Counters forever!!
At first I played with sprites to get an 'Axis & Allies boardgame' feel but when I switched to counters I was irrevocably smitten. I like counters cause they look like the maps in military history books I'm always reading. And counters give info like the number of units in the province and the type is in the symbol. I know sprites have a number on them but it is often garbled. Also, the sprites in this game are very poorly designed like the infantry look like tuffs of grey weeds and the tanks all use the same rusty can sprite.