There are tools from which, once you have experienced them in your hobby, there is no going back. The first set of brushes that didn’t come from a variety pack from a craft store. An airbrush. Oil washes. 3d printers.
There are also aesthetic things in the hobby that, once seen, cannot be unseen. When you really start caring about mold lines. Whatever side of the “Should all base rims be black?” debate you fall on.
It is when these two things combine that we enter the truly dangerous realm of the specialist tool.
A fresh sheet of counters, like a pile of grey plastic sprues, has that wonderful feeling of potential. A bunch of tiny, carefully designed squares, a balance of art and practicality. Take them off of their sheets, and you’re off to the races.
Or so I’ve thought for three-plus decades of my life I’ve been playing these games. But the result leaves little “nibs” of cardboard behind, that often stray past hex boundaries, and cause counters to grab on to each other during movement and shift a bit.
I had errantly assumed that this was just part of the thing. They could be taken off more or less carefully (i.e. with a sharp knife) but at the end of the day, this was just How Things Were. But, thanks to some banter among the Goonhammer Historicals crew, and posts on BoardGameGeek, Reddit and some YouTube videos, my eyes have been opened to the existence of counter clippers. And also some absolutely unhinged alternatives involving nail clippers, homemade jigs, etc.
But I am a sucker for a specialty hobby tool, and once I was aware these existed, I had to have one. I am also a sucker for small businesses located in nondescript industrial parks.
Enter the “2.5mm (3/32-inc) Radius Corner Rounder Punch Cutter, Heavy Duty Hand Held” from Oregon Laminations Company. Like many aspects of the historical wargaming hobby market, this can be found on a website that you half-expect to find a “Y2K Compliant” animated gif on – or also Amazon. Be warned: there are many options in the Corner Rounder Punch Cutter product space.
With a small amount of cleaning to make sure any machinists grease was off the cutting surface, and heeding the many warnings in the product description about not using this on metal…I got to clipping.
It is remarkably satisfying. Especially when a number of tools we use in this hobby are delicate and fussy, this…feels like it will easily survive being tossed in a toolbox and ignored until the next time you need it. It’s also easy – align the counter in the jig making sure it’s all the way in, try not to think about the shoe scene in Who Framed Rodger Rabbit? that I either don’t need to explain or will never be able to, and squeeze down.
Corner clipped. Rinse and repeat for…however long you need to render all the counters of a game (or games) satisfyingly redressed.
What is left? A small pile of…nib-dust, and satisfyingly clipped counters.
I’m never going back.
If I had one complaint, it’s that some particularly thick, MDF counters (like those from Hollandspiele) are slightly too thick for the clipper, and thus, these counters remain unclipped. Before, this would not have been a problem.
Now, I am vexed.
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