Bloody Big Battles! - Blocks or figures?

Labels for blocks

I was just about to place an order for some 6mm Franco-Prussian War figures when I wavered at the prospect of buying and painting almost 50 packs of figures, and that would be just to do the battles of the Imperial period. In the meantime, the use of the blocks, Hexon and wooden toy village buildings has received a lot of compliments. I've therefore decided to put any figure orders on hold for the time being.

I began with block labels showing standard  NATO symbols. They don't have the 'Xs' and 'Is' used to denote level (e.g. 'II' for a Battalion) because while in one game the blocks might represent Platoons, in another they might represent Divisions or anything in between. I soon realised that it would often be important to indicate facing, so I later added triangular arrows.

For Bloody Big Battles! some blocks need to  indicate a skirmishing capacity, so I've now added a little hunting horn symbol. A similar approach could be taken with later period armies which require special assets. The artillery are also now flippable for limbered/unlimbered. At some point I may do flippable blocks for dismountable cavalry. The blocks are not otherwise individually identified as they are typically grouped together. For BBB I have separate unit ID labels as here.

The labels are designed to fit Gibsons Mah Jong blocks which can be found in charity shops or on eBay, and you can download a copy of the labels in PDF format. I print the image to an A4 sheet containing a single self-adhesive label (LL1) and then cut up the individual labels with a scalpel, metal rule, magic cutting mat and enough care and attention to avoid slicing into my fingers too often. As you get older and clumsier this becomes more hazardous. If you are going to use these blocks on an incline (i. e. 3D hills), you may need to put a blank paper label on the bottom to stop them slipping.