My opinion is tokens next to ships. It prevents bumping.

I can't tell you the number of times someone puts a target lock on my ship and them removes it and bumps my ship and puts it back slightly different. Which today with catching things in arc can be vital. It annoys me to no end. Or they put tokens on their ships and bump them when they take them off.

Why do people put tokens on their ships bases? This happened twice in my games at the SC last weekend.

Why doesn't FFG post how to place the tokens in the rules?

How does everyone else feel about it?

I feel that my opponent should be able to casually put his tokens however he sees fit.

Don't really care how people place them and FFG will never make a ruling on this.

I put them next to ships except for large ships, where I use the base -- it cuts down on clutter on the playing field particularly when the furball happens at close range.

I also put my move dials on my ship cards, again to cut down board clutter for movement.

YMMV. No rules on this needed.

Doesn't bother me either way. If they bump my ship...big deal. At least they didn't flip over the table.

Ya this kind of drives me crazy as well.

Especially the target locks

When trying to see range or arc, the target lock over hanging off the ship base makes it impossible at times to see the ships actual base for arc and range

I ask nicely not to put them on the bases

To completely avoid any bumping of the ships by wayward hands the tokens should be placed beside the ships. That said, I wish that it would be possible to place tokens on the base more easily. Longer term tokens like cloak and target locks would be so much easier to handle if they were a bit smaller and could be placed on the base. Large bases are awesome in this way.

I tend to put tokens on large bases but not on small ones. But if you want to be a stickler for the rules, check out pages 8-9 of the core rules. For every token listed it says to place the token "near" the ship base. So one cpuld try to rule that tokens on bases are illegal. On the flip side, you can't get much nearer than on the base, so placing tokens on bases could be seen by some as legitimate.

Personally, I think small bases are too small for tokens to be placed on so that practice should be avoided.

I put all my tokens on the pilot cards, I always loose track of placement and ownership when on the field. Especially with advanced sensors.

Don't really care how people place them and FFG will never make a ruling on this.

Actually, FFG wrote it in the core rulebook.

"To perform this action, place one evade token near the ship."

"To perform this action, place one focus token near the ship."

"Place one red target lock token near the enemy ship to indicate that it is targeted. ... Place the blue target lock token that matches the red token's letter near the active ship to indicate that it is locking."

So yeah, you're not supposed to put tokens on ship bases. (Although I think it's usually fine for large bases.)

easier to see/distinguish to the side of the base. Drives me crazy too when unnecessary bumping occurs!

option 3: on the ship cards

I've taken to doing this with ship dials also. Flying 5+ ships can be such a ***********, otherwise.

With big ships we just put everything on it. Plenty of space. I also use Applied Perspective's Tiny Target Lock set, because they're so much smaller and I don't have to worry about bumpage quite as much. But for focus and stuff on small ships, we just put them beside

When I take a ship with FCS I plug the blue target lock into the ID token slots on the base because I'm going to have a target lock almost constantly and it cuts down on the "who's target lock is this?" phase of the game. I just have the red one near the locked ship though. They try to outrun it and it chases them down.

Yeah, I kinda hate it when people put tokens on the small base ships, there's almost always some accidental bumping of a ship or two when someone does that.

When I take a ship with FCS I plug the blue target lock into the ID token slots on the base because I'm going to have a target lock almost constantly and it cuts down on the "who's target lock is this?" phase of the game. I just have the red one near the locked ship though. They try to outrun it and it chases them down.

This is generally how I prefer to do this as well.

option 3: on the ship cards

I've taken to doing this with ship dials also. Flying 5+ ships can be such a ***********, otherwise.

Thankfully I rarely have an opponent do this with his tokens. I become much more prone to mistakes or have to take a longer amount of time to make sure I know which ships have the tokens they do.

I put all my tokens on the pilot cards, I always loose track of placement and ownership when on the field. Especially with advanced sensors.

This is the worst possible option, imo.

I don't want to be craning my neck over the board to look at your card layout to determine which of my targets have which tokens, especially if you're using multiples of the same ship and I'll have to correspond tokens to numbers and numbers to ships on the board.

I put all my tokens on the pilot cards, I always loose track of placement and ownership when on the field. Especially with advanced sensors.

This is the worst possible option, imo.

I don't want to be craning my neck over the board to look at your card layout to determine which of my targets have which tokens, especially if you're using multiples of the same ship and I'll have to correspond tokens to numbers and numbers to ships on the board.

I agree. Not only is it hard to see, but it becomes far too easy for that person to cheat by sneaking tokens on to their ships

option 3: on the ship cards

I've taken to doing this with ship dials also. Flying 5+ ships can be such a ***********, otherwise.

Thankfully I rarely have an opponent do this with his tokens. I become much more prone to mistakes or have to take a longer amount of time to make sure I know which ships have the tokens they do.

It depends on the ***********

most of the time you don't have to do a thing, and sometimes you fly two tie swarms together and you'll thank all the gods across all possible planes of existence that you put them on the cards and not on the identical fighters

I usually place them on the corresponding ship's card, its out of the way and you know who has taken what actions.

On the cards is pretty much the only unacceptable of the three options.

I try to keep my tokens trailing behind the ship that owns them, but yes, it's always a problem trying to match stuff up...especially target locks. God I hate the record keeping sometimes. I've got to invent some kind of switchy widget like the hero clix bases to keep track of stuff.

I put all my tokens on the pilot cards, I always loose track of placement and ownership when on the field. Especially with advanced sensors.

This is the worst possible option, imo.

I don't want to be craning my neck over the board to look at your card layout to determine which of my targets have which tokens, especially if you're using multiples of the same ship and I'll have to correspond tokens to numbers and numbers to ships on the board.

I agree with the above about really not liking to put tokens on the ship cards. I almost always forget to check at some point during the match if my opponent places his tokens on his cards and I end up getting burned for it as I am so used to only paying attention to the board state. For casual games I don't really mind, but during competitive games I prefer my opponent follow the rules as per the FAQ on page 9:

All tokens (other than shield tokens) must be placed next to the ship’s base in

the play area, and cannot be placed on ship cards.

I have asked an opponent if they would please put their tokens on the board rather than their cards in a tournament. However he objected and I couldn't remember where I saw the rule so we just played with his tokens on his cards...

FYI, technically the rule says next to the ship's base, not on the base. Now I also prefer that the tokens are not placed on the base either as they case sometimes get obscured by the model (I'm looking at you YT-1300). However, I have never objected to putting the tokens on the base in casual nor competitive play.

I put all my tokens on the pilot cards, I always loose track of placement and ownership when on the field. Especially with advanced sensors.

I can't stand this. Having to look across the table and study my opponent's cards to see which ship has which tokens is a pain. This is just a scheme to get your opponent to forget who has target locks on who.