Budget Tournament Tray

This Saturday is my first ever Legion tournament and it comes in the form of a Rallypoint Qualifier. It just so happens to be my local store, which is great! However, moving tables has never really needed to be a thing before for me, or for any of us, and I just think taking all of my miniatures and putting them back into my foam is going to be a slow process all day. “How can I fix this?”, I asked myself. I’ve seen 3D printable trays, but those would take too long to print. I’ve seen amazing trays people make and sell online, but they can be pretty pricey or at least something I don’t seem necessary for me to purchase at the very least. (This is not a knock on them, their price point or anything! There are some amazing trays and ideas out there!) I decided I needed to magnetize everything but then what do I do from there? Well the answer might sound crazy but it came in the form of a cookie tray/baking sheet. Now let’s go over what to buy, where to buy it, and what to do!

Magnets

My first question to someone about this idea was “What size magnets do people use to magnetize your miniatures?”. I got a reply of 5mm round x 2mm thick and then went to the one place that is easy to find things in bulk and with a search bar: Amazon. As you can see in the picture above you get 150(!) for $8.49. That’s plenty to support your army and then some! Here’s the link to them here: Tournament Tray Magnets

Your next step is pretty simple. All you need to do is put a little dabble of super glue on the bottom of your base, right in the middle, drop the magnet down and let it dry. It sounds like a tedious task, and maybe to some it is, but it’s not nearly as bad as you’d think it would be. I want to say it took me all but ten minutes to magnetize all of my stuff and more. Which we’ll get into after.

Cookie Tray 

I don’t think I need to go on much here, but just make sure your cookie tray will work with magnets. I happened to go to Home Goods and got this one, shown below, for $4.99. So if you’re keeping track at home: I invested a total of $13.48

Outcome

I’m still working on having a fully painted army. My paint time can be limited with the little hurricane known as my son is running around the house. That said, shown below are the pictures of what less than $14 can get you in terms of a tournament tray. I had some other, small magnets laying around and decided to magnetize my rang rulers with those, but I’m sure you can use the bigger ones if you want just fine. I just wanted them to be subtle on something that I constantly use. Everything fits in there comfortably and then I also have a dice box to carry around my tokens and dice. Is it the most aesthetically pleasing thing? Absolutely not, it’s a cookie tray. Either way this should help me move from table to table pretty easily come this Saturday at the RPQ, any other RPQ’s I play at this season and eventually LVO this upcoming January!

Final Notes

I’m going to have some upcoming hobby posts in the future as I continue to keep things nice and fresh here at the Jedha Journal. One of those will be a guest post about making some terrain! Which I can’t wait to read and post it, seeing as I am a lazy 3D printer as opposed to making my own terrain! Hope you enjoy this hobby snippet and go make some fourteen-ish dollar tournament trays and make your life easy changing tables! Every second counts on that clock! Good luck to all of my friends/opponents this weekend at our RPQ and any other RPQ’s going on this weekend!

May the Force be with you!

-GrandAdmiralThrawn