How do you organize your counters?

[Shad]

(It's been a while since we've had a passionate, meaningless argument on the forum, so... )

Those of you who own more than a few PG games, how do you organize your counters?

Before I moved back to the U.S. I had started consolidating nations in plastic cases while keeping leaders grouped by game, but never finished.

Has anyone gone all the way with this approach? Any regrets?

[plloyd1010]

I organized my counters similarly to that. Nation-force all got put together by unit type. Not many problems there except when APL changed counter values. Things like the Soviet 76.2mm field gun, Sherman tanks, stuff like that.

Leaders and aircraft were organized by game. I also took a black Sharpie and marked the edges of the leader counters according to a code. That way I knew which leaders went with which game. The first code was none, so if the that nation's only appeared once, there was no marking. After the first example, the marking was a combination of top edge, bottom edge, one side edge and/or both side edges. That game me 13 combinations. I could do half tops, bottoms and sides to add about 6 more. The order in the trays was COL/LTC/MAJ-CAPT-LT-SGT/CPL, or their  equivalents.

My only regret is that my gaming space is buried in kitchen stuff since we remodeled.

[Grognard Gunny]

I used the old plastic fish tackle tray bit..... I still do but now do most of my gaming on line, so the myriad of cases that I have are gathering dust at the moment. (To make matters worse, my hands are getting arthritic enough to make me believe that I will never go back to desktop gaming.)

GG

[Juiceman]

Organize them similar to Shad and Peter, by nationality, I use plastic trays that I picked up from Michaels on sale couple of years ago, they are spill proof or so they claim.  Put the leaders and aircraft based on the game into small plastic bags in another container. These trays are thin, stackable and can be stored upright if needed.
   

[Grognard Gunny]

Exactly, but I use those with adjustable spaces..... as some "categories" are larger than others.

GG

[Shad]

These trays are thin, stackable and can be stored upright if needed.

You've got better trays than the ones I had in China! They had a gap above each divider which drove me mad.

[JayTownsend]

Mine are pretty simple, for each box, zip-lock bags by nationality and one for markers. When supplements come, I decide which game makes the most sense for me to put the counters in.  Sometimes, like Fire and Sword I made a whole game box for this game.

[zaarin7]

I went with zip lock bags for the more general units. A big bag to hold the German counters for example. Then all the infantry in a smaller bag. Artillery and towed things in a bag. Tanks in a bag. Transport all in a bag. I do have the leaders and aircraft in counter trays with counter tree segments in each pouch identifying what game it goes too. This is for my older games. For newer games like the two on Kursk for example I went with two bags, one Soviet, one German holding everything for that game in the box.

I would do the trays like in the picture above but considering I have never had the opportunity to play any of the games I have not bothered.

[Umikaze]

My approach is similar to zaarin7's. In each boxed game I use snack sized ziplocks for each individual nationality. Inside each are three 3x4 ziplocks: one for infantry/foot, one for vehicles, one for artillery (anything odd, like strongpoints, goes in the artillery bag). Markers go in their own small bags and all are then placed in a snack-sized ziplock.

For supplements, I use the same system but keep the bags in the large ziplock the book came in; I'm going to die someday (regrettable, but necessary), and it'll be easier for the family to sell the collection piecemeal if everything remains segregated by game or supplement.