www.stompinggroundsgame.com