Until last weekend I would have said there probably are not
that many unique RPG products coming down the pike any time soon. So much to my delight (and contrary to my cynicism)
I saw a bunch small colored plastic widgets at a
vendor’s table at Genghis Con in
The colorful widgets I saw are plastic disks an inch in diameter and about 3/16ths of an inch thick. Inside of each disk is a strong magnet, which means they can be stacked together or under a metal based miniature. The colors on the batch of samples I took home are grey, red, yellow, dark grey, light grey and white. According to the Alea Tools website a lot of colors , patterns and sizes are in the works. It would be nice if they shaved the thickness of the plates by a third to half, which would make them perfectly sized in my mind as a based figure might look a little towering with more than one disk under them. A minor quibble, these disks are really neat as is.
I took the time to kick these magnetic plates around. I do a lot of miniatures gaming, so metal based figures are readily available. I attached a fairly bulky stand onto the magnetic plate. It stuck quite nicely on the 1 inch base and stayed put as I put it through the paces that mini might receive during the course of a game.
What these stackable plates, or disks, do for the RPG crowd is represent game information under the miniature. This could be alignment, spell effects, abilities, alignment, etc. This is a handy product, especially for D20 oriented games that are miniatures heavy. For the war gaming crowd I think these magnetic plates have a huge amount of potential. Games like Battleground, Spearhead, Arc of Fire and others use a tiered injury and moral systems slipping magnetic plates under figures would save a lot of trouble that rings, chits and markers imply. The plate stays with the miniature, so the confetti of a war gaming table could be a thing of the past. The six samples I picked up are about a third of the size of a roll of life savers when stacked atop each other. That means a bunch of 30-60 (the most I could use in a nice sized skirmish type WWII war game), would be very portable and much less of a hassle than chits, rings, etc.
Aside from being used as markers for miniatures, the magnetic plates can be quick counters for masses of enemies in a gaming session. The plates are plastic, so a dry or wet erase marker can be used to mark them as needed and then be quickly cleaned. Or for the more artistic minded, printed decals to mark each plate accordingly.
The samples I got this last weekend are certainly nifty. When Alea Tools brings their magnetic plate product into full production with a broad selection of styles and colors, I will look forward to buying them by the handful to use in my table top gaming.
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