@knp7765:
That’s exactly right! I like these little units so much, it’s what first attracted me to A&A in the first place. So I really prefer not to use chips unless absolutely necessary. For example, in the setup for ALpha+3, there is 11 infantry on Germany and 6 infantry on S Italy. Those places are just too small so I go ahead and use the chips. Same for infantry and tanks in Holland/Belgium and the 6 infantry in France. Also, if there is a massive amount of units somewhere, like when Russia is placing huge stacks of men to defend Moscow, I will chip up there too rather than have 20-30 infantry pieces on the board there. Most other places though, I just use the actual units.
One way to get the satisfaction of deploying huge armies (or fleets) of sculpts without getting into crowding problems on the map is to put the sculpts on a separate table and to represent them on the board with small coded unit markers.
I’ve experimented over the years with different ways of doing this. In my current method, I use small coloured wood or plastic blocks (one per army or fleet), next to each one of which I place a single mini poker chip with an identification code on it. One block-and-chip pair goes next to each army or fleet of sculpts on the side table, and a second pair goes on the map to show where that unit is located.
For the units of major countries, I use colour-coded square wooden blocks. A good source for these is the line of “Commands & Colors: Ancients” games (including the various expansion sets). For minor countries, I use 1-centimeter colour-coded plastic cubes which are sold in jars of 1,000 by school supply companies (example: http://www.classroomproductswarehouse.com/catalog/product?deptId=&prodId=CN319). For mini poker chips, I use the ones which come with A&A. I either write identification letters on them with a marker, or I stick coloured Avery dots on them.
For those interested in “fog of war” variants of the A&A rules, note that these block-and-chip pairs can be used to partially conceal information from the other player. If the identification chips placed on the map are put face-down, the other players will be able to see (from the side table) what your various armies and fleets are composed of but won’t be able to tell which one corresponds to which block-and-chip pair on the board.
