ADLG: Commander Labels

It's a bank holiday and I've found time to do one of those mini projects we all have but never find the time for.  In this case I've been making labels for my ADLG commanders.  Here's a "work almost finished" shot:



Most of my commanders (generals) were painted when I played DBMM and are on 40x30 mm bases.  For ADLG separate commanders should be on 40 mm square bases.

As I use steel bases the solution was simple: 40 mm square sabot bases made from 2 mm MDF and scraps of magnetic vinyl.  Now my commanders don't get confused with regular units as they are on the right sized bases with a 40x10 mm black strip at the rear

The sabots work really well but being a "bear of little brain" I still find it hard to remember which type of commander I've decided to use.  At the moment it's changing almost every game.  As a result I am always referring to the army list breaking the flow of the game.

Today's project was to produce a set of magnetic labels to apply to the 40x10 mm gap at the back of my 40 mm square sabot bases.  Making them was relatively easy:

• I created Word document with a simple 4 by 4 table.  This would produce enough labels to cover all command options for a standard 200 point army with a few left over.
• Each table cell was set to 39x10 mm (to allow for a little variation in base cuts etc) and the label text was added to each cell.
• Once printed each row was cut out and attached to some scrap magnetic vinyl with double sided sticky tape.  You can use glue but this is quicker and avoids wetting the paper.
• I then trimmed the magnetic vinyl to size being careful not to rip the paper.  Even with a sharp blade this was surprisingly difficult.

The only bit that needs any thought is which side of the magnetic vinyl to use.  There's a right side and a wrong side so a dry run is essential.

All in all it took me less time to make a set of 10 labels than it did to write this post and I'm now looking forward to trying these out in my next game.

Download the label document.