I found a solution to a problem before I knew that it was a problem!
I’m not sure what the final game will use for lead tokens, but for the prototype they were small cardboard tokens. As you played the game on your mission, now and then you would discover a lead and you are told to draw one lead at random from the black bag. OK, that does work. But there are significant issues with small cardboard tokens in a bag. If you shake the bag, the tokens don’t actually move around. If you dump them all out, sometimes they all don’t come out – some catch in a fold in the bag. Plastic tokens would solve all these problems (and maybe that is what Awaken Realms is planning for the final game?)
The solution is to insert each cardboard lead token into a hard plastic container or capsule. You could compare this to sleeving your cards except that sleeving the cards does not improve the game but having the lead tokens in hard plastic capsules DOES improve the game. Now when I shake the bag I hear the comforting sound of the tokens rattling around in the bag. And when I reach in with my hand to draw one out, I can feel them all and can kind of shuffle my fingers through them. None of this is possible with small cardboard tokens.
AFTER (putting each cardboard lead token into a clear plastic capsule):
BEFORE (the way they arrived in the prototype 2):
Each capsule comes in two parts, the top and the bottom. You simply open the capsule, place the cardboard token in the bottom half, then snap the top half on! This is what the capsules looked like when I got them:
These work so well, that I bought another set for the game “The Loop” for the larger sized tokens in that game.
UPDATE: the question came up about the size of these tokens. Remember that they are just prototypes, but here are two photos showing the token and then the token inside the capsule on a tape meaure:
And here it is inside the capsule:
Conclusion and Recommendation: While sleeving your cards is an option to help protect the cards for extended play, placing the small lead tokens into hard plastic capsules actually improves the game play experience immensely (and protects the tokens as well). I highly recommend getting capsules for your lead tokens (but wait to find out what size they will be in the final game … you can get these capsules in a variety of sizes).
I’m sure there are other sources for these capsules, but I got mine from Bison Numismatics. They were priced nicely and they shipped them FAST! If you are interested in them for ISS Vanguard or any of your other games that have round cardboard tokens, here is a link to their site (I got the dime size capsules):
=> Bison Coins
Click => Full 3 Column Site
My ISS Vanguard 
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