Thursday, January 27, 2011

Wargaming on a Budget: Cheap, Quality Army Case Video!

Old School here with a quick video about a Cheap and Sturdy Case I use for my army and for Hobby Time on the road. I would like to say that Youtube has been cursed it seems as it keeps shaving the first 10 seconds of the video off, but anyway, let's take a look at my Sham Wow audition!



Alright, so basically, for $30 and four Pick foam trays (available from both Battlefoam and Sabol at ~$8 a peice), I can house up to 2500-3000 points of my Tyranids and considerably more of my Chaos Marines with little to no risk of damage due to tight packaging or soft cases.

I may not be the most stylish kid on the block at the moment, but hey, just wait till I airbrush the case! I might just do it while on the road with my airbrush!

For more toolboxes from Stanley, take a look at their web site and as I mentioned in the video, if you have any great solutions or links to solutions you have posted, leave them in the comments. Also, check out Menelker's cheap foam tutorial here while you are at it!

15 comments:

  1. The Stanley case rocks! I have a GW case but I know a lot of the guys in my LGS use those types of cases. Another good one (for non-horde armies) is a tackle box. Guy I know who plays SW uses all the little dividers and it works pretty well.

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  2. I think I need to check out how many smaller trays I could get into one of those - got a fair number of loose pluckfoam trays floating around here.

    Of course, for vehicles, I love the pistol cases - they cost maybe $5-10, and I have 5 Chimeras, a Manticore, my Plasmacutioner, AND a Valkyrie riding in a single case right now.

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  3. Pistol cases are all fine and dandy till someone steals them out of your car thinking they are pistols and gun parts. Its a loose loose situation. Your pissed cause ur stuff just jot jacked and im sure they are pissed cause they expected a Colt 1911 and the have 100+ model soldiers.

    I laughed a bit when i saw OS's standly tool case. OS cant tell the difference between a hammer and a screw driver.

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  4. I certainly can tell the difference between expensive and awesome! Who needs a handyman? That's what the wife is for (lol).

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  5. and here i was thinkin you were in your late 40s goin by your blog name... how wrong i was :S

    its like many things out there, because it has a brand or label on it, they charge through the roof for it (can anyone say nike? its a shoe not a sports car...).
    this fixes many issues, definately cost, but also space, looking at it its goin to be easy to store a few of those with armies in them compared to a garage full of carry cases for 2 or so armies...

    myself when it comes to carrying just doin some hobby, i bought a cheap laptop saddle bag, one with the firm edges so it doesnt cave in. i just carry my notes book in the front, and my army book in the back pocket, with a foam tray (with foam sheet lid) strapped inside, and that keeps everything pretty secure. comes with pockets n lil pen holders for brushes n the like, so meets my needs.
    as i have yet to get something for transporting any of my forces in, i will definately be lookin into 1 of these.
    thanks for the insight old school :)

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  6. Great post, Old School! For years in the 90s I used a set of old metal toolboxes for figures stuffed with foam just like your Stanley case. They weighed a ton, especially filled with all the metal figures back then!! But my stuff always arrived intact, and it worked even better when I magnetised the bases. I now use a mix of a case like your for vehicles and odd/wierdly shaped stuff/ terrain and a KR case for figures with pluck foam.

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  7. Hes on to something with the cheap cases. Im just suprized no one noticed his new hair cut WITH GEL. U should have had "Ive got my sunglasses on" playing quietly in the back round.

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  8. Can you post the interior dimensions of that Stanley case? Are you using the Sabol sized (13" x 7.75") foam? Will the GW sized (14.25" x 10.25") foam trays fit in there? My apologies if you answered these questions in the video, but I had to watch it with the sound off.

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  9. sweet man thx for the tipp, where can i buy the fome treys that you are talking about in the vid?
    i need to build my self a new case so this came just in time for me.

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  10. The sabol sized trays are the ones I use for this case, but there are several cases in the Stanley link that can accommodate more and the exact dimensions are listed there.

    I put my marines in there the other day and managed to get twelve tanks and a tray full of turrets just in the bottom section.

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  11. I'm building my first army now, and I'm at the point where I need a case. This post was timely, and helpful. Thanks!

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  12. Great post, I actually am using a very similar case for miniature transport!

    I have been using the Stanley Fatmax for almost the whole 3 years I have been into 40k... Switching to it after my second GW large case broke at the hinges. It's a 3 tiered rolling case that expands... Purchased from Homedepot or Lowes for $69.99 it's a steal.

    It's also nearly indestructible.. My case was actually clipped by a car and belive it or not none of the models were damaged.



    (Link to it on the HomeDepot website below)
    http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202262088/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

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  13. OS, thanks for the post, I had looked at this exact case before, and was trying to figure out if I could make it work. Also, your comments on storing nids...yeah, I play them, and yes, they are a pain to store.

    Looking at the video...I am concerned about how many nids I can actually fit in there. You had mentioned some high point values, but I only saw a few units in there, but then again, you obviously were just doing a demo, and did not have it fully loaded.

    Can you;
    Load it up, and maybe take some pics of how an entire army fits in there?
    Let us know exactly how many inches of foam you can fit?
    Let us know how many points the army is you are putting in there.

    These things would help us judge if it would work for us.

    Again, thank you very much for the video.

    Dave Pak

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