Monster Magnet

Don't you love it when you paint up a regiment with a lot of passion, spend hours upon hours shading and basing, only to have your models fall over 1000x during a 60min game?

I don't.

And that's why I wanted to try magnetizing my WHFB regiments. There are several ways to do that (buying individual magnets, magnetic paint etc..), but I chose to give pre-cut magnets and ferromagnetic foil a try, because they seemed the mose elegant solution.


I found this nice little online shop called Magnetbases.de, who ship at reasonable rates (~€4 within Europe which can be considered more than honest, compared to all these crooks who "offer" shipping at €10 and more).

The owner, Magnus Schwekendiek, is a nice fellow who will answer all your questions about size, compatibility, shipping etc...

On top of that, you get a small discout for ordering 3 or more base sets of the same type, e.g. if you buy 3 or more 2x5 20mm base sets, the price drops from €1.60 per set to €1.44.

This can save you a euro or two when you are basing more than one regiment of 20 men. Instead of buying 2 sets of 4x5 bases, just buy 4 sets of 2x5 and cash the discount.




This is what the bases look like. The ferromagnetic foil is included. Bases are pre-cut and have a "sticky" side, which makes then very user friendly to apply to the models.


Just peel off the protective foil, stick the magnet to your model, and put the model on the magnetic foil. Done. I glued the foil to movement trays for increased stability.

(I apologise for the unfinished models!)

Here you can see the magnetic foil I glued to the movement tray.

The magnet is roughly 0.7mm thick and does heighten the model a little. I had concerns about this at first, before buying the magnets, but they were quickly dispelled. The additional height is far beyond anything noticable. I'd be more concerned about the paintjob than about that :)

Aaaah! What a feeling of relief! No more shifting and falling models! BTW, this ALSO works with metal minatures... pretty amazing.

So if you have been hesitating to get magnets for your models, I can REALLY recommend this stuff. One of the most useful features for tabletop games.

Below I listed 6 advantages of magnetic bases, which make them more than worthwile in my eyes:

1) Protection. The models stand in place and do not fall over - which happens VERY readily during games. On top of that it abolishes this little annoying phenomenon of knocking over light plastic miniatures as you are placing more onto the tray, during setup.

2) Transport. You can actually transport the regiment as a whole! It also makes moving the regiment from its shelf onto the battlefield and vice versa a 100% safe undertaking. Especially for standard bearers, which tend to have a high center of gravity and fall over easily (rest in peace Questing Knight standard bearer).

3) Price. At around €2/ set there really is no excuse for not getting these. If you consider that some people are buying GW plastic "hills" at €25 *shudder*, you would like to advise them to save their money and buy magnetic bases instead.

4) Not so easy to make yourself. I am a big fan of only buying things you cannot manufacture yourself. So scenery is out. You cannot easily make magnetic bases yourself, so there is your reasonable buy.

5) Feel. The magnets and metal foil add a little extra weight to plastic regiments, which adds to this "old school" feel that I know from my early days, where all miniatures were metal. This might sound silly, but it does feel so much cooler to push around a "heavy" block of "massive" infantry, rather than something that feels like 20 LEGO figures...

6) Standalone. You do not necessarily need movement trays to glue the foil into! Although it is recommended as it adds a lot of stability, you can move around your miniatures on the battlefield with them standing only on the foil.

I hope this will inspire some of you guys to give magnetic bases a try,

Cheers,
Tom