For our count down today we look beyond new horizons as Levi O’Connor stops by to visit with the Recon Section! And while he was there, of course he blessed them:
I bless you this day my friends in the Recon Section, with God’s grace, mercy and peace.
=> Recon Blessings (full blessing – printable PDF with clickable links)
And now … looking beyond new horizons, let’s look at some things you may wish to order or buy now so you are ready when your game arrives.
NOTE: I included prices but of course these are the prices FOR TODAY (August 24, 2022). Be sure to check what the price is on the day you place your order. And of course, feel free to buy them from any vendor you wish, I merely am telling you how I buy mine. (and I bought some of the Post-It notes as well as more of the x-trayz from my friendly local game store because they are selling out everywhere)
Coin Capsules
The absolutely most important thing to get would be hard clear plastic coin capsules for the Lead Tokens. The lead tokens in the final game are a tad bigger than in Prototype 2 … now they are 20mm. You will need 20 of them. The company I ordered mine from was Bison Coins who made a special order item JUST FOR US! Look carefully at the wording!
=> Bison Coins special capsules (21mm) – 25 for $12.34 (or get 40 for success tokens as well)
=> Bison Coins Nickel Size (22mm) – 25 for $12.34 (or get 50 for success tokens as well)
See also the special update article=> Lead and Success Tokens Update
UPDATE: I just got an EMail. Not my ordinary run of the mill EMail, but an email from a surprised vendor! Take a look:
Yep … when I ordered my “Nickel” capsules I added a note that I was using them to hold tokens for the board game ISS Vanguard. It sounds like our community is large enough to actually make an impact on vendors! So… keep it up! And please DO add a message to your order in that small message box that says something like, “Thank you Louis. I will use these to hold lead tokens in the board game ISS Vanguard” (or if ordering the 40 or 50 quantity packets they hold lead and success tokens).
The reason that these are essential? It is absolutely NO FUN trying to shake tiny cardboard tokens inside a bag – they don’t really mix up at all. And it is NO FUN reaching into the bag to grab a lead token or two and feeling small bits of cardboard. Put the lead tokens into coin capsules! Then shaking the bag makes a nice satisfying clinking sound as they mix around in the bag. And reaching in to pull one out is FUN because your fingers can shuffle between all the capsules in the bag! See my previous article with Prototype 2 tokens:
=> Transform your cardboard lead tokens into plastic chips
X-Trays
The next most important (in my mind) would be some small Game Trayz X-Trays (with nice snap on clear lids). These are perfect for the small bits that come with the game, like success tokens, universal markers, other tokens, and even the plastic standee stands! The problem is that these specific bins are TOO PERFECT. They are so good that they are sold out in most places, including direct from Game Trayz themselves! However, you can check your friendly local game store – they might have some. Mine had some in black, white and orange:
Also Miniature Market still has some of the orange x-trayz (actually their website says they have 3 packs left):
=> Orange x-trays (6 in a pack – 3 of each style) $11.99
Section Storage Bins
If the “bin” to store the Section Cards, Crewmember Cards and Rank Sleeves were all stored in one long cardboard “tray”, then getting some kind of individual storage bins for each Section would be very important. If you ordered the Section Boxes “Collectible”, you are ready to roll. If not, the final rulebook shows the default four individual Section Compartments – and they are even color coded Rose, Purple, Yellow and Blue for each Section! (see rulebook page 7).
I have not seen these default storage containers with my own eyes yet, but they look quite good in the picture! The Gamegenic Watchtower 100 XL Convertible bins work nicely and come in the right colors as well:
As you can see, I printed and attached my own section logos and IDs! The dice fit perfectly in the upper drawer. The cards fit nicely below … but NOT the divider cards (which are a bit too tall – but you can use scissors to trim them to be shorter). See my previous article on storage boxes:
=> Storage Boxes
Logbook Pages
Do you like to keep your games looking almost new? Do you sleeve all your cards? Do you avoid spilling a Pepsi on the game board? If so, then you should print off your own Logbook Pages. Why? Because OFTEN when you read a log entry it tells you to check off a box or write something right there on the page! Awaken Realms promised to provide a printable PDF of the full logbook and even provided the link for it (in the Resources section of their website), but it is not available as I write this article. You also could just use the App instead, but I know many people do NOT want to be using an App while playing a board game! So, here is where it should be found in a few weeks or days:
=> ISS Vanguard Resources
Ship Book Binder Pages hole reinforcement rings
You will be flipping the Ship Book pages back and forth often while playing ISS Vanguard. The divider pages are thick (kind of like the sides of a board game box), but the holes punched in them might start to “tear”. You can refer to my previous article about getting reinforcement hole stickers to protect the pages from tearing:
=> Ring Your Pages?
2 Player Dice Tower
While on a planetary exploration mission, when it is your turn, any other player [in the same sector] can “assist” you by rolling one die. However, their die should NOT be mixed together with yours. They must be kept separated. And quite often in my games there would be one other player “assisting” with that one die. Not so often would there be TWO other players “assisting” though. I got a 2 player Dice Tower and it worked out exceedingly well, especially when I was playing Solo! This is the dice tower that I use. It is NOT very “spacelike” in it’s looks, but it performed admirably! It is available on Etsy for $10=> Dice Tower/Dice Trays
For more info about this dice tower and others, see my previous article:
=> Dice Tray/Dice Tower/Lead Bag
Only SOME sleeves
Personally, I dislike sleeves on my cards. I bought some for Terraforming Mars and after playing a game with them, I spent time taking all the cards OUT from the sleeves (and then sold the custom sleeves for half price). However, I realize that there are many who want to sleeve EVERY card all the time. If that is you, just skip this rest of this part of the article! Then there are many who only want to sleeve cards that will be frequently used. With THEM in mind, here is how I would classify all the cards (sleeve or no-sleeve):
Small Cards:
I would NOT sleeve these small cards:
- 40 Unique Discovery cards
- 65 Discovery cards
- Tutorial Deck B
- 41 Bridge cards
- 31 Lander cards
I would consider sleeving these small cards:
- 45 Event cards
- 20 Rank Up cards
- 52 Injury cards
Standard Cards:
I would NOT sleeve these standard cards:
- 260 Point Of Interest cards
- 58 Mission cards
- Tutorial Deck A cards
- 90 Crewmember cards (they will already be in rank-up sleeves when in use)
- 18 Planet Landing cards (they likely won’t fit into the Scanner with sleeves)
- 24 Research Project cards
- 27 Production Project cards
- 24 Facility Upgrade cards
I would consider sleeving these standard cards (using KMC Perfect Fit Pefect Barrier sleeves – these are thin and tight fitting so you might still be able to fit all your cards into the core game box):
- 43 Global Condition cards
- 132 Section cards
- 26 Situation cards
Other Size cards
I would NOT sleeve any of the other sized cards (especially NOT the Equipment cards)
Silver Gel Pen (that writes on dark slick pages)
You can skip over this if you try to keep your game looking as new as possible. Perhaps using small post-it notes would work just as well :)
But there may be others who enjoy writing in their books… circling things … underlining things… drawing arrows to connect one thing with another. This would be how you can more permanently add to the rulebook and the Planetopedia game pages and the Star Map pages – the pen writes on slick paper just fine (but be sure to let the ink dry before touching it … I know from experience).
=> From Staples $4.49
Small Post-It Notes
With a 48 page rulebook PLUS another huge Ship Book, you may want to mark different parts of the rules to remember. Note: these are just things to consider (and I did buy them myself) but really are not necessary! UPDATE: I found some better ones and have updated this article to reference them instead!
=> Narrow Arrow post-it’s
Player mats
Unless you have a large table, I would not recommend using playmats. They simply are too big and are NOT flexible in how they allow you to arrange your crew board and cards. If Awaken Realms would provide the measurements of the playmats we could figure out how they might or might not fit on various kinds of tables. Just for the record: I DID order them myself in case I play on our large long rectangle table!
Previous Count Down article=> Time Tokens
Next Count Down article=> Section Crew Boards
Click => Full 3 Column Site
My ISS Vanguard 
Leave a Polite Comment