HOBBY

By Simon Miller

The BigRedBat fights the eternal battle for space

STORAGE WARS!
Many decisions about where to store wargames figures and models tend to be made in a very
ad hoc manner – usually just after the wife, quite unreasonably, has demanded access to the
dining room table! This is a great pity, because advance planning of how the models will be
stored can make gaming easier, eat up less space around the house, and better protect our
lovingly (and laboriously) painted creations. In this piece, I’m going to look at some of the
ways gamers go about storing their collections.

• Will they stay in the gaming room, or BOX TO FIT THE MINI, OR MINI TO
© Ironmitten

will they need to be portable, so as to FIT THE BOX?

Buried alive! Courtesy of Iron Mitten.
regularly travel to friends’ houses or
shows?
• Do I want to display them, or simply
store them?
Ten years of obsessively collecting
28mm figures means that the BigRed-
BatCave is now bursting with minia-
tures, both painted and unpainted, and
terrain, to the extent that valued older
figures need to be sold in order to cre-
ate space for new armies. In this savage
environment, every cubic foot of space
counts, and I now have to carefully plan
where stuff can be stored, before mak-
ing new purchases. It’s a war, it is!
Personally, I prefer to store all my
miniatures and terrain pieces in boxes,
in order to protect them from dust and
damage. However, I’ve often experi-
enced difficulty finding boxes of an
appropriate size to fit certain terrain
pieces that I’ve purchased. So now, I
design and build terrain pieces to fit
exactly within my standard-sized boxes;
this makes the best possible use of my
limited storage space. Similarly, I make
sure that pikes, lances and standards
are cut to a length that will fit within
my standard-sized boxes. I optimize the
size of bases, too, in order to use up
every available square centimetre in the
storage boxes.

M
ost of my collections have
started with a small impulse
purchase, often from eBay,
which has gradually morphed into a
huge army. This isn’t the most sensible
way to go about things, as a gamer
can very easily start a collection that
he lacks the resources to complete, or
the space to store. Some questions to
ponder might include:
• What scale will I collect, and how
many models will I be collecting?
• Will my figures be based singly, or in
elements?
• Will they be heavy?
• What available space do I have at
home to store them in? Is this safe
storage (i.e. not prone to flooding,
mildew, or the ravages of dogs, tod-
dlers or teenagers)?
Foam storage tray for 28mm miniatures.

52

WSS nr65 jan13.indd 52 04-02-13 19:37

 TO FOAM OR NOT TO FOAM?
Foam storage boxes are a popular
storage solution, and provide excellent
protection for miniatures in transit. If I
were to be involved in a car crash with
my collection, I’d much prefer to have
my miniatures packed in foam than in
any other form of storage!
However, in my opinion, there are a
number of drawbacks to foam. Firstly,
the foam that protects the miniatures
so well is also very bulky. So, to store
a large collection, a huge volume
of space will be required. Secondly,
if a large foam-stored army is to be
deployed on the table, it can take quite
a while to remove the figures from
storage, and also to repack them after
the game. Finally, spears and swords
sometimes catch in the foam and come
loose.
I’d certainly look at foam storage for
high quality skirmish or role-playing
miniatures. But, in general, I find mag-
netic solutions more appropriate for my
needs. These typically involve attaching
adhesive magnetic sheet to the under-
side of each figure’s (or element’s) base
(or sometimes to the inside of a storage
box, of which more anon).
THE GREAT MAGNETIC BASING
DILEMMA
So, you’ve bought a bunch of storage
boxes. Do you put magnetic sheet on
the bases of the minis and steel paper
in the box, or put the magnetic sheet in
the boxes and use steel bases or wash-
ers on the minis?
One solution I’ve seen used with 15mm
armies is to base them on small custom-
designed steel plates. This certainly
provides a hard-wearing base, but it’s
a solution that might stretch both a
wargamer’s arms and his pocket. Also,
it can be very challenging to rebase a
mini that has been stuck to steel rather
than to card, especially if superglue has
been used. I once, unwittingly, bought
such an army on eBay, and had to chisel
the miniatures off the bases!
Steel washers, on the other hand, are
cheap and readily available. I have
seen them used very successfully on the
bases of individual figures, used for skir-
WSS nr65 jan13.indd 53
A standard box file used for storage.
mish gaming, which can then be stored
on a magnetic surface. Another related
approach is to glue a small rare-earth
magnet into the hole in the middle of
the washer under each figure.
If basing figures in elements, though, it
is cheaper to purchase magnetic sheet
in bulk and attach it to the underside of
the bases. Pre-cut MDF, plastic and ply
bases are readily available on the inter-
net, and make a great time-saver.
TYPES OF STORAGE BOXES
In the past, I’ve used a lot of biscuit
tins and card packaging boxes to store
painted miniatures. A drawback of these
boxes is that they usually don’t have
a lip, and it is easy for some to slip off
the top of a pile, to the doom of the
miniatures inside! Once, when I was
lifting a pile of boxes from high up in a
cupboard, three slipped off the top and
fell around 7 feet. Every miniature in
every box sheared off at the ankles!
Metal tool boxes, or plastic tool boxes
lined with steel paper, are a conveni-
ent way of taking miniatures to a club.
A potential downside is that they are
heavy – and heavier still, once filled
up with 28mm lead! Also, it can be
awkward to get the miniatures out of
the cantilevered shelves. I am told that
some house-breakers carry toolboxes
as they go about their dubious trade,
and one club I knew was raided by the
police, who assumed they had stumbled
across a den of thieves.
Some years ago, I was lucky enough
to pick up a couple of car-boot-loads
of foolscap file boxes for free, during a
clear-out at work. A lot of people use
these to store their miniatures, often
adding steel paper or magnetic sheet
to stop the miniatures from slipping
around, or lining them with foam. They
are a useful solution, but in my opinion
aren’t quite as good as the plastic boxes
that I’m coming to next, because they
aren’t terribly rugged or waterproof. I
still use file boxes, but for storing un-
painted lead-mountain miniatures in my
loft, rather than painted ones.
I, like many other wargamers, came
across the ubiquitous Really Useful
Box storage around 10 years ago. They
appeal to me for a number of reasons,
namely:
• They are strong and light, and come
in a range of sizes
• They are relatively cheap
• They stack securely
• They are transparent, so one can see
what is inside
• They are relatively waterproof
I do two things with my ‘RUB’s. One is
to line them with steel paper, usually
bought from Coritani, who sell sheets
ready-cut to fit. The other is to label the
boxes at both ends, as this helps me to
53
04-02-13 19:37
HOBBY
BigRedBat’s War Cabinet, full of Really
Useful Boxes.
quickly find the right box amongst the
hundred or so that I own.
I often take my miniatures to shows,
and the lightness, stackability, and
strength of the RUB is perfect for
transport. I find I can fit them, three or
four at a time, into sports shoulder bags,
which helps with carriage to and from
the car.
FIXED STORAGE SOLUTIONS
Filing cabinets can be a great way to
store miniatures. I’m not thinking here
of the big four-drawer ones used in
offices, but rather of the smaller multi-
drawer variety. These are painted steel,
so there is no need to line with steel
paper, and the drawers pull right out,
so one can easily ferry miniatures to
the table. On the downside, they aren’t
suitable for taking miniatures to a show,
as there are no lids on the drawers,
Filing cabinet storage.
54
WSS nr65 jan13.indd 54
Olicanalad’s under-table storage.
and the drawers are usually relatively
shallow, so they might better suit 15mm
rather than 28mm miniatures. Shown
with this article are some filing cabinets
from the collection of Simon MacDo-
wall, containing his lovely 15mm Late
Romans.
If a gamer is lucky enough to have a
permanent wargaming table in a spare
room, or perhaps even a purpose-built
shed, then under-table storage is a great
solution, especially for larger terrain
pieces. James Roach (aka Olicanalad)
uses kitchen units, which provide a very
stable table base and a huge volume of
storage space for terrain.
Inexpensive flat-packed storage cabinets
are readily available from Ikea and oth-
er stores. Mine is shown at the top left.
What excites me about the Bergsbo, is
that it has the perfect dimensions to take
an unfeasibly large number of the RUBs
which hold all my minis, with almost
no wasted space. It is deep, and all the
shelves are adjustable. Within (and on
top of) the cabinet are no fewer than 68
storage boxes of various sizes, contain-
Olicanalad’s display cases.
ing approximately 4000 28mm minia-
tures and most of my gaming terrain.
The glass-fronted cabinet, transparent
boxes, and labels make it very easy to
identify and access the specific boxes of
miniatures I need for a particular game,
so that I can carry them downstairs to
the gaming room.
Display cabinets are an excellent solu-
tion if situated within the room where
the game will be played, as attractive
miniatures set off a gaming room nicely!
In James’ room (shown here too),
his beautiful miniatures can be lifted
straight from the shelf to the gaming
table. However, when miniatures are
displayed in a different room, I would
worry that there is a chance that models
might be dropped in transit.
In conclusion, in my opinion, there is
no single ‘best’ solution for protect-
ing and storing miniatures. Rather, a
gamer needs to give careful thought to
storing the armies he owns – or, better
yet, those he plans to purchase – and
should select the storage solutions that
are most appropriate to his needs and
circumstances.
Simon reminds the editor of a stor-
age disaster he witnessed. His friend
had stacked up his Celt army (loosely
packed in stackable plastic storage
crates) before opening his car boot to
pack them. The army slipped, leaving
hundreds of Celts with assorted chariot
bits to be picked up off the tarmac car
park in the dark!
04-02-13 19:38