Magnetizing Battletech

 

It started innocently enough. Talk of moving to a different house got me thinking about my miniature storage solutions. I've gotten so used to having everything displayed on shelves that I hadn't thought much about how I would actually transport my mechs from place to place.

My go to for many of my miniatures is, and has always been, bead boxes and tackleboxes, but I wanted something more for my Battletech collection. I wanted to do something that I could feel good about, so I dug out all of my Catalyst Battletech boxes and started looking at how I could re-use them as a classy storage option.

This is about 3/5ths of my collection, and the photo was actually taken about a month ago, so most of these boxes are completely full now. I have ten boxes in total now, and will probably need to invest in more again soon. Just gluing the magnets to the bases of all these little suckers has been quite time consuming.

I did a bit of research on Reddit and Facebook before I took the plunge on any particular magnets, but I like what I've been using. For the interiors, I used Litko Magnetic Sheets, as several people told me that cheaper fridge magnet sheets wouldn't cut it. For the bases, I mostly used 6x2 FINDMAG Neodymium Magnets, and they're stronger than I expected, given their size. They fit perfect under the bases of the Catalyst miniatures, and I used two per mech in most cases, or three for assault mechs and jumpers. For mechs with short, flat bases (3d printed and 3mm high) I used some fridge magnets I had laying around (they work ok, but I can't provide a link because the specific ones I used don't seem to be in production anymore) leaving only the IMW mechs, which are weighty and have flat bottom bases. These I just stuck in a craft bead-box, one unit per slot, and they work just fine. These boxes show up at thrift stores all the time, so I have a million of them.

Moving forward, I'll probably round out my collection with another Clan box and a Pirates box, plus maybe one for the Taurians. I'm definitely going to be allocating more craft boxes (see the clear ones below) for my IMWs, protomechs, vehicles and infantry. I still have about 80 official catalyst mechs left to paint, plus gobs of 3d printed ones, and the Kickstarter coming in, so stay tuned for an update in the coming months!