Army Transport Miniature Case Review

I've previously kept most of my minis in bits boxes.  When they are plastic it seems OK.  If they are tough enough to be played with they should be tough enough to be transported next to a few more of their kin.

And then we got into Warmachine where the minis are predominantly metal, heavy, and often multi piece.  Time for a new solution, and the $60 Army Transport case seemed like a good deal vs $130 for the Battle Foam equivalent.  Overall I think it was worth the $60 as any padded case seems to run fairly pricey.  Here's my thoughts on it.

Materials are kind of second class.  Not bad, but not top notch.  Looks OK at the moment but feels like it could wear out easily.  I hope to be proven wrong.
The front pockets are pretty tight.  Room for a thin manual, some cards, a few dice.  Anything thicker though, like the ever present Chessex blocks of 36 dice, there is no way to store in here.
The zipper only runs around the top which limits access.  You want something out that bottom tray?  You are going to be removing every other tray to get to it.
The trays that come standard with the 'full' version are 6x 1 inch trays and 2x 2.5 inch trays.  1 inch is about 25mm.  Warmachine small bases are 30mm.  Yeah, problem there if you are buying this for Warmachine.  You can buy an empty bag and get 1.5" and 2.5" trays separately.  Thing is it costs more that way, now you are looking at close to $80.

Tray dimensions are 7.5" by 12.5".  In pull out squares that's 13x24.  You can shuffle them around a bit, but unless you have lots of really bulky guys that is about 18 small minis per layer.  As a guide, a regular marine will fit in a 3x3, Devastator or Sergeant, 3x4, Standard Bearer 3x5 or 3x6.
If you spring for one of the 3 or 4 inch foam layers (and the bag will hold 11 vertical inches of foam) you can get most vehicles in.  A layer will fit 3 transports (trukks, chimeras, razorbacks) or 1 large vehicle (land raider, battle wagon) and a transport.  It'll only really fit two Russes as they are kind of chunky.  The biggest stuff though, like a Valkyrie will not fit in this.  Well not unless you break off the wings and front antenna.

So am I happy with the bag?  Yeah, I guess.  Kind of wishing I'd sunk the extra into one of the dedicated Battle Foam bags though.  Yeah, twice the price, but bigger, better built (it seems, no first hand experience) and just better designed.  Plus, the Warmachine version has trays designed to fit Warmachine minis, rather than the too thin standard Army Transporter trays, and a big ol' Warmachine logo on the front.  While the Army Transporter does its job, it feels too much like a cooler bag someone shoved foam trays into.

Just a test

I wanted to see how the mobile email part worked.  That way I can annoy people by posting during a game.

To keep the gaming theme going though here are a couple of shots of the kids having fun painting their own minis.

Dawn of a new blog

As regular listeners will notice, things are a little different here. A new domain name, http://www.bladefall.com/ for one.  And a new look for the same basic layout which I hope you like.  A few things to fix, like why did my favorites disappear?  more later.

Grey Knights

Apparently they will kick much ass when the new codex comes out.  The 'Say ni' ability for one is great.

So anyway, I had a few Grey Knight minis and wanted to use them as painting experiments.  For this latest one I got my wet palette wet for the first time.  It worked, the paint I was blending for shading (adeptus battle grey to codex grey) did stay wet.  It also soaks in a fair bit so you need lots of paint.  Plus, dropper bottles would be good, I use GW pots so transferring to the palette makes a mess.  I wanted to at least make a vague stab at the NMM method of painting.  It came out OK, looks good, although not metallic.  More like just realistically shaded grey.  I took time to figure out where light would be falling and got it right for the most part.  I also took some time on the lettering panels, basing them in Chardon Granite with a dry brush of gold across them before I started the rest of the mini.  Pity because you really can't tell.  Oh yeah, and Secret Weapon ruined temple base.  Seemed appropriate.

I've got a GK termie with psycannon, one with force sword, and another standard, but heresy era, termie that is painted grey.  Add those to a death cult assassin and a load of IG stormtroopers that can be Warrior Acolytes.  Do I have an army yet?  :)

Warmachine - wave one finished

I've finally finished the first set of Warmachine minis we picked up at christmas.  This is the Khador and Menoth battle boxes, a few mercenary solos, and then some Cygnar stuff and a couple of units rescued from the consignment case at the FLGS. 

From Cygnar with have my "best ever consignment case purchase™"  These three were $20, unassembled and all crammed into one box.  Caine, a Stormclad and a Defender for a 13 point start.  Happy with how they came out, although I need to redo the eyes on the war caster.  I suck at eyes.

From Menoth we have the 11 point start of Fletcher's army, a basic Menoth battle box.  Again, fairly happy with how they came out.  Only issue is a like a dirty, battle worn kind of look.  On the white though its killed detail some.  I may go back and try and tidy these up a little.

From Khador we have the17 point start of Morgan's army, a basic Khador battle box with a unit of Doom Reavers.  These all came together well, I'm happy with how the came out.

And lastly, assorted mercenaries.  Greygore Boomhowler and Co, Taryn Di La Rovissi, Rutger Shaw and  Dannon Blyth and Bull.  The Greygore lot were the other consignment case find.  The rest were picked up just because they were cool minis.  They'll be useful to balance points out though when we start playing and learning the rules as there are 14 points worth here in 4 selections.

We've got a few more coming.  I've got Reinholdt and the other half of some Khador Mekanics sitting on the painting table (first half are done).  Then the kids are getting a couple of the cheapo minis for valentines day, and Fletcher is getting a bunch of Menoth stuff for his birthday.  I'll say one thing for Warmachine, seems like getting a good, playable army together is far quicker and cheaper than 40K.  Obviously its a smaller scale game, but with a lower entry cost building a nice custom army or two is no big deal.