ww2wargame.com
WWII: Struggle for Europe____WWII: Struggle for Asia => General Discussion => Topic started by: solomongrundy on August 26, 2005, 08:23:18 AM
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Hey Mark....Chad here. Listen, I would like to buy the game but I just don't have $1000 available for a board game (wife). What I would like to do is get the basic game and use pieces from the various Axis and Allies games as much as possible. For things like 88's, forts, etc, I could buy certain units. Where could these miniatures be acquired?
I figure I have a much easier chance of getting the game this way....could spray paint A&A pieces.
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Chad,
I absolutely understand (luckily I have acquired everything I need stealthily over 4 years. . .)
The basic game comes with a list of all the miniatures you need to buy in order to play the game - so you can pick and choose what you want. I can help you in identifying what pieces you really need and what you can cannibalize.
If you want to order the pieces you would like through us we can get you a volume discount too, instead of going directly to the retailers.
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Great thanks Mark. I was actually planning on doing what you did...acquiring the pieces over a number of years and cannabilizing in the meantime. Hopefully I'll be ordering in a month or two.
And I would be interested in buying miniatures through you!!
Chad
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Hey Guys!
You seem to have a great game going here!
But to get us gamers going you need to add more pictures, or at least make them bigger.
Why don't you post the famous "pieces you need sheet" on the site, just a thought.
Like I said , the game seems to have it all, but we need, want more PICTURES!
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Hello Spitfire,
   Here is a link for more photos until we get more. A friend of mine posted some great pics from a past gaming session.
https://www.crespo.us/modules.php?set_albumName=album09&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php
Hope that helps.
John
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OK - Spitfire - more pictures are posted in the 'After Action Reports' section from GenCon - more to come as well.
cheers,
Mark
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Hey guys,
as I have already beefed up my Advanced Axis & Allies Europe game with lots of GHQ tanks and tons of painted revell and italeri 1/72 soldiers (great US Marines, Paratroopers for US, UK and Germany, Afrika Korps etc.) I think a basic game will do it. Ships and planes come from all those A&A games (MB, revised, Europe, Pacific, D-Day) as well as some Table Tactics expansion sets.
Unfortunately tumbling dice has up to now no website, I just discovered a few photos at brookhursthobbies.com and of course this website. Looks pretty good and much cheaper and more suitable for gaming purposes than GHQ Aircraft (1/285th scale is too big and expensive).
But what really matters is skytrex. No photos at their website (at least for 1/300th scale armor and 1/3000th scale ships). How good is their quality / detail compared to GHQ??? They are much cheaper than GHQ (I guess it´s only half of their price) but as far as I can judge from your pictures here (game design) they look pretty good. Any comments from those that have both GHQ and skytrex armor and ships?
Greetings from Germany,
Christoph
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Hi Christoph!
GHQ pieces are more detailed and look better, higher quality if you will.
Skytrex pieces are lower quality but not bad in any way, a big + is the sturdy guns on tanks and such.
Therefore are Skytrex pieces great for gaming, you don't get those bended guns and if you somehow do it wont ruin your economy in replacing them. CinC also has great pieces fantastic details and in solid metal(not hollow as GHQ and Skytrex) only bad thing about them is their thin guns.
If you are looking for great naval pieces you should check out Navwars pieces(thanks Imperious!).
Hope this helped a little
Spitfire
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Hi Christoph,
So, all of the naval unit pictures on the website are the Skytrex 1/3000th scale ships - there are some good close-ups of these on the game design page and in the example of naval combat thread in the discussion forum. You can get a sample of what the tumbling dice miniatures look like in the first picture (top left corner) on the design page. The picture on the top right has French and British tanks from GHQ. The German tanks are from Skytrex. The Summer 1943 screenshot (4th picture down on the left side) illustrates some skytrex Tigers and Panthers. For a game, I think the skytrex pieces are better because of the bent gun issue that Spitfire discusses. While the quality does not look quite as good as skytrex, they are miles superior to the plastic molds.
As for planes, you will need pieces to represent the following:
German fighters, Stukas and medium bombers
Italian early war fighters, regular fighters and bombers
Japanese fighters, bombers and Kamikazes
British early war fighters, fighters, bombers and heavy bombers
US fighters, bombers and heavy bombers
French fighters and bombers
Soviet early war fighters, regular fighters, Sturmoviks and bombers
Hope this helps,
thanks,
Mark
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this is basically correct.. C and C IMO is the best all around value in terms of acuracy and utility, except like GHQ those soft barrels bent something terrible. For our purposes the Skytrex line which includes ships and armor has this problem solved as they see the problem and have corrected it with much harder metals, so the gun wont bent nearly as easily, but as in a harder metal if it gets bent it will weaken and if you keep getting them rebent it will brake off. This has not happened to me. The girth of the ships is a bit too wide, but its better for gaming (stability) plus it looks a bit better for aesthetics. GHQ ships are horrible (except for destroyers) they bend every which way and have too much of a hollow insides. C and C and the skytrex line are infinatly better. You have to buy some metals to round out the various pieces for this game. Only brookhurst has the tumbling dice planes (about 30 miles from me) and i got a load of them. Dont worry you dont need to look at them, just buy them they are perfect for a/a style games. On my site a have a number of pictures with tumbling dice planes. For naval i use NAVWAR which cost about 3.00 per, but they are very nice and i can get all the ww1 ships. They can be bought from scale specialites.com
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Hey guys,
three answers within a day! Thank you so much. Could it be that you are just as game miniature-addicted as I am ;D
Looking at Mark´s list of planes except for those early war fighters of UK, Italy and USSR (I must have those biplanes too!!!) it can be covered with the A&A planes I got. But what about those ME 262 I saw in one of those late war pics. Also one of those must-have items...
I just discovered a german online-shop selling ghq-models. Will be cheaper for me as they don´t charge shipping when ordering for more than 60 Euro (70 bucks). To avoid additonal custom fees I had to split my orders and thus paying more shipping costs (still cheaper than custom fees).
Getting those fleets can wait I guess, but I am curious about the part´s list once I ordered my basic game.
Anyway, how can I order tumbling dice pieces, they don´t have a website so far (there is a rockband with the same name) and I have no email-adress to order a catalogue (if they have one at all). One possibility would be ordering via John´s Toyshop.
Thanks again for your info,
Christoph
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Just buy them from Brookhust hobbies.com. You dont have to look for anything more.
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Hello Mark,
did you receive my two e-mails with the order for the basic game and the fortifications? Sent them two days ago and haven´t heard anything from you or John (John@Johns-toys.com). Just let me know and I send them once more.
Best wishes for X-mas,
Christoph
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Hi Christoph,
I talked to John earlier today and he got your email order. Now the pressure is on me to make the bunkers! Give me a little time to create those and we will ship it all off together.
Thanks,
Mark
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Hello Mark,
take your time with that. It´s only one week up to X-mas and I guess you have some other things to do right now. And I never intended to put a wargame map under the tree while it´s time for an armistice ;)
My birthday is the last day in January, perhaps you can make it till then. Would be great.
How about my suggestion of a game piece exchange, any interest?
Christoph
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My birthday is 1/29. Just send it to me first and I will then send it along to CHNfromG after checking it out for a day. :o ;)
Craig
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Hey Craig,
Aquarius are the best ;D Always willing to help other people, i.e. with a quality control for wargames :D
Would prefer to have a game with you, but unfortunately the Atlantic is quite huge to come along for a game...
Christoph
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Since the IL-2 wasn't used so much in the naval aspect of WWII the 1/1200 scale by CAP Aero dosn't make one.
Looking at pictures I am thinking the TBF is kind of close to it but it is a little larger than the IL-2 but thought it would be close to it with maybe adjusting (scratch biuilding) the cockpit and adjusting the underbelly a little would be a good sub.
Any opinions? Any suggestions on some other aircraft? Here is a link of the available types. http://www.ss-sms.com/FHSCAP1104.html
Thank you in advance.
Sean
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Use the British Fairy Fullmar piece. The plane size and shape is pretty close. Just shave the back of the cockpit off with an exacto knife and you will have a pretty good Sturmovik.
That's what I did with my very first set - before Brookhuirsthobbies offered a IL-2 miniature.
good luck!
Mark
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Thanks Mark
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After marking the pieces to insure they go back to their original game boxes and a little adapting & overcoming on other pieces, a few of us may be trying out the rules on Thanksgiving weekend. Probably just a couple of turns to get the sequence of actions down and mark down the differences between A&A and this game.
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Let us know how it goes!
John
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If one owns all 4 of the Avalon Hills A&A games, the Milton Bradley A&A game, a Fortress America game, some spare WWII minis, and some ingenuity, one can have enough pieces to run this game. Remember to mark them so they can be returned to their original box as those games are still fun to play. At full retail that's about $400. That can get you started while one is building up the pieces for their game. I heard AH put out a Battle of the Bulge board game. Haven't seen it yet, but there could be some additional pieces that could be used for this game, as well as some other variant of a board game of war in the Pacific which I've seen but can't remember the name of. From the cover, that game looked very similar to AH's A&A in the Pacific. Thought this could help those with only a few dollars in their pocket and really want to jump into playing this game NOW.
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Check out the ideas in this thread:
http://www.ww2wargame.com/forum/index.php?topic=92.0
Craig
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I thought I had seen similar info before but couldn't remember under which topic, so just a rehashing of what some others have already done. Hopefully both inputs will show others where there's a will there's a way to have playing pieces available for all the countries.
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It took me awhile to find it.
I thought it was in this thread and I couldn't understand where it had gone. ???
Craig
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You mentioned the pieces need to be functional plus look good too. Why not put ALL the pieces associated with one country into a group photo. That way someone can see what you are offering for the BIG price.
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Good idea. We will do this.
Thanks!
John
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Greetings!
Just recently got the game, and needless to say, I'm impressed. You guys did a lot of work. You beat me to doing some of the same things.
I just may adjust the rules a little for different theatres such as the ETO (European Theater of Operation) and the PTO (Pacific . . . ) by playing them separately, to represent a little more historical accuracy (and how is that possible you may ask?). If you want to use the whole world which could've or did go to war, it is so hard to represent elements of the conflict on the same scale. For instance, land units in the ETO fit at the corps level. In the PTO, land units were usually at the division level if I'm not mistaken. You guys did so well. Larry Harris would be/is proud of you, I hope.
BUT, on to the point: I've found White Ensign Models in England to have really good resin 1/700 scale multi-engined aircraft and 1/500 scale single engined aircraft. ;D They really fit well with A&A, World at War, and especially, WW2: The Struggle . . . . They are discontinuing their lines though. :'( They still have the molds and do make new models if there is enough interest in producing them. :) I got some B-24's, Ju-52's and SM-84's that look like they were part of the original (sic) games. I got a couple of 1/500 SBD's (for USMC Aviation) and they fit!
If you're interested, drop them a line. I hope to be at GenCon-Indy to let those present take a gander.
Enden.
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I will be at Gencon as well my grand plan of producing / painting the peices in there historical standard is only half way there so do not plan on bringing the pieces I have done.
Plan on playing Thrusday night but do not know if I'll play every day like last year. :O)
Sean
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LOL - I think that is what you said last year! ! ! ;D
Look forward to catching up with you at GenCon - bring Big Dave with you!
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I will be there and already have my ticket for Thursday.
David
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I am definitely not a cognoscenti on minis, but I am waiting for the game to arrive and starting to think about pieces.
I went to one local game store and they had A&A 1940, and that looks like it would give me the ships I need for most countries.
I need suggestions for what I can do that's not too fancy.
I own the origiinal A&A in terms of what I have right now, and even that is on a boat from Alaska right now.
What set of games/figures et al can I buy that would give me everything I need?
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Is their a list of pieces needed somewhere on this site so that I can order those while I am waiting for my game to arrive?
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Thanks for e-mailing the list to me. It's time for me to get busy.
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I had trouble with Skyreks website, is there a US distributor that sells their product?
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Hi BD - it looks like Skytrex's site was down over the weekend and they have a new look and feel to their webpage up now. It looks like it is working now - I just checked it out - let me know if you are still having problems accessing it.
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The site was up, they just have a gliche on their order page. They sent me a very apologetic e-mail and stated that they were aware of the problem and that I could just e-mail them the list of items that I needed. They were very professional in their response.
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Could someone email me the list of pieces als. I'll be heading out to a local gamestore tomorrow. So please rush.
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Here is the list
[attachment deleted by admin]
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I drove over to Brookhurst Hobbies which is about 5 miles from where I work and picked up almost all of the pieces I need from them. I will order the rest from Tumbling Dice. Let me just say that these pieces are beautiful and for me are well worth the added expense.
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Thanks. John already sent me the list, but it is good to have it posted somewhere.
I bought A&A 1942, A&A pacific and Worl War II the Wargame from Pegasus Hobbies, and I'm guessing I actually have everything I need pretty much. Probably overkill really. I also bought some bi-planes, which if I am going to use them I might need a few more.
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Sounds like that will pretty much do...
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Thanks. John already sent me the list, but it is good to have it posted somewhere.
I bought A&A 1942, A&A pacific and Worl War II the Wargame from Pegasus Hobbies, and I'm guessing I actually have everything I need pretty much. Probably overkill really. I also bought some bi-planes, which if I am going to use them I might need a few more.
Where did you get your bi-planes?
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Okay, I ordered the game and now I have ordered all the pieces. The race is on....
I can't wait to get it all together and play my first game.
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Okay I was thinking of buying these for my bunkers:
http://www.ghqmodels.com/store/tmb46.html
Are these about the right size?
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Also I noticed on the list to use subs, factories and AA guns from other games. Why is that? If I wanted to buy some metal minis instead. Which pieces would you recommend? Or would you recommend not using metal minis for these pieces.
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That could get really expensive for you, BD. I think the size is ok - but at $4.50 a pop and given you might need in the neighborhood of 50 or so - it could add up. . .
What we did is make our own - and I think they look pretty good if you check out the pics on the forum.
We bought square dowl-rods from a hobby shop (something a little more dense than balsa wood) and just carved our own with an exacto knife and then painted them.
I glued a little piece of wire into the gun slit to look like the barrel of a gun to give it some added coolness. They were relatively easy and cheap to make and I think look as good as these bunkers that you might buy.
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Yeah you're right about the money, but I've already invested a lot of money in this game, so what the heck. Did you see my other question about the subs and AA guns?
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Yeah - the best bet that I have found is GHQ models. It is tought to buy subs that are big enough to be playing pieces - as most WW2 subs to scale are pretty small.
But - the US Gato class sub is pretty decent size and can be used for a variety of nationalities without anyone really noticing. Also the Japanese I-19 class sub is pretty good if you want to mix the models up. The German subs are pretty small - class IX is about the biggest - if you buy that miniature, you would almost need to mount it on something to be able to move it around - I would try to standardize on the Gato class.
For AA - I would go with the GHQ model "37mm FLAK 36; Towed
GHQ Stock # G122" For Axis AA guns - again they are small and delicate - you would want to mount them on a base.
For the Allies AA guns I would go with GHQ model "40mm Bofors
GHQ Stock # UK54" and mount it on a base. You get 4 per pack and can put them together in deployed mode.
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Thank you Mark for your informative answers. :)
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Oh yeah, I am trying to be as prepared as possible to play the game while waiting for its arrival. Do I need to provide any other game components other than the pieces such as control markers, chips, dice, money etc.
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I send control markers and dice and money :) It sounds like you are all set!
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I send control markers and dice and money :) It sounds like you are all set!
Well not exactly, I am still waiting for the rest of my pieces and it looks like some need some assembly. Some of them need to be mounted on bases and I haven't purchased the bases yet, and then I still have to paint all of them.
I am thinking of going with these bases:
http://www.litkoaero.com/page/LAI/CTGY/MB
What do you think of these bases?
And I noticed that you didn't mention chips were included. Am I providing those as well?
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Skytrex pieces came in are beautifully detailed and nicely packaged.
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Got the GHQ pieces some time back and they atually came on blister cards. Nice packaging.
I now have all the pieces and I have seperated them by their countries. I think I am gonna have to go buy some storage containers (any suggestions?) I also need to paint all of them. What type of paint should I buy, What brand and which shades for each country do you recommend to match the colors you have chosen? Which shades would I need to match A&A?
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For the larger powers (Germany, USA, UK, Japan, USSR) I have the Struggle parts in these containers:
2-3600 PROLATCH™ STOWAWAY
For the smaller powers (France, Italy) I use these:
2-3601 PROLATCH™ STOWAWAY
China is in a basic container:
3448-40 POCKET STOWAWAY
http://www.planomolding.com/tackle/products.asp
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The paint color recommendations come with the game - do you need a list?
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For the larger powers (Germany, USA, UK, Japan, USSR) I have the Struggle parts in these containers:
2-3600 PROLATCH™ STOWAWAY
For the smaller powers (France, Italy) I use these:
2-3601 PROLATCH™ STOWAWAY
China is in a basic container:
3448-40 POCKET STOWAWAY
http://www.planomolding.com/tackle/products.asp
How many will I need for each country?
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The paint color recommendations come with the game - do you need a list?
Okay I got the game today and I did see the paint color recommendations. That should be all I need.
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I send control markers and dice and money :) It sounds like you are all set!
you didn't mention chips were included. Am I providing those as well?
Okay I got it today and the chips were included. Thanks
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For the larger powers (Germany, USA, UK, Japan, USSR) I have the Struggle parts in these containers:
2-3600 PROLATCH™ STOWAWAY
For the smaller powers (France, Italy) I use these:
2-3601 PROLATCH™ STOWAWAY
China is in a basic container:
3448-40 POCKET STOWAWAY
http://www.planomolding.com/tackle/products.asp
How many will I need for each country?
One for each, but I have a lot of plastic parts available for each country.
It is still good to have the large container for the multiple spots/slots for keeping the units separate. It also helps in keeping the barrels of the armor units from getting crunched.
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Thanks Yope I plan on ordering some of these and I didn't want to make an order and then realize I needed more.
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Tumbling Dice no longer carries the ISA 326 Bloch 174. Which piece would make a good replacement?
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The Bloch 200 and the Amiot 143 would both be good substitutes.
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"Chips for Cheap Bastards Like Me" I have several different versions of A&A which provided me with most of the pieces I need, and I use the same size chips of different colors for different units, and other purposes. Forts- I use a black chip as a base, then I take a brown chip and snip off 2 little pieces on the sides for a semi- rectangular top. Actually looks pretty cool, and makes kepping track of fort damage a lot easier. I do the same thing for an airfield- cut down white strip on top of a black disc, gray for upgraded airfields. I use cut down green chips (they actually wind up looking a little bit like dollar bills) for lend lease. Cut down blue chips I use to help keep track of invasion/Airborne points. I use uncut chips for all the rest. Orange chips for ship damage markers. Orange chips with black circles drawn on the inside for out of supply markers. Has a neat sort of "zero", or "oh" effect. Like "Oh Crap!, we're out of ammo, food, and fuel." I use a blue chip under a grunt to mark them as Airborne. For countries that I only have one artillery piece for, I slide a green chip under to designate anti- tank. You can use black to designate heavy armor, green for light, etc, etc. Also, Ive found that alternating gray and white chips in a stack makes the little buggers a lot easier to count at a glance.