Wargaming accessories are the equipment that only comes out once the table is set: measuring templates and rulers, tokens and markers, rings for marking skills, dice towers, deck boxes and a laser pointer for settling line of sight. Waterslide decals with game motifs belong here too. These are small items that make play clearer and faster, and they tend to be added to a painted force gradually, in the order of whatever slows a game down most.
Below: what each group is for, and how to decide which to buy first.
A painted army is only half the picture. The other half is the kit that keeps a game legible: measured movement, visibly marked unit status, and dice that do not sweep models off the board. That is the difference between a game spent arguing about range for half an hour and one that simply flows.
Most of these items are bought once and then last for years, so getting them in before the army grows is the sensible order.
Fixed-length templates replace a tape measure and remove the dispute about who reached where. They come in clear and fluorescent versions, so they stay visible on a busy board. A laser pointer settles line of sight between two models, where judging what stands in the way is hardest by eye.
Acrylic cubes, resin stickers and stones record status — a wound, a charge, an objective taken. Rings naming a skill slide straight onto a figure's base, which puts the information where it is needed. Anyone playing several systems appreciates colour-coding the meanings.
A dice tower channels a roll into a small area and stops a die ending up inside a deployed unit. Deck boxes and sleeves protect game material between sessions and in transit.
Waterslide decals with emblems, numbers and symbols shorten work that would otherwise be done with a brush. They go onto a gloss coat, and decal setting solutions help them bed down. Once dry, the decal is sealed so the film edge disappears and it cannot rub off during play.
Buy according to whatever holds your games up most. Usually that is measuring and losing track of markers. More unconventional items are in other modelling products.
