How Do You Carry Your Minis

[Jeepnewbie]

How do others carry their minis?  For my Reaper and other brands I use a 6 tray tackle box. My 40K figures I use a different style case. 

 

I however I love the trusty tackle box. I disassembled mine and lined the trays with foam sheets. 

 

 

[Pingo]

It depends on how many of them I need to carry.

 

I keep my painted Bones character minis in flat little cardboard boxes (such as those chocolates or fancier soaps come in) loosely padded with bubble wrap.  I keep Bones monsters and antagonists in larger (but still fairly small) plastic bins, loosely padded with bubble wrap.

 

I have a classic army carrying bag with foam inserts for a large number of metal figures.  Others are tightly rolled in bubble wrap and stored in flat plastic boxes.

 

Michaels carries flat plastic "scrapbook cases" and "photo cases" that when lined with two layers of bubble wrap will hold a single layer of human-sized figures pretty snugly.  The photo cases are just the right size for carrying a single adventuring party.

 

This is all in a state of flux as I am still working out long term storage.

[Chris Palmer]

Mostly magnetic sheet lined flat cardboard boxes.  All my figures are then mounted on metal fender washers or steel bases.  The boxes are a mix of purchased and repurposed.

 

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by Chris Palmer

[Rob Dean]

Like Chris, I generally use magnets in the box and steel on the figures.  I've shifted most of my storage and transport over to the Really Useful boxes line.

 

Here's one of two boxes of fantasy army stuff I took on a road trip to Michigan at Christmas in 2015:

 

 

When I have several I generally strap them together with a handle:

 

 

That's from the same trip.  The top box has a collection of scenery and a 3x3 ground cloth for pick up games.

 

The magnet system is enough to protect against road transport and bumps. It won't survive checked baggage handling, being dropped, or being turned upside down.   So, your solution needs to be matched to your transport conditions...

 

[Pingo]

10 minutes ago, Rob Dean said:

Like Chris, I generally use magnets in the box and steel on the figures.  I've shifted most of my storage and transport over to the Really Useful boxes line.

 

 

I love the Really Useful Boxes!  

[Baldur8762]

I think that magnet idea is brilliant!  I would have never thought of that. 

 

I don't go many places with my minis, but I try to wrap them in bubble wrap if transporting.  I should invest in some foam carrying cases as I grow my Warmachine army...

[Doug Sundseth]

I mostly use magnet on the bases and steel trays. This makes creating movement trays really simple, too, as you just need an appropriately sized steel sheet.

 

Watch out for foam carrying cases. The foam protects well against shock, but it can be quite abrasive when pushing figures in and pulling them out. If you do go with a foam solution, I'd recommend wrapping your figures in plastic (cheap sandwich bags work quite well) before sliding them into the foam. The plastic keeps the foam from rubbing off paint.

[Chaoswolf]

For transport, I use gun cases, Chessex cases, or some old Armory figure cases; it depends on how many I'm transporting and how far I'm going.

[Egg of Coot]

Anyone using boxes from Really Useful to store Reaper blister packs?  I've got a lot (I mean a LOT) of DH blisters I need to store and could use some suggestions as to which particular units I ought to invest in - please PM me with details.

 

The Egg

Edited May 21, 2017 by Egg of Coot

[Jordan Peacock]

For conventions, I've got several Portable Warfare "Sergeant" bags.  They normally use "BLU" pluck-foam trays, but I'm a cheapskate, and I have lots of oddly-shaped minis and terrain bits, so I tend to make my own "trays" from piece of foam glued down to foam-core bases.

 

 

Above, I used a BRIGHT SCREAMING PINK Sergeant Bag for the 2" ponies I converted for use in some weird convention games.  (For less frou-frou game settings, I've also got some bags in olive green and gray.  Back when I was going all overboard on Kickstarter mania, and I thought "Sedition Wars" was going to be a thing, I got an "Ion Blue" bag for the Vanguard, and "Tactical Orange" for Firebrand.  Yeah, I jumped the gun a bit on that one.)  

 

The side-pockets are very useful for holding additional things such as tape measures, templates, dice bags, etc.  The rear flap can completely zip down for easy access to the foam trays, and also has a mesh pocket useful for holding character sheets, red cards, etc.  The buckles on the sides can either attach to the carry strap, or else I can disconnect the strap and piggyback multiple bags on top of each other so I can sling about 2-3 bags (more than that, and it gets silly) bound together.

 

At home, I mostly use Portable Warfare "APC" boxes to organize and categorize my miniatures.  They're basically cardboard "keyboard" type boxes that come with a pluck-foam interior -- a lot cheaper than the Sergeant bag, to be sure.  I usually print off custom labels for the top and sides, with either an indication of the game ("Mansions of Madness," "Undercity," "Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower," etc.), or else faction or general category (e.g., "Khador," "Zombie Apocalypse," "IMEF," "Weird West").  If my collection for that particular category grows to be more than can fit in a single box, I can get another box, subdivide the minis, and apply a new, slightly narrower-scope label to each box as necessary.  (E.g., I might take all the steampunk stuff from my "Weird West" box and make a separate "Steampunk" box.)

 

The APC box has a 19" x 9" footprint, which for some reason just about perfectly fits on a few bookshelf units I have in the house.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the only real downside is that the footprint dimensions of the foam trays are very different between the Sergeant Box (13" x 7.5"), so I can't, say, keep my minis trays in long-term storage in the APC boxes, and then pull them out to load up the Sergeant bag for a convention while leaving all the minis in the same trays.  Instead, I use some plastic bins for long-term storage for the Sergeant bag trays, though the fit isn't exact, so there's a lot of wasted space.  (But then, if it were a tight fit, it would be harder to get the foam trays out.)

 

[Dilvish the Deliverer]

On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 0:27 PM, Egg of Coot said:

Anyone using boxes from Really Useful to store Reaper blister packs?  I've got a lot (I mean a LOT) of DH blisters I need to store and could use some suggestions as to which particular units I ought to invest in - please PM me with details.

 

The Egg

I store my blisters in those Sterlite Shoe Boxes that you can pick up at the Dollar Store (for the low low price of $1 each).  They fit a decent number of blisters and are easily label and stack well. 

 

As far as transporting painted minis, I have several cases.  I've got one of the since discontinued Reaper Figure bags with the pick and pluck foam.  I also have one of the Reaper pistol cases with the eggshell foam (that I use to carry around current paint projects to paint day and work).  And one of the GW hard plastic cases.

 

I also have a bunch of cases and boxes and foam to make custom cases when the need and/or mood strikes.

[ttuckerman]

Ditto on RUBoxes. Use them for my bones.  For my metal Western collection I built a wooden box with clear plastic on two sides that come off.  the vertical sides of the box have a 1/8" dado that steel bars fit into.  Using metal washers on the minis base and small powerful magnets between mini and bar.  have a luggage strap to help carry it because it is 17" x 11" and 3 tiers high (10.5").  When full it is ~26 lbs.

 

I found that you do not glue the magnets to the minis because they then attract or repel each other when put on the mat.