Friday 16 September 2011

Where I hide my Naughty Space Pixies …

‘Conan!  What is best in life?’
‘To crush your enemies; see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.’
‘Conan! That’s great but you need to get your chores done first…’

Ah yes, there are things we all enjoy, but unfortunately we have to get the boring stuff out of the way first.  For the last few weeks, I have been in the library of Frugal Towers; researching, writing and getting rather stressed as I put the finishing touches to an academic project I’ve been working on.  However, the work has now been sent off and I’m free to paint, game, generally geek out and then write about it in a mildly amusing, but ultimately badly planned way.
Old School Raider with an old school finger attached
 The main news of the past few weeks is that I have finally completed my Dark Eldar.  I bought my Dark Eldar (or as I like to call them ‘Naughty Space Pixies’) a couple of years ago and left the box gathering dust on a shelf.  When the new Naughty Space Pixies Codex was released last year, I got them out of the box, assembled them, painted a couple and then put them back on the shelf to gather dust.  Eventually I had to paint them all so went for a quick scheme of basecoat, wash and highlight, with minimal detail.  So now I have approximately 1000pts of NSPs on the shelf gathering dust. 


The (semi) interesting fact about these NSPs is my storage technique. I ordered some 25mm self adhesive magnetic discs from Hasslefree Miniatures, at £10 for 100 though smaller packs are available.  Like a lot of gamers out there I’ve experimented with a few different methods of storing my Pixies, Gnomes and Galactic Knights, but I think that these magnets are the way ahead.  The discs only take a second to apply, and once in place are pretty robust.

Once the figures are stickered, it’s simply a case of finding a suitable receptacle to keep them in.  I’ve gone for a metal tool box that I got from a carboot sale for a couple of pounds, but for another unit I’ve used a boxfile with self adhesive steel paper in it.

Even the smell of ginger hair cannot dislodge the magnets.
For me, one of the main benefits of magnetic bases is the ease that the figures can be put away, no messing about shoving the figures into foam holes, just stand them up in the box and they hold themselves in place, winner!

As I rarely travel too far for gaming I think these are a good (Frugal) option for storage.  Anyone who regularly flies or takes trains to tournaments may want to consider something more robust, but then if you’re the sort of gamer who flies to tournaments then you’re probably not the type to worry too much about Frugal Gaming.

So, I’m back, I’ve completed an army and I’ve adopted a new way of storing figures, what more could you possibly ask for?

If you're interested in magnets, you may like to check out my Blood Bowl article.

3 comments:

Krisken said...

Magnetic bases are great, but I think you may have missed the negatives (which I had to learn the hard way). When setting up the models on the board, often times the bases will do what magnets do best- attract to each other. Sometimes this can be a pain.

Just thought I'd give you a heads up on a problem I've encountered with my magnetic bases.

Dave said...

Good point Krisken and something that I've found myself when using the (super small and super powerful) rare earth magnets.

The adhesive sticker magnets I've used here have a pretty weak magnetic field in comparison, they seem strong enough to stick to the metal box, but aren't strong enough to cause any problems. That I've noticed.

J Womack, Esq. said...

My favorite line from the movie. Good call.

This comment brought to you by the 'word' honviur.