Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi folks,

As many of you may know, I love fluff. So much so, that giving each of my models a history and a story really makes the hobby for me.

Having created all these great personalities and stories; placing them in a spreadsheet has left me a dilemma for rank and file troops. While I'm pretty good at recognizing armor marks, an effective way to quick reference this from model to spreadsheet is needed.

I have thought of (and dismissed) the following methods of labeling:

Label maker ($23 USD, price rules this out, and labels can fall off )
Painting the bottom white and labeling with Sharpe (messy and I'm out of white model paint, tried some ceiling paint, no go)
Colored bands on bases (solves squad lookup issue, but not individual model)

...

I am open to other suggestions as I proceed, truthfully though, I am stuck.

Thank you, Dakka, in advance, as I'm sure someone will have a brilliant idea.

FM Argos

Do you want to be able to tell who’s who at a glance? Or is it OK to pick up the mini to check the underside of the base? One thing I did to help keep my squads separate is write the squad number with a sharpie on the penny I glued to the underside of the base for weight. You could do something similar, with a little more data to ID them all. Something like squad number/ position in squad. So the sarge of the second squad would be 2/1, the most junior marine in the 1st squad would be 1/10, etc. That way everyone would have a unique number. If you wanted to you could paint/write it on the rim of the base.

If you have multiple companies, you could add that number as well.

This is a wild shot in the dark at helping, but the underside of each GW base has a number embossed on it for manufacturing purposes. You could just colour each base rim to designate squad, then assign each marine the number on his base. So when you want to know who the tactical marine with the red base is, you go to your printed out spreadsheet, look up 'Tactical Squad - Red' (Or Vermillion if you want it to sound better ), Base No.57 - Oh look it's Sergeant Whatshisname. Th only detractors to this theory are A) You may have Nos. 34-44 of the manufacturing run in you first Tactical squad instead of a more simple 1-10. And B) If you based your models on bases from several kits, then the manufacturing numbers may be all mixed up so you may already have duplicate numbers on the bases.

The only other suggestion I can think of is putting those little dot stickers on the base underside each of a different colour. So you see a Devastator marine with a blue dot on his base and written on the dot is a number 1-10. Go to your spreadsheet, find Devastator Squad Blue, No.1 - Oh, Brother Thingymabob. Or even a code such as DB1 (ie. Devastator Blue Marine 1) may be more precise than simply one number. Perhaps smothering the underside of the base in clear PVA glue once the sticker is applied would hold it on satisfactorily?

I dunno, just throwing it out there...

Gentlemen you have provided some great information.

To clarify, yes, I would love to tell who is who at a glance, but picking them up is fine to see that this is marine #23, brother Bob . The penny and color thing might be a GREAT thing if hybridized. Thank you both so much for your input.

FM Argos

What about taking a picture of each individual marine and posting it in your spreadsheet next to their bio?

That way you don't have to mark on the mini at all

Perhaps a silver sharpie would show up underneath the base?

I do this with my warmachine models and just paint the names onto the bases. You could easily paint the names on or just mark some numbers or symbols.

Also excellent suggestions. I might do all 4 of these now. (A vast undertaking! ) Thanks for getting me unstuck folks.

FM Argos

SavageBugle wrote:
Perhaps a silver sharpie would show up underneath the base?

I did this myself for a unit which was very hard to rank up, just to make it easier to get them back in the only correct configuration. It works well, and is super fast and cheap.

Yes, for ease of use right now, I've pilfered the Forgemissus' Sharpe paint pen in silver. Working on the rest as well.

Cheers folks.

FM Argos

remember that each SM squad is unique - there is only one 3rd company 3rd squad, same as only one 4th company 4th squad and you can tell these two apart because:

3rd company 3rd have red trim, and III somewhere on their shoulder pads.

4th company 3rd have green trim and III somewhere on their shoulder pads.

so you can visibly tell one squad from another if you use codex paint schemes. intra-squad is a bit harder - you've named them all but only the sgt, hvy, and special weapons marine can be identified by sight. perhaps you can paint a single identifying initial on the base? because there are only 10 in a squad there is no need to duplicate initials.

You want a white paint marker... like a graffiti pen, they come in all tip shapes and sizes, and many bright colours.
Opaque, permanent, marker pens with decent coverage. They will write on brick, glass, metal, plastic, fabric... anything really.

http://www.artdiscount.co.uk/drawing-illustration/markers/uni-posca-paint-markers.html

Heres one example, but two other brands I know of are Montana, and Liquitex for paint markers. I've used them for signing canvases that I've painted before.

Decals/transfers is what I decided on, but ~cost~

The guy I intend to use is in the states, so it might be cheaper for you - he will print out an a5 page for like $20, which has enough for tons and tons of names.