La Déviation Fatale - A Discourse on Paper Counters

I'm not entirely sure how it started. I may have made some vaguely taunting comments about using paper counters for gaming - not the printed, card-mounted versions mind, but the hastily scribbled ones on scraps of torn paper.

Some time later, this had become a running joke. It turns out that cheetor has a deep-seated abhorrence towards such low tech gaming aids. Like these:

A helpful clarification.

Who needs a model when you can proxy with paper?

Excellent use of paper and toy proxies.

Several months of gentle taunting later, this came back to haunt me:

Cheetor wrote:

"Asslessman and I are planning the game that we are going to play in my place the night before we head up to Knavecon. Naturally we decided that an RT take on the Irish cinema classic "Fatal Deviation" was in order. Your name came up Axiom...

At a critical juncture in the movie, our hero presents a message that he received to his sensei. The message is supposed to encourage the hero to throw the upcoming tournament fight. It reads as follows:

Note the less than perfect spelling. That bit wasnt a joke, its just that the film is in fact that bad.

We will require an objective marker that conveys the above image, but in a 41st millennium sort of fashion. With your purported skills in the area Axiom, we were thinking that you could make a marker for this.

You love paper markers after all."

After seeking some clarification (was this a serious request? Just exactly what kind of paper counter was needed? Could I just write 'Objective' on a scrap of paper?), I was given 3 key criteria:

1) Rogue Trader themed

2) Paper-based

3) Mis-spelling

Cheetor kindly finished off my brief by adding "I just reckoned a money-where-your-mouth-is challenge was in order, Mr Paper Marker Man."

Challenge accepted!

Paper Counter Challenge - Execution

Several months on, after plenty of thought, I have presented Cheetor and Asslessman with 3 options ahead of their Fatal Deviation game:

Traditional paper, card standee, physical model

Option 1: This is a hand-crafted paper-based objective token, carefully removed from a sheet of high quality paper using the 'tearing' technique for that rustic effective. I forgot the mis-spelling element of the brief with the example above - the final version will certainly involve a poor command of the English language.

Option 2: Using a handy image borrowed from our friends over at Tales From the Maelstrom, option 2 uses Rogue Trader imagery and tongue-in-cheek mis-spelling in a traditional card and plastic counter format.

Image borrowed from Tale From the Maelstrom

If you recall the early days of Blood Bowl, you will have played entire games with your teams illustrated on similar cards and shoved into the plastic stands. This complicated approach involved printing out the image on white paper, gluing it to some cereal box card, and inserting the card into the plastic stand.

Option 3: A real model. But it's not made of paper. So it probably doesn't hit the spot. If you're interested in the model, he's assembled from a Citadel ninja, with the head from one of the early 2000 Imperial Guard Last Chancers.

I added a note (complete with movie accurate spelling), made from a piece of plasticard. He got an oversized backpack from my bits box, and a little electronic doodad from the RTB01 plastic Space Marine kit.

"What on earth does this note mean?"

I look forward to finding out which objective counter gets used in the game!