New to Fantasy, playing Skaven, need movement tray advice

[intrizic]

Confession time: Movement trays are a barrier to entry for me to play fantasy, waht a pain in the ass !! 

 

That said, I need advice from the veterans please

 

Edit: I found this:
http://figartes.com/tutorial-making-movement-trays/

[TJP]

Unless you want to take hours to move one unit of 50 clanrats, my advice is to get movement trays ;)

 

More seriously, I am really happy with my trays from shogunminiatures.com

 

Get the steel lipped trays in good sizes, with the mag bases to fill - they glue really well to the bottom of GW bases and work even better if you are crazy and using solid resin bases or something. Because the trays themselves don't really add anything to the size of your unit, yo ucan stack em - say, for a unit of 50 clanrats run 5x10, you can use two 5x5 trays, one behind the other, and remove the back one when the first 25 die. Depending on how you run units, you can also use a horde tray (say, 10x5, or even just two 5x5's next to each other) or maybe a 7-wide tray.

[generalripphook]

I would advise shogunminiatures movement trays loren, makes it easier to magnetize.

 

p.s. I still have that skaven assasin

[intrizic]

 

p.s. I still have that skaven assasin

Why? Give it to meeeeee

[valourunbound]

I've found that having a sold collection of old-style gw movement trays helps a lot, especially when you aren't sure what sizes you want. I'd save the custom trays until a tournament, when you know what you're running. In the mean time, either pick up some of gw's, or get some metal and magnatize your models.

[stark1261]

Alright this was my movement tray solution for my skaven.

1) use wife's rolling blade paper cutter on GW plastic sheets

2) paint trays with iron shaving paint 3 coats

3) get 1" wide magnetic tape (hardware sales has this) flatten tape then glue to bases and trim.

 

Works great for me, you can see what the trays look like in my artificers forge thread.

 

Either way go magnetic, saves set up time and bumps issues.

[WarlordGhrom]

I use these for my skaven army

http://www.base-x-of-war.com/html/vermin_movement_trays.html

Just need to glue on a piece of metal on the bottom and put magnets on your models and good times for moving big units.

 

Not cheap though

[wisetiger7]

@intrinzic - I have tried pretty much every kind of movement tray out there, save the premade ones like base-x-of-war. The ones I have liked the most were ones I made out of styrene (plasticard), much like those in your link in the OP. One tip though: for every 5 20mm models (100mm), leave an extra 1-2mm of space. What took me several tries to figure out was that the styrene shrinks when you glue it (I use the Zap line glues).  Not only do you have to account for this, but paint as well. People may not consider the thickness of paint on the movement tray, but it does add up. Leaving an extra 1-2mm of space will account for shrinkage (heh) and paint, and still allow your models to fit nicely.

 

On top of that, I also cut up some tin sheets and insert them in the tray, glueing them with Zap as well. This allows for magnetization for neodymium (rare earth) magnets you glue to the underside of all your bases. Depending on the size of the magnets, this should allow for a solid magnetic hold, yet still weak enough to 'slide' models around or take off casualties.

 

Regarding Shogun Miniatures trays, I ordered 11 plates off of them, and they all were waaay too big, especially the cavalry plates. I had an extra 4-5mm space, and that just looks ugly. Plus it is difficult to paint directly onto steel. I've heard that if you purchase their magnetic bases, they fit the trays better, but now you just have bigger bases, and more costs. The nice thing about shogun trays, though, is that the lips are so small that you may not need to paint them, as they are close to indiscernable when fielded.

 

Balsa is okay, as is maple, but the latter is too hard to cut, and the former so soft that the slightest amount of pressure can warp it.

 

The following are the exact products I use to make trays:

 

Evergreen Scale Models #9020 Plain - .020" Thick (0.5mm) x 6" x 12", 3 sheets (these are the plasticard/styrene sheets)

 

Evergreen Scale Models #369 .080" x .250" x 24" (2mm x 3mm strips, 24" long, for the edges of the trays)

 

K&S #254 Tin Sheet 4" x 10" x .008" (for magnetizing)

 

edit: The reason I use quarter inch wide strips is so that I can put two together and use that as separators for skirmisher units. Magnetizing these 'inner' strips allows you to pop them out so you can slide all your skirmishers together when they get into combat. And .080" is the approximate height of model bases, so it matches somewhat flush-ly with them.

[McNathanson]

I also have been playing WFB since 1st edition and have tried almost every movement tray under the sun, and I second wisetiger's advice.  The first few styrene trays you make will be a pain but at this point I can churn out 4 or 5 movement tray in an hour.  

A few improvements on wisetigers instructions (which is exactly how I used to make them, by the way):

 

1)  Use the testors "blue tube" plastic glue instead of superglue for gluing the edge strips onto the styrene sheets.  The trays flex (especially large ones) and the superglue eventually cracks... the plastic cement doesn't, it flexes

 

2)  This is the biggest one: instead of supergluing the tin sheet down, buy a large sheet of double-sided adhesive film (art supply stores have it, in fact, in Portland the Blicks has ALL of the materials: styrene, tin sheets, and double stick tape).  Cut the sheet larger than the tin, peel one side, stick to tin, trim around the edge, then peel and stick into the tray.  It holds MUCH better over time than superglue.

 

A final tip is that Krylon Ultra-Flat Medium Brown paint (#8147) is an exact match for Steel Legion Drab (aka Graveyard Earth), which is what a lot of folks use for base edges... if you use that color for your bases, the Krylon is an easy and great looking way to paint your trays.

 

Good luck!

Nathan

[McNathanson]

Oh, one other tip: GW cav bases are actually closer to 24mm wide than 25mm wide!  So when making a cavalry movement tray, I usually just make it to the exact width (e.g. 125mm wide from inside edge to inside edge), rather than leaving extra mm as wisetiger pointed out (something I normally do).

[wisetiger7]

I like to place the actual bases on the movement tray while I'm fitting the edges. That way I'm not measuring using exact millimeters, but rather the actual base sizes, then add a millimeter or two. This allows for better end results, and a better overall fit for the models.

[intrizic]

thank you all so much, this has been very educational