Federation Commander

Anyone have a unique way to store the 1 inch counters?

Right now I have mine in small ziplock bags inside a plastic case.

I have mine in a tackle box I bought from a large, evil to their employees, mid-western U.S.A. based retailer. The box is a Flambeau brand, and I've had it for years.

I keep them sorted by ships because I typically use the 1" counters.


The 1/2" counters I keep in a couple 14 divided small craft boxes made by craftmates, found in the craft section. Allows me to keep things that I use often already sorted, like drones and turn points, etc.

While not unique, I keep mine in tackle boxes bought from a large, world-wide chain of Capitalist Super Centers that's probably similar to the one mojo was describing.

I have theree boxes:
One with Coalition Counters
One with Alliance Counters
and a third that holds generic caounters, clips, dry erase markers, Thomas Impulse Tracking System cards, dice, etc.

This photo is from before War & Peace, when I could still fit everything in two boxes...


and the lids:


With the larger Empires (i.e. Federation, Klignons, etc); one bin is devoted to 1" counters, one bin is devoted to 1/2" counters, one bin is devoted to seeking weapons, and one bin is devoted to Turn/Slip markers.
Smaller Empires have only two or sometimes even one (Tholians / WYN) bin.

I have the counters dcivided by race, in plastic bags. All the ships are there, and inside that lastic bag is another, which holds seeking weapons, turn/slip, ect.

Scoutdad wrote:While not unique, I keep mine in tackle boxes bought from a large, world-wide chain of Capitalist Super Centers that's probably similar to the one mojo was describing.

As a manager at that evil empire, I can also suggest to you to try the crafts and fabric department. They have a similar storage setup for holding all those craft trinkets (beads and stuff) that is almost identical to the tackle boxes, but it has a few of them that come in a nice carry case (black, so it actually is perfectly acceptable for a man to carry around).

What are the Impulse tracking cards? Is that something someone made or an official product?

Drew Klenotic wrote:What are the Impulse tracking cards? Is that something someone made or an official product?

The Thomas Impulse Tracking Cards were the original cards Battlegroup Murfreesboro created while playtesting / Demo'ing early versions of Federation Commander.
They eventually morphed into the Murfreesboro Impulse Tracking System (MITS) cards included in Federation Commander: Orion Attack.

Drew Klenotic wrote:As a manager at that evil empire, I can also suggest to you to try the crafts and fabric department. They have a similar storage setup for holding all those craft trinkets (beads and stuff) that is almost identical to the tackle boxes, but it has a few of them that come in a nice carry case (black, so it actually is perfectly acceptable for a man to carry around).

these came from the Sporting Goods section of that evil empire. I've checked the craft section in the past, but the only ones they had did not have removable dividers.
Maybe I'll go back and check out the new ones this weekend.

I would sugest finding a store that sells a large selection fishing supplies and checking out their selection of boxes. While the evil empire has boxes to chose from, a store dedicated to fishing can provide you with quite a surprising selection.

I go to an old canadian store that specializes in outdoor stuff and have gotten a bunch of different boxes for my different games. Some will hold cards nicely with counters, others will hold a huge amount of pieces and others have multiple levels to hold pieces, map parts and cards.

The other nice thing is you can pick up some really nice tackle boxes to store everything in one place and carry around with a handle. I have two boxes already dedicated to games I have with large numbers of figures, cards and bits. They have four trays inside them with a flip top that holds another and all the map pieces. The top even has a small compartment to hold dice and pens and card holders. I'm thinking of buying one for fed commander once I pick up a few more expansions.

Tony, what are those blue cards with 'Federation Commander' and a hex pattern on them?

Kang wrote:Tony, what are those blue cards with 'Federation Commander' and a hex pattern on them?

Those are a set of "command" cards Will McCammon made over a year before the simultaneous movement command cards came out in FC: OA.
I saw his in a photo and made a comment... a few days later, we worked out a trade for soome minis that we each had excess of/needed more of and he threw a set of those in the package he shipped o me.

He's actually a pretty nice guy

Aha. Nice one. Nice design, too

Nice? Me? I dunno about that.

I too use "evil empire" craft boxes for my counters.


I organize by-empire. For empires I play most, I use multiple compartments to help speed searching for the right counter up (large hulls in one compartments, cruisers in another, little ships in another, "ammo" and shuttles in another). For empires I don't play much (if at all), everything just gets piled in one compartment.

All have their corners clipped, etc. Some of the 1-inch counters (with the red backs) are from the old, old MegaHex set (with painted art).

Once I finish painting all my minis (which will be a l-o-n-g time off), I will rearrange my counters. My intention is to keep a matching 1-inch counter in a storage case slot with each mini. I almost exclusively play with minis and counters are used for substitution when things get too physically close. Keeping them with the minis will help speed set-up even more.

The movement cards mentioned above were indeed mine, based on the ones for SFB and published in Module A (I think). I tweaked them and did the art up, then printed and laminated them as I do ship cards.

My group I had going at the time also liked to use the tokens I made for accelerations. It made it easier to keep track of which ships in large groups had paid for it, with less marking/erasing on ship cards, every impulse.

I've even been known to tweak the cards again (for WebMom, in this case):