Turn Counter

After losing track of turns last game and letting my first victory slip away... I decided I needed to get some kind turn counter, and started kicking around ideas for one.

Clock. I originally thought of doing some kind of Roman mini painted as a statue, and have him turn to face the turn number, pointing with his arm or sword like the hands on a clock... and while that was cool, it also seemed like a lot of work to do up. I'd wither want it either magnetized, or on some kind of swivel with discrete stopping points.... and yeah, cool, but way too much work for now. Maybe I'll do up a nice turn counter diorama in the future.

Cribbage. Then I thought of doing some kind of cribbage board tracker, with 1-12 (or 14, I guess, in case of extra turns) slots that the same statue mini would move to as each turn happened. But, it would either be stupid long, or take up about as much space as a typical regiment. I wasn't sure that would be a good use of space in my transport container.

DRINKS. Then I happened on a great idea. I am from Wisconsin, but no, not a drink per turn. I could get one of those plastic "drink special" flip stands in local bars and some plastic sleeves, and simply flip that each turn. It would be relatively compact, and flipping through that would be a very clear indicator of what turn it was for both players, and probably look pretty sharp on the table.

So, I set off to the internet, and after a very long while, found a supply store that had stands and sleeves you didn't need to buy in bulk. A mere $7 later, I had the stand and a number of sleeves, including a few extras, in my digital cart. Huzzah!

Unfortunately, things then fell apart. While I could select individual things to buy, their business was still geared towards bulk orders, and they would only ship via UPS... $18 was the cheapest they could do to ship it to me. After another hour searching around online for another "buy restaurant stuff individually" company... I found no alternatives. That left theft from local bars. So I abandoned this option.

I really liked the compact flip display idea though, and tried searching for flipping alternatives. A maddening number of google searches later...
-Flip scoreboards? Nope, I only need 2 digits total. We're not playing to turn 1000, and I don't have the tools to separate the scoreboards for each team.
-Flip displays? Nope, everything is a huge easel, and geared for presentations
-Tiny painting/display easel? Cute, but not flip-able. I'd need to replace the card every time, and those tiny canvases are like a dollar each.
-Flip cookbook holder? Nope, award and expensive ($30?!)
-Pep band flip folio? Nope, uses a lyre to attach to the instrument, and so can't balance on its own.
-Flip .... book? Nope, that's for animation.
-Flip index cards? Nope, I don't want a flip-open BOX. I want something that flips the cards themselves.... ugh.

After way too much time spent searching in vain, I stumbled upon some flash cards, attached by a single ring. While this doesn't have the nice display factor I was going for, it is very compact. And cheap.

So, I grabbed 14 cards, and armed with a soft-tipped pen, set to work on numbering. Nothing too fancy.

I grew up with Calvin and Hobbes, and had two very artistic grandfathers. I constantly doodled and for a while, wanted to be a cartoonist. To show big noises, etc, this is the script I typically used. Big block letters, with some etching kind of effect below to make it stand out.

I set out all the numbers, and let the ink set for an hour or two. I didn't want to smudge anything, and eventually replaced the 11 card, because of smudging.

I then took a purple marker (didn't want to mess with paint, and waiting for it to dry and all that hassle) and added a little purple band to the lock text, as you can see. I figured I might as well make my counters on-theme. For the Regnum!

I went for the calendar kind of flip over the book flip... for no reason really. When I started numbering things... that was the way the cards were oriented and I didn't give it any thought until just now. We'll see how this goes in-game... a book flip may be the better choice for the table edge... but this should be fine. I am probably overthinking the importance of orientation.

Anyways, yeah, here is what I will be using to track turns next time. Pretty simple, and pretty cheap (about $5, if you include the cost of markers).

We'll see how  future games go, but hopefully no more victories will slip through my fingers due to bad turn tracking!