Transportation Solutions

[Thedeadclaw]

So I'm fairly new to miniatures (Malifaux is my first mini game), so I may be missing a super obvious answer, but what's the best mass transportation option out there?

I don't exactly want to spend a ton of money on a transport solution, but if that's how it has to be so be it.

I'm working fairly aggressively towards having about 75% of the game. (Painting at about 200 SS a month if that gives a good reference.) I was using pluck foam because it caters well to the occasional sculpture inclusive basing as opposes to the official M2E branded bag, but I'm not sure it's sustainable since I need to bring my whole collection to events. I'm trying to build up each faction enough to be able to loan people a faction to play an event while they're still painting minis so they can jump straight into playing the game after demoing it, so carrying a large collection is essential to allow the most players possible at an event, but I haven't found a good large transport bag that can fit smaller trays. (Most of them include army game vehicle size slots built in and I just won't ever use them.) I'm at a bit of a loss, and while I know it isn't exactly a common situation I have to think someone has dealt with it before. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

[Adran]

There are 2 common transport options out there that I know of, Foam and Magnetic.

Foam is probably easier to find on the mass marker, but there are some limitations/ risks. Some sculpts really don't fit well into some of the provide holes, and pluck foam seems to take a lot of space. I can fit my collection (well over 75% of the game) across 2 battlefoam Malifaux bags and 2 double size KR cases. Most of them are just in the fixed size holes. A few models are still problematic. I have heard people complain about the foam rubbing of paint, and some prefere 1 manufacturers foam over another. I have quite a mix and don't really care too much who made the foam.

Magnetic should allow more stored in the same size space, but I'm less aware of commercial solutions out there. Most of the ones I've seen have been home made, with steel sheets and magnets on the figures. this is probably harder to keep organised if you just fill the tray with bases and I'm not sure how hard it is to make sure you have enough magnetic "power" to prevent models sliding into each other. This is probably a much more practical solution if you only have plastic models (about 1/2 my collection is from 1st ed, so is made of metal. The weight of a metal teddy is surprisingly high compared to his plastic version.)

 

 

 

[muraki]

As soon as I built iron skeeters I knew I wanted to magnetize my minis.  Currently, I use magnetic a-case+'s that I picked up from a kickstarter (decent product, lousy fulfillment/shipping).  Battlefoam makes some magnetic options, but I only glanced at them at gencon, so no clue how they stack up / are priced.  Feel like there may be a higher point of entry for magnets, but I haven't priced out foam.

Biggest issue with my magnetic cases is while they hold a lot and are pretty compact, they only hold 2 - 3 trays (I usually only fit in 2 and use the bottom for cards / tokens, but 3 can happen in a pinch).  Each tray can hold 20-30 (depending on base size) models, so you won't get a full faction in there, maybe 3-4 50ss teams (depending on how big a sideboard you wanted and how much overlap between masters).  I just packed it for the holidays and got semi-elite 50ss teams for 2 masters from 2 factions with a few sideboard pieces for each faction for scheme pool modifications.  For tournaments it was closer to 2 masters within 1 faction with all the 'maybe i could want to field x, but probably won't' pieces I felt obligated to bring.  That may be enough for you to lend out to players, I'm not sure.

At home i just have long storage boxes that i threw a piece of sheet metal in for each faction since the a-case isn't big / flip resistant enough.

Since Adran mentioned the negatives around foam, here's the minuses I've seen with magnets.  The magnets sometimes fall of the models and models don't all stick the same way (since different weights / etc).  I don't use rare earth magnets so some are looser than others and can slide around the sheet / get loose, that said, others are extra strong so those I'm worried about snapping / twisting off parts when pulling them off the sheet (which is why I don't use rare earth).  For these reasons I'm pretty careful about my case, and wouldn't be comfortable traveling with it if I couldn't watch it / make sure it wasn't getting tipped / etc (since even under the best cases a model or 2 goes rogue and unsticks itself by the time I open it up).