You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
~ Buckminster Fuller
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete
What are MiniMag Trays?
They are tiny little strips of metal that bring joy into your heart and transfrom your wargaming experience.
You can find them on their website here: https://www.minimagtray.co.uk/
Before I fanboy out over these things too much, I want to make it clear that I am in no way affiliated with this business. I do not have any financial interest here, and I do not know the people behind it personally. I’m just a satisfied customer, who paid for these things out of his own pocket, and nothing more.
I think it’s important to get that clear before I start banging on about how amazing these things are, because – Spoiler Alert – I fucking love them.
Why MiniMag Trays?
In a nutshell, these things are designed to make moving your models around easier. I’ve gone on record that my preferred army build is a couple of big monsters, with swarms of dickheads nipping around their ankles – a proper Destruction rabble.
It’s those swarms of dickheads that can be a problem. Picture the scene:
- Deploy 60 Grots on the table = Pain in the arse
- Pick them up and move them with Hand of Gork = Pain in the arse
- Complete a 9″ charge and move them all again = Pain in the arse
We’re now 20+ minutes into the game, everything you’ve done is pure drudgery and we’re not even into your first combat phase yet. Your opponent is probably comletely disengaged and pissing around on their phone at this point, and I wouldn’t blame them either.
This can be such a dispiriting experience that maybe you don’t even use those big units as much as you’d want to, especially in friendly games. And it’s not just a single block of 60 Grots, it could be multiple blocks of 40 Plague Monks, 30 Witch Aelves plus 30 Sisters of Slaugher, and so on.
Move a million models, move a million more models. complete your charges and move them all again. Real talk, you’re not gonna finish your game in time to have a beer between rounds.
Get them on MiniMag Trays, and that unit of 60 is now effectively a unit of 12, and suddenly that’s a whole different beast.
Let’s pause to think about that for a moment: MiniMag Trays will help you drink more beers at tournaments. I’m not even joking. It’s a real, practical benefit.
What are the advantages over the alternatives?
It’s accurate to say that there are other movement trays on the market, but it’s also accurate to say that they’re all shit. MiniMag Trays blow them all out of the water, and make them instantly obsolete.
The competition is generally MDF, or sometimes plastic (GW released their own recently under the Apocalypse brand). All of which have rims to keep the models in place.
Rims have two downsides:
- They look crap
- They are impractical
In terms of the appearance, they are clunky and jarring on the Battlefield. You can paint them to match your army’s basing scheme, but that’s a huge amount of busy-work, and you still have a big blob around your guys that doesn’t need to be there.
And when you come to use them, the damned things just get in the way. If you want to get your models into combat or base-to-base contact, the rim is in the way, so you have to lift your models up and out of the trays. So from the first combat phase onwards, your models are out of the trays, and the trays are already effectively unfit for purpose.
Like a lot of people, I bought the MDF trays, used them once or twice, and then put them in a cupboard. More hassle than they’re worth.
No rims is a game changer
In sports, they say a referee has had a good game when you don’t notice them. Same applies to movement trays in my opinion. MiniMag Trays are virtually invisible on the tabletop, which is exactly what you want.
It also comes into play when you are removing models, and piling in on top of the trays. Check out the video below from their own Twitter feed:
The magnetism is easily strong enough to lift a tray and move it around, just by grabbing one model:
There are also a couple of neat little touches, which really show that these were designed by an actual wargamer:
- You have the option of tight or spaced formations, so you can either bunch up into buff range, or spread out at 1″ coherency for zoning and control
- There is a combat tray designed to space your models such that you get the maximum number into 1″ combat range
Pro tip: The strip of 3x models on 25mm bases, spaced 1″ apart, can also be used to keep 5x models in tight formation.
See? Flexible!
Are they affordable?
In a word, yes. Each one individually is fairly cheap, and postage is a flat GBP 6.00 whatever you buy.
Once you start clicking and adding things into your cart, like anything else the cost will start to rack up.
But the beauty of these things is that you will use them again and again.
You don’t have to match any basing scheme, so they will follow you from army to army to army. My own 25mm trays have already followed me from Gitmob to Moonclan to Squigs.
Similarly my 32mm trays have already seen action with multiple blocks of Arrow Boys in a Kunnin Rukk, and big blocks of Ard Boyz in my Ironjawz.
Once you own them, you own them forever.
Look at it this way: we’ve all got some plastic sitting in a cupboard of shame that never sees light of day. For the price of a unit, you can completely transform your hobby experience with something you will use in every single game. They will actually make your life a tiny bit better.
The only “extra” cost is more magnets, but they’re like 10p each or something. I did buy mine from MiniMag Tray (rather than scouring eBay for an equivalent), because they’re the perfect depth to sit underneath a base, and they effectively cost nothing for shipping when you add them to an order (due to the flat rate shipping).
The Downsides
As far as the product itself, I couldn’t be happier. However I wouldn’t mind having an instructional video on the website of how to magnetize your models.
The website suggests using a glue gun to attach magnets underneath the bases, and there are some photos showing how to do that. My ineptitude with anything practical is legendary (I had to give away my airbrush because I was too dumb to use it), so for someone like me, a video of this process would be helpful.
That being said, I just used superglue instead, and so far I’ve not had any dramas.
The Verdict
MiniMag Trays are a real Before and After moment: I couldn’t play a game without them now.
I bought them with my own money, and then went back for more. I really can’t give them a better review than that.
It’s a solid 10 / 10 from me.
Plastic Craic 