A thank you to MinimagTRAY for sending us a large range of products to review! 

To tray or not to tray? This is hardly ever a question amongst rank-and-flank gamers and Old World has sparked a newfound love for square-based minis for many. One of the biggest questions that I see come up daily amongst various Facebook groups, Discord servers, and Whatsapp chats is: where do I get movement trays from? There’s a fair few answers to that question, too, between homemade, cheap MDF, 3D printed, Games Workshop’s own plastic, and few others. One option for magnetically-based models is MinimagTRAY. These are thin, flat, steel trays that take up just as much space as they need to.

They come in a variety of sizes designed for use with 25mm or 30mm bases; so using some math you can figure out trays for your cavalry units as well.

Magnetising Models

You will absolutely need to magnetise your models bases to use these trays. More and more gamers are doing that anyway for storage and transport reasons (such as the humble RUB or higher-grade A-Cases) and it’s something that I’ve had to do recently for my dwarfs. Warhammer Dwarfs have the unique position of being very small and not having any large models so I hadn’t bothered doing this before; over 3k points of them fit perfectly one of the small, old, GW cases.

As far as Warhammer bases go I usually use N52 strength 6x2mm magnets for most models, lower strength like N35 will often work fine for lighter minis too. This can get expensive quick however so I’ve been using these on all my 25mm bases. Thankfully all dwarfs are on 25mm bases, as are the Tomb Kings I’m starting to work on too. They’re cheap, have great pull, and have been working perfectly in games with these Minimagtrays. This isn’t a review for those magnets, I just like them a lot and recommend them; I picked up like 300 of them for £25 or something, it’s great.

Why Trays?

If you’re newer to this sort of thing then you might be wondering why you need trays at all! And the short answer is: you don’t. Not really, anyways. You will quickly notice that the vast majority of people do use them though for nearly all units and for good reason: it’s a lot quicker and cleaner. When you’re shoving around multiple blocks of 20+ infantry, using trays is just easier.

Playing Old World? Or an older edition of Warhammer Fantasy? Or Kings of War? Or some other rank and file game that involves pushing around more than 3-6 squares at a time? Use movement trays. You’ll be happier with your gaming-life.

Sturdiness is Equal to Godliness

Or something.

And these are surprisingly sturdy, or at least I was (and continue to be) impressed. For how thin they are and how small that tab is to grab them by, I was concerned for how well they would hold up using my metal dwarf army on. I’ve now played half a dozen games with units of 10-20 metal dwarf models; the tabs don’t bend, the trays are solid, and they’re easy to move around. For lighter models like the few plastics my army has it’s even better!

I have had a warning from the maker though that while they’re sturdy they are still metal so bending that tab up and down numerous times will inevitably wear it out and eventually break. This warning came to me after I’d already done this about a dozen times to each of my trays, I don’t notice any wear yet but I won’t be doing it any more! They still fit in my backpack just fine with the tabs permanently standing at about a 120 degree angle from the tray.

The Edge of Battle

With traditional plastic or MDF movement trays the biggest issue you run into is their edges. Their border. The bits of plastic or MDF that stick out around the unit to keep the models in place. Long standing players of rank and flank games will be very accustomed to this and admittedly it is, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively minor fault. The more annoying portion is usually mid-game when you’ve lost half your unit and you have to start balancing other units/trays on top of your half empty one

This is one of the biggest benefits to these magentic trays: there’s no border. Your bases fit snug right up to the edges. Just look at this picture below, if these were “normal” MDF or plastic trays then their edges would likely get in the way of everything else happening. Don’t mind the pegasus knights which, on their own, don’t really work in ranking up for combat…

Not Just for Squares

I passed Lenoon, resident Historical-game-lover, some circle-based movement trays to play around with and he had some ideas on using these for something other than just 40k.

When Bair passed these over for me to have a look at, I initially thought, “so what, I multibase!” Then I had a good think and realised they were an excellent solution to a problem I was facing with my Napoleonic army: How to easily and comfortably move skirmishers and light troops around.

All my skirmishers are on single bases, making a massive contrast to my six-soldier multibases. But that means that the advantages of having a multibased army were completely wasted, because I’d spend ages moving individual soldiers around. The mini mag trays were a great solution – my individually based Flanquer-Chasseurs could be placed in appropriate skirmish order and moved en masse. Better yet, if they needed to pop back into line, they can slide right on to the larger ten man base!

With the tabs they’re easy to move ahead of the mass blocks of line, and in games where skirmishers are more or less a counter, are small enough to denote deployed skirmishers without getting in the way. This kind of magnetised base wasn’t really on my radar before, but I’m glad to have some – and more will follow – so that my Guard can skirmish with the best of them.

Verdict and What’s Next

These are just really good. You do pay for it so it’s worth playing a bit or chatting with some others about what size regiment trays you do want (for width especially, since depth is pretty easily added to with these) to run before picking up a load of trays you won’t use much. In my opinion, for Old World specifically I’m running primarily 6 or 7 wide units for infantry and think this will often do well for you.

Not a fan of the green? I wasn’t at first either but playing with it actually blends in much more than I expected. Still not sold? They’re coming in black sometime in the next week or so from time of posting (15th March 2024).

Do you use movement trays? Do you push all of your fantasy minis around without them? You can let us know in the comments below or email any questions in to contact@goonhammer.com