A couple years ago, the gaming store I worked at picked up the GF9 magnetic bases. They became all the rage, and most of the serious gamers started to magnetize all of their armies.

I thought it was a great idea, but I didn’t like the idea of a $9.99 price tag for each unit. Even with my 50% employee discount, that’s a steep price to pay for bases in my opinion, especially if you play armies with lots of units (I used to play Skaven and Empire).So I went in search of DIY materials to make my own magnetic bases and movement trays.

I forget where I purchased it, but I found a roll of self adhesive magnets that I thought would work great. The roll was 25′ long x 6″. I figured I would trim small magnets for the bases and slap a larger piece in the bottom of the movement tray. Initially, this seemed to work out great.

However, I soon noticed a problem. Sometimes models next to each other would repel each other and sit about 2-3mm apart. Other times, one model’s base would rise off the magnetic surface and hover a mm or two above the ground. This became particularly troublesome when I took the models off the movement tray and put them back in – it seemed that they fit nicely if they were in the perfect formation but not if you switched the models’ positions.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why they were so troublesome. I’d used a few of the GF9 magnetic bases and tray inserts, and I never had that problem. I was meticulous in lining up the orientation of the magnetic strips (after the first couple incidents), and still some of the models would act funky.

To make things more confusing, I placed my models on a GF9 tray insert, and I had no trouble. Huh?

GF9 Movement Tray Inserts Aren’t Magnetized

When we first got the GF9 magnetic basing system, I noticed something odd. The tray insert wasn’t magnetized.

It looked like a self adhesive magnet strip, but if you stuck two of them together they just fell apart. I never looked into why, and I figured it was irrelevant. Turns out it isn’t.

This morning, I poked around the ‘net and found out exactly what those movement tray inserts are made of – rubber-coated steel sheets (see GF9 store page). The rubber coating makes the inserts look like a magnetic strip, but the insert itself is not magnetic. It’s a ferrous metal that attracts other magnets.

I’m thinking that my problem is I have magnets sticking directly to other magnets. The magnetic models don’t seem to be interacting with each other, they’re revolting when they interact with the movement tray insert. If I use the GF9 insert in a movement tray, I could drop in my magnetized bases and have no trouble.

Grr!

So What Should You Use for Tray Inserts?

This means I need to peal out the magnetic strips in my movement trays and look for another solution. One solution is the GF9 inserts, which you can order separate from GF9 or through a hobby store. They come in packs of 3 x 4″ x 10″ sheets – enough for roughly six infantry movement trays. At $10.99, that’s an investment of ~$2.00 per unit. Not too bad – I might do this in the short term for my tiny Chaos army.

I’ve found a similar product at MagnetValley. It’s sold by the linear foot (2′ wide), at $9.99 per foot. The minimum order is 2′, so you’ll be investing $19.98 for 2 square feet. That’s a little more than twice the amount of material you get in the GF9 pack. However, when you tack on $10+ shipping, it’ll end up being slightly more expensive. Boo.

You can get another similar product from Magically Magnetic. I think it’s the same material, per-cut into 3″ x 5″ strips. You can get them for $0.75 each of $6.75 for 10. Two 20 packs with shipping comes to just under $20. That’s somewhat more cost effective than the GF9 inserts and they’re the perfect size for a 5 x 3 unit of 25 mm models (Chaos Warriors). Unfortunately, they’ll be too small for larger blocks of troops (you’ll need 5″ x 4″ for 20 Warriors or 25 x 20 mm models). If you could find these things locally and not pay for shipping, it’d be the best solution, IMO.

I’ve also heard of people using thin metal sheets (like tin) to line the bottom of the movement trays. I’m not sure how expensive these are, but I plan on investigating.

Any other ideas for what to line movement trays with?