Every X-wing player will notice wear and tear showing on dials, asteroids and templates, even after a short time of use. When I started using Blue Tack (a hack I learned from Remi) one of the faces of my old and beaten up asteroids finally had enough and peeled off. It wasn’t a big deal as I glued it back, but the incident got me thinking how to protect the cardboard playing pieces.

It was time for me to Varnish everything!

The first thing I did was varnish my dials. Some of them have become pretty worn out as seen in the picture below.

The two dials that saw the most wear and tear for me were my Tie Advanced and Falcon dials. I was surprised at how worn out my Advanced dial was after looking at it. I had forgotten how I loved to run Vader in Wave 2 with Soontir and Turr. I can’t wait to run Vader again with Advanced Targeting!

Popping off the connector that holds the dial can be tricky. It’s best to slide a knife in tight and pry upwards.

I had previously cut some thin plastic and wedged it between the two parts of the dial to protect the maneuver face.

I’m not sure how necessary it is, but it’s an idea for you OCD types out there.

I then proceeded to Varnish my dials using Varnish for furniture, easily available at any hardware store.

While varnishing my dials, I also decided to varnish a set of card templates. It wasn’t necessary as I have a bunch of acrylic ones but I wanted to see how they’d turn out.

I would paint a side, let it dry and then paint the other side. I gave them about 3 coats of varnish. The end result was great. Everything felt firm and had a nice protective shine before I put the dials back together.

After varnishing the dials, I decided to varnish the asteroids as well.

One thing I noticed when I did my dials was that they sometimes stuck to the surface they were drying on. It was a rookie mistake on my part as carpenters and painters use these little pyramids to keep stuff from sticking when it’s wet.

Using those pyramids for every asteroid wouldn’t work, but the principle was sound so I pulled out some old spare framing hardware I had lying about.

You can find these in any hardware store, just go to the section that sells the framing hardware and framing nails.

Using these guys made my life easier. Nothing stuck and I varnished all my asteroids, including some left over dials.

Now all the cardboard playing pieces should be protected more or less for life. The blue tack/gommette I put on the asteroids during game play doesn’t stick to the paper anymore either. All in all I’m very happy with how it turned out.