A common practice in DIY wargaming is creating counters. While there are many templates and other artwork resources available on the internet, it can be useful to know how to generate a countersheet from scratch. This tutorial will show you how to do just that, using the free vector art program Inkscape (available here ). I don’t claim this to be the best way to make counters, but it is at the very least a useful exercise, especially if you are new to using Inkscape.
First, create a new document in Inkscape. Next, go to File / Document Properties to set the size of the page. This countersheet will be designed for US Letter 8.5 X 11 inch paper in landscape. However, we want the document to be print-and-play friendly, and most home printers have a “print range” i.e they won’t print to the entire width and height of the page. The print range varies, but .25’’ margins are a safe bet. So we are going to set the width of the document to 10.75, and the height to 8.25.
Next, use the square tool to draw a square. These will be 5/8 counters so change the width and height to 0.625 inches.
Open the Fill and Stroke dialog box and set the fill to none and the stroke to 0.010 in. This will allow some room for cutting the counters out.
Use the Align and Distribute dialog box align the square to the top and left edges of the page. Next, go to Edit / Clone / Create Tiled Clones.
Ensure the setting are as pictured and create a nice 8 X 2
grid. Make sure to group them all as one object.
From here, you can simply copy and paste four more of the same object. Align them all to the left edge of the page, and align the bottom most grid to the bottom edge of the page. Under distribute, select “make vertical gaps between objects equal.”
Group the entire object, copy and paste once more, and align to the top and right edges of the page.
Open the layer dialog, and create a layer named “counter outlines” and move everything we have so far to this layer
At this point I decided to add a title to our countersheet and re-adjusted the vertical gaps. So far we have created a blank countersheet template. Save the file for future use!
Let’s create a few companies of Marines for a Platoon level game, starting with some infantry markers. First make a new layer, and name it “infantry.” A quick Google search will yield plenty of NATO symbols to make use of. Add one and center it in the first counter. From here, we have a couple different options. We could individually copy, paste, and align each symbol we need into each individual counter. This is a good technique when there are just a few counters to make, or when dealing with many different unique graphics. However, we want to automate things a little bit, so let’s create a tiled clone. Inkscape tiles clones based on a percentage of the original object’s size, so we are going to have to use a little bit of high school math to tell Inkscape exactly where to put every one of our infantry symbols. To find out what percentage we need the Infantry symbol to move along the x axis, divide .625 by the width of the symbol and multiply by 100. To find how far along the y axis to move, divide .625 by the height of the symbol and multiply by 100 once more. Placing the appropriate numbers in the x and y columns of the Clones dialog box, making sure that the "exclude tile" checkbox is checked for both.
Using a combination of the techniques we have learned so far, we can now fill in the rest of information we want on the counters, remembering to assign them to their own layers. Here, I have added information for unit size, nationality, platoon and company markings, and placeholder text for game system information (like movement, range, etc.) The alignment tool is your friend!
Now we add color! Select each layer one at a time, and, using the Fill and Stroke dialog, fill the elements you wish to add color to within each layer.
Finally, to export as a ready to print image, go back to the document properties and change the document size back to 11 X 8.5. Next, select all and group everything together as one group. Align this group to the center of the page. Export at 400dpi, and make sure the export area is set to "Page." There you have it!
If you would like to use the files created in this tutorial, you may download them from my google drive here.