Boardgame counters are usually small cardboard squares moved around on the map of a wargame

Wargaming

A wargame is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally to study warfare, it is generally known as...

 to represent armies

Army

An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...

, military units or individual military personnel

Soldier

A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...

. The first modern mass-market wargame, based on cardboard counters and hex-board maps, was Tactics

Tactics (game)

Tactics is generally credited as being the first board wargame. It was designed by Charles S. Roberts in 1952, and self-published in 1954 under the company name of The Avalon Game Company...

, invented by Charles S. Roberts

Charles S. Roberts

Charles Swann Roberts was a wargame designer, railroad historian, and businessman. He is renowned as "The Father of Board Wargaming", having created the first modern wargame in 1952, and the first wargaming company in 1954...

 in 1952. Traditional wargames typically have hundreds of counters (The Russian Campaign

The Russian Campaign

The Russian Campaign is an award winning strategic board wargame of the Eastern Front during World War II, during the period 1941-45. The unit scale is German Corps and Russian Armies and roughly covers the Berlin to Gorki region and Archangel to Grozny...

, 225;GI: Anvil of Victory, 856; Terrible Swift Sword, >2,000). Squad Leader

Squad Leader

thumb|Squad Leader game package.Squad Leader is a tactical level board wargame originally published by Avalon Hill in 1977. It was designed by Hall of Fame game designer John Hill and focuses on infantry combat in Europe during World War II...

had counters of different sizes: 520½-inch counters and 192⅝-inch, with the different sizes used for different purposes.

Boardgame counters are often closely related to military map marking symbols, such as those seen in the NATO standard APP-6a

APP-6a

Allied Procedural Publication 6A Military Symbols for Land Based Systems was the NATO standard for military map marking symbols. APP-6A was promulgated in December 1999. The NATO standardization agreement that covers APP-6A is STANAG 2019 , promulgated in December 2000...

, and often include a simplified APP-6a representation as part of the counter.

• Representational counters, usually called "unit" counters, directly represent a unit, individual, vehicle, or weapon.

• Informational counters don't represent a specific type of character, unit, or weapon, but describe a state such as destroyed, immobilized, out of ammunition, captured, etc.