I mostly do it visually, there are not that many battle line variants, i usually just have DKoK and Cadians and for the Krieg they are simply 6 lasguns 1 plasma gun, 1 grenade launcher, 1 sniper and one plas pistol in my squads. I give them all the same loadout for ease of remembering.
You then obviously take away the lasguns first and then just… look at the minis and you can see what guns they have.
I always do my snipers down on one knee so they stand out, plasma guns with bright blue glow and cover the grenade guy in shiny metal grenade bandoliers, my sergeant always has a fancy officer hat. if your guys are unpainted or randomly modelled then i can see how it’s confusing, but make your special weapon guys stand out from the crowd and its much easier.
Yeah painting will clear everything up real quick
It’s hard to tell one plastic gun from another, but when you paint all your lasguns up and do your plasmas/meltas/etc up it’ll be easier.
Plus, after a few games with your models you’ll be able to just have a quick glance at the squad and IMMEDIATELY know “Ah I still have my plasma, flamer, 2 lasguns and my sergeant. Probably time to save up 2CP..”
Knitting needle row counters and pre boxed dice. The needle row counters are good for wounds on anything, but can also be used as a tally of how many lasguns left in a unit. I run the same type of special weapons across my squads of the same size so that doesn't change.
The pre boxed dice have different colours for different weapons, labeled on the front what's for what and how many total. Then I can just take out however many I need to for lasgun losses. I need to put together rapid fires for my boxes too, but at the moment I just take out the pistols and special weapons that aren't rapid fire and roll again. I count up my lethal hits and wounds on needle counters to save time, as when you're rapid fire 2 with an order and then sustained hits with a castellan and the enhancement for 5+ crits then it's very handy to keep track of just how many saves the enemy needs.
I got it from a space marine player as counting wounds matters more to them! But they go up to 99 so very handy for counting hits and wounds when they pile up. Done pre boxed dice for my vehicles too
I tend to set aside a pile of dice at the start of a game for my units with weapons on color coded dice for the maximum amount of shots I could get under best circumstances.
So for my Scion Squad that's a Primaris Psyker, Command Squad of Vox/Medic/Plasma/Volley and 10 man with Plasma Pistol, 2x Plasma, 2x Volley I've got 19 dice for HS Lasguns, 15 for my Volleys, 10 for plasma and a bunch of ones for my psyker. Then before rolling I pull off dice as appropriate. Didn't get FRFSRF? Pull 6 from the lasguns, 3 from the volleys and 3 from the plasma. Not at half range, pull 6 lasguns, 6 Volley, 3 Plasma. 2 lasgunners died pull 6 lasgun shots.
Always play fully WYSIWYG with no proxies, then you can look at the models no the table and immediately see what is there.
Keep the same equipment on every squad. Plasma gun on every model that can take one, melta or grenade launcher on the others (or a lascannon for infantry squads).
Most of the time it's not worth bothering with the lasguns, they do minimal damage and take up a lot of time (especially bad for tournaments where you're on a clock). Just shoot with the special weapons and move on to the next unit.
A buddy of mine plays Orks and he differentiates units by painting base rims different colors. I've been considering doing something similar
Red for lasguns, orange for flamers, blue for plasmas, you get the idea
I look at the models, or failing that I look at the army list.
You should remember that a guardsman with a lasgun is little more than a bonus wound for the special or heavy weapons in the squad. Lasguns should always get removed first.
If the only models I’m removing are lasguns, then I’m always firing the same weapons for each unit each turn, plus some s3 shots that I don’t expect to do anything.
It can help to make yourself cheat cards; like the datasheets but with the irrelevant options removed: squad 1 has flamer/melta, squad 2 has plasma/grenade launcher, etc. and with the stats on it.
Then you just roll the important stuff, and quickly count how many lasguns are left when it’s that time.
I make my list on the app and then wrote down what my list is and what weapons they use and their profiles, I then have a dice cup for all units, black dice for standard guns and different coloured dice for the other guns on the loadout like red for flamers, blue for plasma etc, I roll all my attacks for that unit at once otherwise the shooting phase would take a long time and if a model is removed I remove dice accordingly, works for me because my attention span is awful.
I mostly do it visually, there are not that many battle line variants, i usually just have DKoK and Cadians and for the Krieg they are simply 6 lasguns 1 plasma gun, 1 grenade launcher, 1 sniper and one plas pistol in my squads. I give them all the same loadout for ease of remembering. You then obviously take away the lasguns first and then just… look at the minis and you can see what guns they have. I always do my snipers down on one knee so they stand out, plasma guns with bright blue glow and cover the grenade guy in shiny metal grenade bandoliers, my sergeant always has a fancy officer hat. if your guys are unpainted or randomly modelled then i can see how it’s confusing, but make your special weapon guys stand out from the crowd and its much easier.
Yeah the painting will prbably help. I got a "darker" color scheme and bc I'm quit new not everything is painted yet so that will probably help aswell
Yeah painting will clear everything up real quick It’s hard to tell one plastic gun from another, but when you paint all your lasguns up and do your plasmas/meltas/etc up it’ll be easier. Plus, after a few games with your models you’ll be able to just have a quick glance at the squad and IMMEDIATELY know “Ah I still have my plasma, flamer, 2 lasguns and my sergeant. Probably time to save up 2CP..”
Knitting needle row counters and pre boxed dice. The needle row counters are good for wounds on anything, but can also be used as a tally of how many lasguns left in a unit. I run the same type of special weapons across my squads of the same size so that doesn't change. The pre boxed dice have different colours for different weapons, labeled on the front what's for what and how many total. Then I can just take out however many I need to for lasgun losses. I need to put together rapid fires for my boxes too, but at the moment I just take out the pistols and special weapons that aren't rapid fire and roll again. I count up my lethal hits and wounds on needle counters to save time, as when you're rapid fire 2 with an order and then sustained hits with a castellan and the enhancement for 5+ crits then it's very handy to keep track of just how many saves the enemy needs.
Damn, I love the idea with the knitting counters already Thanks a lot. Would've never thought of that actually
I got it from a space marine player as counting wounds matters more to them! But they go up to 99 so very handy for counting hits and wounds when they pile up. Done pre boxed dice for my vehicles too
You could temporarily just paint like a blue dot on the base of the one with the plasma/red dot is grenade launcher/green dot is melta/etc
That is also a good idea temporarely I love this community. Thank you
> im a big unit Good lad.
Thanks, I'm trying my best xD
I tend to set aside a pile of dice at the start of a game for my units with weapons on color coded dice for the maximum amount of shots I could get under best circumstances. So for my Scion Squad that's a Primaris Psyker, Command Squad of Vox/Medic/Plasma/Volley and 10 man with Plasma Pistol, 2x Plasma, 2x Volley I've got 19 dice for HS Lasguns, 15 for my Volleys, 10 for plasma and a bunch of ones for my psyker. Then before rolling I pull off dice as appropriate. Didn't get FRFSRF? Pull 6 from the lasguns, 3 from the volleys and 3 from the plasma. Not at half range, pull 6 lasguns, 6 Volley, 3 Plasma. 2 lasgunners died pull 6 lasgun shots.
Always play fully WYSIWYG with no proxies, then you can look at the models no the table and immediately see what is there. Keep the same equipment on every squad. Plasma gun on every model that can take one, melta or grenade launcher on the others (or a lascannon for infantry squads). Most of the time it's not worth bothering with the lasguns, they do minimal damage and take up a lot of time (especially bad for tournaments where you're on a clock). Just shoot with the special weapons and move on to the next unit.
A buddy of mine plays Orks and he differentiates units by painting base rims different colors. I've been considering doing something similar Red for lasguns, orange for flamers, blue for plasmas, you get the idea
I look at the models, or failing that I look at the army list. You should remember that a guardsman with a lasgun is little more than a bonus wound for the special or heavy weapons in the squad. Lasguns should always get removed first. If the only models I’m removing are lasguns, then I’m always firing the same weapons for each unit each turn, plus some s3 shots that I don’t expect to do anything. It can help to make yourself cheat cards; like the datasheets but with the irrelevant options removed: squad 1 has flamer/melta, squad 2 has plasma/grenade launcher, etc. and with the stats on it. Then you just roll the important stuff, and quickly count how many lasguns are left when it’s that time.
I make my list on the app and then wrote down what my list is and what weapons they use and their profiles, I then have a dice cup for all units, black dice for standard guns and different coloured dice for the other guns on the loadout like red for flamers, blue for plasma etc, I roll all my attacks for that unit at once otherwise the shooting phase would take a long time and if a model is removed I remove dice accordingly, works for me because my attention span is awful.
I like the colored dice strategy, that seems very good Thanks a bunch