I’m going to share with you a smattering of magnet uses and techniques that have improved and added additional levels of detail and flexibility to my miniatures. My intent is to give you as many uses for magnets with many different miniatures types so that you’ll hopefully take away some inspiration to apply to your own miniwargaming needs.

The core of my approach to magnetizing minis is choosing the correct sized drill to match the diameter of rare earth disc magnet being used. Just test the size of the magnet to the end opposite the pointed drill tip. A close match gives the tightest fit.

Depth is more a matter of starting off slow, and testing with the magnet being used. Once it sits to the desired depth, apply superglue and fix in place using something non magnetic to seat it correctly.

First up, do you know what I like? TYRANIDS!

Tyranids and magnets are a great combination due to their array of biomorphs. Using magnets allows the potential to create any and all of the biomorph combinations available without having to build an entire new model just experimenting with a certain loadout.

For example my walking hive tyrant has a 1/8th inch magnet set into each of its arm sockets. I’ve drilled holes deep enough into the pewter so the magnets will sit flush. On the limbs is another equally sized magnet.






I’ve gone with the ‘magnet to magnet’ approach in many cases as this gives me greater hold for a smaller area than magnet to metal. The trick is dealing with magnet polarity.

Useful Tip: The way I work around polarity is to set one magnet on a mount and simply use its polarity as the reference point for all others. My reference is this magnet rig I’ve created. Just a decent sized pill bottle for grip, and a flight stand with the most common magnet I use glued to it. As a bonus it makes a great painting mount for small magnetized bits.



Tips and Tricks with Tyranid Limbs

1) Getting the angle just right: Setting the limbs in a decent looking position can be difficult. Sometimes its possible to cut a limb ball joint flat so that you can have the magnet at the right angle. Other times you may need to use greenstuff to adhere the magnet to the limb in the right orientation. I do all the greenstuffing on the limb itself. The magnet in the Tyranid body is simply drilled and fit.

When using the greenstuff you’ll want to leave it for a bit so that it gets to a ‘sweet spot’ of hardness for workability. (Over time it hardens and becomes stiffer and less flexible) At this stage you can keep it wet (so that it doesn’t adhere to other parts of the model you’re working with) and work out the final positioning of the limb and its magnet without the pull from the magnet already set in the body pulling the limb magnet out of the green stuff.

2) Guns: a lot of tyranid gun symbiotes are a plastic two piece affair with a gun arm and a feed tube using up two arm sockets on the model.

My tyrant’s venom cannon has only one magnet holding it to the body (despite there being two magnetic attachment points its body). I found this worked better than trying to get the right angle on two magnets (one for each side on the gun). Essentially I set the magnet to the gun on the desired side using plastic cement on the joint where the feed tube attaches to the ‘gun’. I then held the other side into the socket until the glue was secure enough to let it dry in position. The result is that the side opposite the magnet sort of rests in the socket. Plastic model cement is recommended with this approach as it has a bit of flex and this is key as you need to slightly spread the two socket joints apart to get the gun off. (Superglue holds well but dries hard and inflexible and would crack apart in this case) The plastic cement has seen me well through numerous gun changes.

3) Size and Weight: despite my carnifex having all arm sockets magnetized with 1/8 inch magnets I’ve found these are too small. The scything talons have a tendency to droop.

Keep in mind that although rare earth magnets may hold a part to the model tightly, that part may still be able to rotate around that point of attachment.

(I may glue a fine layer of sand or roughen up the surface of the magnetic contacts to add some friction to resolve this, or just resort to bigger magnets, I’m not yet sure.)



Another use I have for magnets is with my older edition metal winged rippers. Eventually I’ll texture this base so that the washer doesn’t show, but each of the rippers is magnetized to act as their own wound counter.



A lot of my larger Tyranid pieces benefit from magnetization for easier transport. This trygon (Named Bob) has been setup to be disassembled for easier packing. Similar idea with my spore chimney, the large projections have been magnetized for removal and packing.






Useful Tip: I’ve got an example of how to set a Killa Kan rokkit pod with magnets. I’m also demonstrating how I use a tower of stacked magnets to inset a magnet into a pre drilled hole. Using the whole stack makes these smaller magnets much easier to grip, plus you can align the whole stack of magnets with your reference magnet for polarity, or even paint the end of the stack for even easier polarity identification. Using the whole stack also helps keep your hands from getting super glued.



You can also use smaller magnets for smaller bits. This carnifex’s tail has a small magnet set into it for swapping out the scythe or spiked tail options. Although its tricky and time consuming, things even as small as toxin sacs can be magnetized and held fast with 1/16th inch rare earth magnets.



Flying Miniatures

I don’t know how many of you have come across the pain that is breaking off the plastic flight stands from your miniatures, but I’ve collected a fair number of Battle Fleet Gothic ships and this was a major annoyance.

Fortunately by cutting off a bit of the flight stand’s plastic tip and sanding it down you can get enough surface to stick a magnet to. Again these 1/8th inch magnets will hold a small model securely and allow the stand to pop off, instead of break, should they fall over or be dropped.

This Imperial Fuel Freighter and Necron Jackal give you a good example of how BFG players can easily benefit from a little magnetization.




Another game that makes use of flying mounted miniatures is Aeronautica Imperialis (AI) its basically a 40K dog fight style game from Forgeworld.

Here I've got an Ork Fighta Bomma complete with magnetized bomb loadouts.



Magnetic Transport

If you’ve read my Hive Fleet Beluosus project log in the forums you’ll know that I have a lot of gaunts. I’ve found that foam based cases with little pockets just didn’t work for such an endless tide, it just takes too long to either pack or unpack them from a GW or Sabol case.

I was already using washers stuck to the bottoms of my hormagaunt bases to keep them from tipping over, so with the use of some magnetic sheet in the bottom of my jewelry transport cases I could magnetically hold the gaunts to the tray.

This works great with the lighter plastic mins. The washers give them a bit more heft, and allow them to be held to the tray bottoms. I can invert a whole tray and the gaunts remain attached.

I've been able to find washers just the right size for regular 40K troops, and 40mm (Terminator) bases as well as the small flight stands. Take the base you're looking to get the washers for and size it to the washers at the local hardware store.

This can also be applied to larger miniatures. The difference being I find better results putting a magnet in the bottom of the miniature and adhering it to a metal bottomed tray.

Useful Tip: you could use magnets and a metal toolbox to transport your army. Rare earth magnets can provide enough adhesion to hold even a large pewter miniature upside down. The best picture I have to show you about this is one of a Battle Fleet Gothic Tyranid Hive Ship. The magnet recessed into that large plastic flight stand’s base is intended to keep it relatively secure in transport.



Useful Tip: This carnifex has magnets under his base for transport as well. However, note, that I’ve put them off to the side, not directly in the middle of the base. This is done so that you can lift one side of the model with less force and break the magnetic attraction without pulling too hard on the model itself.

Useful Tip: Probably the single most important aspect in magnetizing miniatures is drilling. I tend to use a needle file to mark the spot where I’m going to drill. This makes a slight indent in the right spot and helps keep your drill bit on target. Again, work slowly and test fit the magnet to the hole you’re drilling. Drill bit by bit checking to see if the hole you have is deep enough for your magnet.



Warhammer 40,000 Movement Trays
Magnets for transport were extended to these resin 40K movement trays.



(Something I picked up at http://www.armorcast.com/ since after playing in that 50,000 pt Apocalypse game I learned how time consuming it can be to move 250+ gaunts around)

Anyways, my troubles were that since I have a washer under all my gaunts they wouldn't fit into the 40K base sized holes. So I decided to mount a magnet in the holes to hold the gaunts to the base.

Changeable Character Models

This Night Goblin was intended for use as an RPG character piece. He's a squig herder thats been fitted with a rocket launching pole and a few magnetized packs and bed rolls fitted to his back. The idea was that his gear might change around a bit and the model could represent any changes to him as the game was played.