I'm gonna start by saying this; I hate cardboard tokens. I will not stop until I have no use for cardboards anymore, and...well, I'm pretty much at that point.
There's quite a few places you can pick up some shiny plastic bits for your games. Most of mine have come from Applied Perspective. That being said, I haven't found many reviews on them, so here we go. If you have your own products to share, or have bought from somewhere, feel free to add!
Up first, my very first acrylic order:
Pictured here, we have a couple movement templates in Mirrored...
um..dark grey?
Slate grey, as listed on AP's color options page. Also, the range 1 stick in Trans Red. The mirrored templates are pretty cool, though such a dark color might not have been my best idea. I've lost these on our big black space-board a couple times. They're also prone to smudges. That being said, they turn a lot of heads when I go to events. The range stick has proven incredibly useful. I got it as part of a set that included one for range 2 and the magnetic 1-5 mega-stick. The Magnets in the big stick are super strong...so strong, they've actually pulled each other out of their holes a couple times. It's a quick fix though. They fit very snug in the hole, and even without adhesives don't fall out once I put them back in. No problem.
Next up: Range 1, 1-straight, and the Huge Ship template:
Now, this guy is a monstrous piece of acrylic. The paint is only on one side, so it's only visible if you're banking right. What I love most about this thing is the color: plain, simple, trans blue. It looks nice here, but man, in person? Gorgeous. The 1-straight is for scale, though the angle makes it look a bit wonky.
I want to make a very important point here.
Every template I've bought from AP has been the
exact same size
as brand new cardboards. I bought my movement set just after getting my second core set, and brought my stuff to the FLGS. The TO wanted to measure and found about 1mm variations with some of these templates when compared to his own. Worrisome, but when I held them up against the templates from the set I bought the day before, I proved that HIS templates had been worn away.
Buy with confidence.
Now we get to the tokens!
With my first order, I grabbed a few focus/evade tokens as well (10x each). They're pretty, they're simple, and I have a few friends who like the hexagonal design better than circles. The blue ones are energy and reinforce tokens, which come with the Huge ship template. I'd rather see the energy tokens designed more similarly to the original cardboard ones, to be honest. They do, however, fit nicer on cards because of their hex-shape. Take it or leave it. They also look nice as shield tokens in non-epic games. Before getting FFG cloak tokens, we used reinforce tokens (they do look pretty similar...)
Here we've got Target Locks!
I bought the larger set with my first order as well. The light blue is pretty, but once again, that trans red is super dark. The cool thing about these is the way they interlock with each other. really helps keeping them organized when they aren't in use, or when one ship has multiple ships locked on to it. Today, I received my order which contained, among other things, the tiny set. I saw these on the site a few times, but never put any thought into them until seeing them during worlds (via stream). We usually stick our tokens on the ship bases already, so this became a clear decision. You'll notice the little notch in the side, there? Well...
The reason that's there is because someone at AP is a genius. We use the gray numeric markers to show pilot skill when we aren't differentiating ships (makes it easier to see sometimes) so we always have those pieces on, and then the tiny TL latches onto that. Of course, it doesn't have to, but it's a nice touch. In this shot I'm holding the base nearly 90 degrees, and it's staying on there pretty well. It doesn't take much force to pull it off, but gravity certainly isn't doing it. A+ for these little guys.
Now, for the rest of my new toys...
Here we go! AP's new premium tokens! I gotta say, I'm in love with the evade/focus design, because it's so close to the original game. These are simple and beautiful. The droid and EPT tokens are just what I needed, and have been on the to-get list for quite some time; there just weren't many that I liked. Then we have Greedo and 3P0. I'm still trying to decide how I'm gonna use these two. I can't remember Greedo's ability right now (the first damage you deal/take is a crit, I think?), but I'm thinking every turn, 3P0's ship will get a token and then remove it once he's made his guess for the round. On the other hand, I oculd give him the token when he makes the guess, to symbolize it's already been used. Either way will work. Beautiful tokens. I was drooling over these in some earlier thread, and said I'd buy them as soon as they were out. Then one day I checked AP, and they were there. Grabbed what I could afford. No regrets.
Speaking of super-awesome-beautiful tokens.
I didn't buy AP's new Stress tokens. Why? Well...
These guys. I bought these from eBay a while back, because I had one FFG stress and desperately needed more. Problem was, all the stress tokens from online vendors were pretty ugly. Then these beauties show up. I won the auction with ~$15, I think.
To whoever designed these: please please PLEASE, keep making/selling your wonderful tokens.
The seller had, IIRC, energy and shield tokens as well, but I was good on those and couldn't afford more anyway. I wish they were more available, and hope the creator sees this.
Now, for a less happy story.
These are CorSecEngineering's shield tokens. In the picture on their website, they look fantastic. The white lines are very bright and give the tokens a great appeal. In reality, this isn't quite the case. I ordered 20 of these, and every one was super dull. I think one day I'll find some sort of white-out pen thing or something to fill the lines in better, but for now they'll do. At the time, they were my favorite design. Now that AP put out their premium shields, I'm most certainly going to grab a couple sets of those next paycheck.
So! That's all I got, aside from the official FFG tokens. Hope everyone's enjoyed this, and that a few of you throw in some reviews of your fancy accessories. I'd love to see a bit of Cog'o'Two's stuff. I'd have some, if it wasn't for the whole international thing.
