Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps counters upgrade!

Was going to start this with “Is there anything worse…” hyperbole, but yeah, given the current world situation and economy, there are LOT of things worse that any of the bad things that can happen in board games. But inside the scope of board games, there are a lot of bad things. Rule books that are the same size as the box (like 12″ square). Also near the top of the list are board games that you buy, but cannot play until you do a craft project — assembling miniatures and then if so inclined, painting them. Miniatures games sure — you buy expecting some assembly. But board games should be ready to play out of the box — painting miniatures notwithstanding.

Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps by Gale Force 9 succeeded on one of these. The rulebook is pleasantly normal sized and does not get in the way of playing the game. However, all the miniatures come on sprues that have to be cut, sanded or trimmed, then glued together before you can play your first game. Painting fortunately is optional as the game made the aliens jet black and the marines green. They even took the step of embossing the character names onto their bases so you can tell them apart.

However, this is a board game, not a miniatures game. And rather than spend time wrestling with superglue, I opted to create counters for the game to get it to the table not just faster, but ultimately easier to play and store. Counters should have been included from the get-go as there is already a good amount of cardboard in the box and a little more should not have been hard to sneak onto the punchboards, IMO.

So I looked around and found images of all the characters in the game as well as the aliens and created a sticker sheet (available on Etsy) you can use to make your own as well. You’ll need 42 1″ discs (either wooden ones like these or a simple 3d print job). You’ll also need 2 1.5″ discs (wooden ones) for the Power Loader and Alien Queen replacements in one of the expansions. I actually tried to paint the wooden discs by soaking in water mixed with paint and that does work, but the colors were not to my satisfaction, so I switched to 3d Printing some 2mm high discs. I use a heated glass bed for a smooth finish on one side to adhere the sticker to.

I included two copies of each of the Alien variants as well to allow you to expand that enemy pool if so desired to make the game a little harder.

So now that game plays just as well if not easier as line of sight can be calculated on top of the counters instead of moving the miniature. And there are no Alien tails to get damaged in the box.

UPDATE: Due to international shipping being a bit steep, I’ve added an option to buy just a PDF of the stickers as well. Thanks!

Author: klkitchens

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