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Mag-Neato! I've been trying to figure out how to store and transport my Tyranids for quite a while. The difficulty is that they have (generally) 6 limbs and lots of claws and spikes and things, plus they come in a variety of shapes that makes them very difficult to actually fit in a figure case. Hormagaunts are too long to fit in the slots, and some regular Gaunts are as well. Genestealers with their wide-spread "Gimme a Hug" can sort of be crammed into a slot, but they don't slot next to each other very well, since they keep trying to hold hands. The Warriors and Raveners and Zoanthropes don't fit anywhere very well either. Much too big for the regular mini slots, they are awfully small for slots that would hold tanks and things. In addition, the cool action poses that look so awesome on the battlefield and the painting table make sure that they stick out all over the place and will either take up wild amounts of space for each model or they'll snap off if you don't give them all that space. Even the Monstrous Creatures, which you'd think would be the perfect size to fit in tank-size holding areas have issues. The primary issue is that old action pose problem. Tanks don't have 4 arms sticking out in various directions without support. Tanks generally also aren't as tall as these guys are. 
Most of these concerns come down to space. If you spread out your models so there are plenty of gaps in the foam between them, you won't have to worry too much, as they'll mostly fit and you can cut chunks of foam to help support various limbs. On the other hand, spreading them out every other one means I can only fit about 18 Genestealers or 18-24 Gaunts per level in a standard GW case. Warriors have an even harder time, even without conversions like mine. I might be able to fit 12 Warrior-size models on a level in a standard case, but that would be pushing it. With conversions like mine, those 12 might have to take up two whole levels just to give their limbs room to stretch. Finally, especially with the size of the newest models, you'd be lucky to get 4 Monstrous Creatures into a carry case. Although my models (largely 2nd edition bodies with extensive leg conversions) are smaller, the conversions still take up space and the limbs that look so cool in various threatening poses, are easily broken off if they aren't given enough room. Given how much I like basic troops, putting them all in cases was a pretty daunting idea. The last incarnation of my Genestealer army would have taken up about 3 cases: 1 for most of my Genestealers, 1 for my Monstrous Creatures and the last for the rest of my Genestealers plus my Zoanthropes and Lictors. My old GT army would have taken up 2 full cases just for the Hormagaunts, and I'd have had to carry the Lictor and Hive Tyrant somewhere else. Even my current army (Shooty Godzilla list) would take up 2 cases for the Monstrous Creatures, plus another one for the Genestealers and Zoanthropes and Raveners. Given that cases cost money and take up space, and that half of those would have to have the foam custom-fit for the models, that's a lot of cases I'd have to have. I have been using an interim solution. (Of course, it's not really interim if you keep on using the solution for years now is it?) I've basically been storing all my creatures in a couple of GW shipping boxes. There's no foam in the boxes, they mostly keep from breaking by my packing them semi-carefully and by them being fairly full so they have no room to roll about. That doesn't keep them from chipping their paint or losing smaller bitz, or even larger damage from time to time. The fact that I'd rather play than paint and I generally consider them more "toys" than models has meant that I haven't really been concerned with it until recently. Now, of course, I'm trying to improve my painting and make my models a bit nicer looking. While I still intend to loan them out to new players and figure that that's what glue is for, I'd like to give them a case that will protect them a bit more. 
A few years ago, my girlfriend got me a customizable soft-sided army transport case, with a variety of foam trays that can be more easily customized to your models. It still has some of the same problems, so it's pretty much just been sitting in the back of my closet, unused. I have also seen people use gun cases to transport their models. The "eggshell" foam sort of gently holds the models in place, without having to custom-cut walls for each one. There are, of course, still problems here. One is that it only works for models that are mostly 2-dimensional. If you have tall or wide models, or tall/wide poses, you are fine, but if you have deep models as well, you've got a problem. In addition, it doesn't hold them as well as the foam slots do, meaning you'll have a few more broken bitz if you aren't really careful. In addition, I can also see some issues with carrying it around or transporting it and not having it searched all the time. Some time back, I ran across what seemed to be the perfect solution: Magnets! The original was a metal toolbox with removable drawers. The owner put magnets on the bottom of his Tyranids and they would stick to the trays. This meant that he didn't have to cut out chunks of foam for every individual Tyranid and make sure it got back into the right place, it could take all those cool action poses and long, reaching limbs into account, and it was big enough to accomodate quite a few models. Plus it was fairly inexpensive and only took up one space, even if it was a bit deeper than the GW cases. I have since seen other variations, including one that featured a plastic case with magnets stuck to the bottom and washers or other metal bits glued to the bases of the Tyranids. I cast around but couldn't find a decent-sized toolbox that had such drawers for a reasonable price. I did, however, find a good deal on some fairly nice plastic bins that were the right size and shape. Handily, I also found one that the others could fit inside, with some room to spare. Okay, now I had the right containers, and they weren't metal, so I'd have to put magnets inside them. I had heard that most sheet magnets were crap, so I looked into some magnetic tape. I found some fairly good stuff at Home Depot for a reasonable price and checked it out. Tests went well, so I picked up some more and started laying it out. I decided that the walls inside the trays were big enough to hold nearly two rows of models, so I lay two strips of magnets in each one. That done, I started work on the models. I picked up some washers to use for the bottom of the Genestealers. (Note, I did check before I bought them that they would actually stick to a magnet, not all of them will.) Unfortunately, the smaller washers didn't stay very well on the slottabases, since they could basically only glue to the single slot underneath the base, instead of the entire base. The larger washers allowed me to glue directly to the rim of the base, but they raised the models higher. While I wasn't entirely pleased by this, it seemed like the best solution, so I started gluing them on. After gluing a bunch, I actually tried out the case and it worked fairly well. It didn't hold as strongly as I wanted, however. This led to some cursing and going back to the drawing board. I decided that I needed a magnet on the base so that I'd have more attraction sticking things together. 
About this time, I had sent away for some magnets from K and J magnetics for another project. Despite the pictures and size comparisons on the site, I managed to buy a bunch of magnets that were too small for my other uses. (1/16 by 1/32 of an inch is pretty darn small, in case you wanted to know.) I knew that they were powerful magnets, and I didn't want them to go to waste, so I tried gluing them to the bottom of the Genestealer bases. This was a pain in the posterior. They much preferred to stick to each other rather than the glue. After much trial and a whole lot of error, I managed to work out a way of only putting glue where the next one would go, then sliding it down the slot toward the magnets already in place. It would be drawn to the side of the magnet, which would hold it in place while the glue dried. While this worked better, it certainly wasn't a fast process, and when I tried it to see how well it held to the magnets already in the container, it didn't hold very well, even though I'd carefully made sure not to get the polarity wrong (I don't need any hovering Genestealers, thank you very much.) Well that was time wasted. Then my eye turned to the magnetic tape rolls that I hadn't used yet. I cut off a bit with some snips and glued it to the bottom of a Genestealer. The process was simple and easy and in tests it held much better than the washers, in addition to being easier to glue on and not looking as ugly. 
While I'm not finished with this project yet, it looks promising, and much easier to do than my other options. I'm planning on using full contact patches of magnets for the Monstrous Creatures. One option would be to put them on top of one of the smaller model cases. That would, however, mean that I'd have to remove them every time I got that case out. On the other talon, if the magnets are strong enough, I might just mount them upside-down on the lid of the large container. I'll have to do a lot of testing before I'd be happy with that one as a regular thing, though! One last option ocurred to me as I was putting this together, but I'm not sure if it has any merit to it. Quake Gel is a jelly-like substance that is used to secure fragile items in case of a minor earthquake. Just put a bit on the base and it becomes stuck to the surface, but if you need to pick it up, you can just slowly give it a twist and it'll come up. It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure if there would be problems with it. One problem would be the possibility of it staining or sticking to a piece of terrain or a gaming table. Another problem might be it drying up or something with repeated sticking and unsticking, as it's mostly only used for things that don't get moved much. 
So, there you have it, my new storage solution. I think it'll cover my needs for a while now. At least until I pick up another hundred or so Gaunts! Even then, I might be able to fit them in with one set hanging upside down, since they are lighter models than Monstrous Creatures. Bat-Tyranids! Well, we'll see. If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |