A world's first! But only for the few that care...a movement tray idea

We spend a lot of time preparing the battlefield when we play, bringing tubs of terrain, making it look evocative and realistic. Then we start playing. A unit like this:

After the first round or so, the movement tray looks like this, empty on the back ranks, looks ugly

Wouldn't it be nice to to take of that bad looking rank of your movement tray like this:

then play on with the open back

 OR put two single ranks together like this:

I basically magnetized the movement tray past the 2nd rank, giving me the option to remove a large part of the tray when it is not in use anymore. This is what is looks like:

Adding the magnets was easy

It's a strong tray, you can hold it up without fear of falling apart

Here are two of them before primer

and when painted and flocked. Can't really tell, right?

Now all this seems really trivial, but not to me. In my last game I was playing against an opponent who played Daemons. He used a movement tray for 4 ranks, but only used two because of points limitation. Even after he lost the 2nd rank, he still had to play with this big tray. It started to look bad on the battlefield, which is of course not big deal. At a certain point he couldn't wheel easy because the tray was so big, so he took the models out and put them on without a tray, which was fine.  But this got me thinking on making these adjustable movement trays. This is just one example.

The two trays above make:
2 x single rank
2 x double rank with open back or 1 double rank with closed back
2 x triple rank

Maybe someone will give this a try, I certainly will make a few more. Let's make that battlefield look as good a possible!

Mike

Comments

  1. Great idea. Would also work well for those jumbo sized horde trays intended for 50+ figures.

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  2. Neat idea! If I ever get back into WHFB I'll be sure to use it.

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  3. Best idea ever. I just started WHFB and I like this

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  4. This is a brilliant idea. I tend to play miniatures games that just give units extra health, instead of extra units for health, but if I ever switch I'll be sure to do this.

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  5. Cool idea, thanks for sharing!!

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  6. thanks all. Today I bought one more set of trays and will build a few more. My kids love them, they want to click them on an off all the time..
    Mike
    SCWH

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  7. This is a great idea!. I myself hate to see empty movement trays when the battle goes on. Big squares of black plastic amidst beautiful scenery.

    I came up with my own solution which is different from yours. I thought it would be good to paint the bottom or floor if you will of the movement tray. I painted it in a realistic way so when I lose men from my unit it just shows nicely painted details of a sort of forrest floor. I even went as far as painting some pudles of blood and blood spatter to represent the fallen comrades.

    If you want to see what I mean just let me know and I'll take some pictures.

    Your idea,...even better!(but more work)

    Cheers,
    Seb

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  8. Inspired! It's shared moments of genius like this which make blogging our hobby so worthwhile (that and the friendships we build of course). Keep up the good work!

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  9. warpaintguy: maybe throw up a post about it...we can all check it out
    Mike
    SCWH

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  10. Haha, glad my movement trays inspired you! It makes me wish there was an easier way to do this with the LOTR trays for my round bases.

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