Anyone else that plays 40k poor? yea just as I thought...ALL OF US. A great way to have an extremely versatile but COST effective army is to Magnetize your minis. GW gives us lots of spare parts so why not use them? I hope to get you lots of step by step pictures to help but for now i'll explain the sizes and types of magnets that work best.
IMPORTANT: IF YOU ONLY USE THIS INFORMATION FOR SPACE MARINE DREADNOUGHTS IT WILL SAVE YOU OVER $100. SO LISTEN UP ITS WORTH IT.
This introduction to magnets will teach you the begings of becoming your very own Pain Boss (Ork Medic) you'll be attaching the limbs and weapons you want in no time!. First off for total beginers you'll want to learn a bit about Rare Earth Magnets. Go ahead and click the link if you are unsure what they are, and dont feel bad...we've all been there. Now that you know what they are you can start using them to your advantage. They are rather inexpensive, I order mine from ebay, but if you were to go to ebay and look them up right now, you would find they come in many different shapes and sizes and its difficult to figure out what size works best for the mini you are working on. These are listed in size smallest to largest
1/16" x 1/32": is the size you want for many of your troops choice weapons and limbs, these are extremely tiny magnets
1/8" x 1/16": Also used for Troop choice limbs, these are slightly bigger than the fore mentioned.
3/16" x 1/16": Used for most monstrous creatures, Carnifex, Demon Prince, Dreadnought Arms
1/4" x 1'16" : Used for medium and small sized vehicle accessories and weapons.
3/8" x 1/16" : Used for other vehicle accessories and weapons.
So now that we understand what magnets are and how they are useful to us as gamers, and now that we understand the sizes its time to understand how to use them. magnets this size can be tricky to use. It's the worst feeling in the world when you finally get both magnets attached to the body and the arm of a Ork Boy and all you want is to send him out to the killin' fields and when you go to attach his arm it repels from his body like a chop job from the local pain boss! Sorry i got carried away...the point of the story is, before you sit down to work with these magnets follow these steps to ensure the best possible outcome.
1. Clean and contained specified magnet work area. keep things tidy before you break out these magnets, I like to work on a paper plate, its a solid white background and my eye can pick up the magnets easily, plus its a defined contained work space, where only the model parts and the magnets are...keep your glue, your cutters,your green stuff your dremel, your other minis, your paints, and your drill bits off of the paper plate work space.
2. Minimal Distractions. We all have loved ones that support our nerdy arts, my girlfriend actually loves the fact that i get creative with my minis, BUT the last thing you need when your working with almost microscopic magnets is someone bumping the table, or asking you questions, so give the wife (or husband...we're open minded)a few bucks and send them shopping, or tell them they haven't talked on the phone to their mother in a while, anything just make sure before you sit and work with the magnets there are as little distractions as possible.
3. Keep track of attracting sides. There are many ways to do this, you can keep a mental not, put a tiny dot of paint on the sides that attract, what I personally do is work with a stack.( i'll get more detailed about this method in a later post when I go into the step by step magnetizing your minis and i'll have pictures ) In the intro picture you can see how there are several magnets stacked together. I leave them in that stack. I drill my hole in the body apply a little glue and using the stack insert until the magnet on the end is level with the body leaving the others in the stack still attached and sticking out,( if you drill the hole too deep you can just fill it with a little green stuff until the desired depth is reached) then drill the hole in the arm and apply the glue in the hole and then put the arm on the end of the stack sticking out from the body there for making sure that when I remove the stack in between (after they have dried) the two end magnets that are secured in their rightful holes (one in the body and one in the arm), they will be facing the proper way to stick to each other. which ever way you decide to use will be fine, as long as it work =)
4. Patience. Be calm, and be patient, wait for the glue to dry before attaching the limb to the body or the dread arm to the dread hull. If you work too fast you can ruin the model and all those ideas of saving money will be out the window. Set your paper plate workspace aside and let the glue set, go paint another mini and come back to your paper plate work space.
And thats my introduction to magnets. I hope you have a good idea of how useful these little things are. Trust me if saving money isn't enough, it will make your minis look awesome and all your friend will be jealous! Please feel free to leave comments and questions. Please stay tuned for the next chapter: Magnets 101 where I will show you Step by Step (with PICTURES) how to assemble a model using Magnets.
Until next time may Gork and Mork be with you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment