Multi-Purpose Display Board and Army Carrying Tray


In the past when I went to play a game of Warhammer I brought with me a simple office letter tray for collecting my dead models and moving my army around the room. This has proven to be both a great time saver, and a good way to make sure I did not lose anything. The only problem was I did not like to carry around a tray plus a display board. It was simply too much stuff, so the display board was left at home. Unfortunately at a recent tournament this was detrimental as I received a perfect army painting score except for the two points I lost for not having a display board. I have now solved this problem.

Introducing my quick and easy multi-purpose display board and carrying tray. I picked up a cheap plastic tray at a discount store for only a couple bucks. The one I bought was clear plastic so I spray painted it black. I then cut up a cheap moss flocked mat to fit on the outside bottom and the inside of the tray, and glued it down. I decided to put flocking on the outside and the inside, so I have options for how I display my armies. The moss mat was the cheap kind craft stores sell around the holidays for putting under Christmas displays. You could also flock the bottom as normal with your favorite basing material just be sure to seal it really well so it does not rub off. The tray I bought also conveniently had a raised lip around the edge on the bottom so I cut the mat to fit inside the lip so the tray still sits flat. Now I have a tray for carrying my army around in, and when I flip it over a base to display my army on. This whole project was really quick and took me no more than an hour to put together.




I liked this project because it reminded me that not everything has to be complicated to be effective.

Michael

Comments

  1. Very good idea. Very effective at protecting your mini's while moving about, I would think.

    My biggest problem with transporting my army is protecting my Vendettas. Have you come across any useful way for transporting flyers around a tournament?

    ReplyDelete
  2. This works well when your army is something like 20 models, but even my GKs are 28 dudes and 7 vehicles. What the heck do you do for large armies like 'nids or orks?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think this idea is great. I wonder if you could work some magnets into the mix so you could hold your minis on whether the it was a display board or tray?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for all the comments. some interesting ideas have been raised.

    BoxerSaint- I feel your pain. I like playing with vendettas a lot and the models are gorgeous. Unfortunately I have not been able to come up with a good way to carry around my planes either. My current solution is a tall cardboard box slightly longer than a plane with a layer of foam between each plane as a stack them in there. This is not a good solution. I will have to think about this.
    Artemi- You can fit a lot of infantry into a small place. The problem is motor pools. I don't have any armies where I use more than about 3 tanks so this works for me. If I was going to use this tray with a fully "meched" army I would probably put the infantry in the tray and and carry the vehicles separately.
    InnerGeek- Your magnet idea is genius. If I make another one I will simply put a metal plate underneath the flocking. then magnets on the bases of my models could stick to it. Great idea.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment