Question Point: How to Magnetise My Bases?

 Magnetism, as you recall from physics class,

is a powerful force that causes 

certain items to be 

attracted to refrigerators.

- Dave Barry 

Hello one and all and welcome back to The Art of Caesura!

Boy, howdy! It has been a LOOOOOOooong time (three and a half years, in fact!) since I've had one of these "semi-regular" tutorial posts, I really must do more of them!

Today, we're going to learn the very best way to magnetise our bases. 

But first, why would we want to do that? Well magnetising the bases of our models is the best way to store and transport them. Having magnets in the bottom of the bases allows us to pop them onto a metal tray and they won't move. There are other storage solutions (foam cases being a common one - but, having used these for years as well, they do rub the paint off the edges).

For years I have been trying to perfect this method but it seemed like the magnets I was using were the wrong depth or not strong enough or would just pop off the bases! Plus, I have been mostly a painter up until now, and I would only play a game every 6 months or so, so I didn't have much need to be transporting my dudes. All that has changed with this league! At time of reading, I will just about have played 3 games in a month and a half, and peeling my models out of various carriers and cardboard boxes in which they are affixed with sticky tack (honestly, that's what I resorted to) is getting old fast. As a note, I also tried the self-adhesive precut round magnets but they are not tall enough. 

So I did a ton of research, reached out to some local hobby friends (thanks Rowan and Shane!) and have distilled my findings for you!

The Magnets

At least as important as the method, are the magnets, and specifically the size of the magnets. For this to work properly, you really want the magnets to end up flush with the surface that they are sitting on; so the height of the magnet is the most important parameter. 

The Magnet Baron (not affiliated) have an amazing post on choosing the right size of magnet, but to summarise:

For 25mm & 28mm Bases: use 4.5 diameter x 2.2 tall mm magnets.

For 32mm-130mm Bases: use either 4.5 or 6mm diameter by 2.6mm tall 

For bigger things (like Dreadnoughts), use 2 of the larger magnets above. For bigger things again (like tanks) use 2-3 magnets. 

I really can't overstate how important getting the right height is. Having the wrong height has genuinely led to years of frustration for me of either having magnets that were too shallow (and weren't powerful enough to adhere) or too deep and led to awful wobbly models on the tabletop.

And note as well that the depth of smaller bases is shallower than larger bases (I initially tried using 2.6mm tall magnets in my neophytes (28mm bases) and they wobble. 

Obviously you can buy magnets wherever you like, but do look around as you can get them VERY CHEAP (like 6 euro for 50 of the bigger magnets). 

The Method

Okay, so you've got loads of the right size of magnets; next, we need to stick them on. 

The best way, that I have found to do this (having tried just superglue, Green Stuff, Miliput) is to use a hot glue gun. You will also want a metal baking tray / biscuit tin lid etc. and one sheet of baking paper / parchment paper / wax paper. 

1) Stick your baking paper to the metal baking tray by putting a magnet in each corner. 

2) Put rows of the magnets spaced equally across the sheet - I was able to fit 3 rows of 4 magnets. Polarity DOES NOT matter (it doesn't matter which side of the magnet is facing up or down, even if using multiple magnets on one base). You want to fit as many magnets on the tray as possible to expedite the process, but you still want to leave enough space between the magnets to maneuver the models as needed. 

3) Put a big blob of hot glue on one magnet (possibly more glue than you would think) you want it to fully surround the magnet on all sides. Do one model at a time for steps 3 and 4 (do not put hot glue on all the magnets at once).

4) Pick up your model, look at the underside of the base (many GW bases have various bumps, blips and pegs where push-fit models attach to their bases). Avoiding any of these larger embossments, press the base down firmly onto the magnet covered in hot glue. 

I have found that you don't need to avoid the embossed text on the bottom of bases, but you often do need to avoid the little embossed nipple in the middle of the base (if you put a magnet right over it, it will likely cause the magnet to not be flush and cause a wobbly model. If the nipple is inverted (concave) then it's the perfect spot for a magnet. 

5) Keep working across your tray, there's no rush at this point. Try not to touch any of the ones you've already done for about a minute or so to give time for the glue to cool and harden. If you're going to be affixing multiple magnets to a base, do them one at a time. 

6) Done!

Once you get into the flow it's actually quite fun and very satisfying to feel how well the models stick onto a metallic / magnetic surface - you can totally do the Dairy Queen Blizzard move of turning the whole tray of your beautifully painted miniatures upside down and they won't budge!

It's also very quick. I did about 3000 points worth of Black Templars in just over an hour and a half, and probably half and hour of that time was spent removing the old ill-sized magnets from the bases and getting myself organised. 

Now, I have heard from my friends who've previously used this process that the magnets can come detached from the glue (I've heard of three cases of this out of hundreds of applications of this process) and in each case a small dot of superglue into the cavity in the hot glue was all it took to fix the issue. 

Bonus: What about models without bases?

Well, I have printed two tracked Repulsor Executioner tanks (spoiler for future post - in the very very distant future) and I wanted them to be able to sit in my case too. 

The process was quite simple, I just knew the exact diameter of my magnets (6mm, as above) and then drilled 4 holes (two on each side) into the tracks. I started with my smallest drill bit (1mm) and worked up, slowly widening the holes with consecutively larger bits (2mm, 3mm, 4mm, 5mm) until I reached 6mm. 

Then I just did a dry fit (the magnets already fit quite snugly) and put in a bit of superglue around the hole and held the magnets by their stack and fit the top one in - sliding the rest of the stack off with my fingernail. 

It was a tiny bit messy but worked perfectly and the magnets are easily strong enough to hold the tanks. 

The Case

Once you have magnets on the bottom of all of your bases, far and away the most common casing solution is to use Really Useful Boxes - basically stackable medium-sized Tupperware that you affix a magnetic sheet to the bottom of. Dunc the Hunk goes though this whole process in one of his older videos. 

The creme de la creme of cases though, is the A-Case. These are specifically made for our purpose - transporting minis. They are sliding metal trays (which your magnetised minis will stick to) in a hard case - which they then often put in backpack format for convenience of carrying. 

I went for a midground between these two options. 

For me, to get enough brand name Really Useful Boxes for my whole army, after shipping and taxes was actually quite expensive (over 80 euro!) (I tried cheaper similar products, but the clasps for the lids didn't hold or the sides were sloped, making stacking less stable or efficient, or the bottom had rounded edges making laying down the magnetic sheet less effective).

And the A-Cases, while luxurious, were WAY out of my price range. 

For 15 euro more than what I would have spent on Really Useful Boxes, I found a case on Temu that was the same idea as the A-Case. The price seems to have gone up since when I bought it, but in my (very limited) experience of these sites, the prices fluctuate frequently. 

So there you have it: magnetising and storing the minis that you have lavished so much care and effort into painting. Please let me know (in the comments below) if this has been helpful to you, or if there's anything that you do differently that you feel works better. After years of iterating on this theme, I am finally thrilled with the solution that I have landed on. I'm looking forward to rocking up to my next league game (tomorrow at time of writing) with my dudes finally riding in style!

See you next week on The Art of Caesura!

Reading: Audit reports for work.

Watching: Warhammer tactic videos

Next Week:

Deployment!