magnetizing options
magnetizing options that is a project i have not undertaken for a long time a very long time
hey guys jay here welcome to eons of battle let's talk about magnets do magnets go on miniatures
like peanut butter goes in an oreo cookie or is it more trouble than it's worth i don't really know
i used to do a lot of magnetization back in the day but recently i haven't been doing much of any
usually i would just rather have a lot more models on the display shelves than just a couple
of models and a little baggie of amputated arms also some armies are easy to magnetize
because they have big chunky joints like the space marines and some are nearly impossible
because their models are small and delicate like the sisters of battle and the gene stealer cults
but sometimes magnetization makes a lot of sense vehicles are a prime candidate for magnets because
they are so big it makes it easy to hide stuff like these goliath rock grinders i have lots of
magnets in here all perfectly hidden and i don't think i could bring myself to build centurions and
just glue them together the kit is so expensive and has so many options that for me it's worth it
to get easy access to all options like the heavy bolters last cannons and close combat drills
and i think i found another perfect project to make use of the magnet
a space marine death watch kill team not only is this an army i've had my eye on for a while but
it is a perfect candidate to show you fine folks everything i know about magnetization
i've had these models sitting around forever and it's time to actually get them done
i have my models but what to do with them before i get started
cutting out anything i figure i ought to know exactly what i am doing so i'm
going to put these sprues aside for just a moment and do a little bit of
list building it's really important to know what you're doing magnetization takes forever you don't
want to waste any time so i broke out a piece of paper and got to work a death watch kill team
is made up of five operatives a death watch vet sergeant a vet warrior a vet fighter a vet gunner
and a vet heavy gunner then i listed out every weapon loadout that i thought i would like to
take in games this way i know what i will need and i can catch any duplicates that would be redundant
i don't want to put in the work of building two plasma guns if i can only have it on one guy at a
time i carefully read through the rules and picked out all the weapons that applied i am not doing
everything as some options are just better than others and some don't fit my playstyle i really
really like list building and kill team 21 and i feel like it lends itself a lot more to having
all the magnetized options back in the previous edition of kill team it was based on a points
limit and that usually meant that you never wanted to spend big points to get the big cool awesome
weapons it was always usually more beneficial to spend all of your points to give as many models as
you could the most medium weapon that was usually the best strategy but now in kill team 21 because
you just pick things off of a list it is perfectly fine to have everything available to you and you
just pick whatever you want try things out it's all on the table and that i think is really really
cool now that i had all my weapons in front of me i highlighted all the weapons that are two-handed
with yellow and the one-handed weapons with orange just a little more bookkeeping so that
i don't have to think about anything other than putting magnets in arms down the road
alright i think i've got this all figured out one two three four five six seven eight
nine ten eleven twelve thirty fourteen fifteen cities eighteen weapons spread across five guys
i think that these guys are a prime candidate for magnetization now that i know exactly
what i'm doing i can now move on to putting them together and it's super important that i did this
because now i've discovered that one of the guys i can just glue together no magnetization needed
i began clipping out my dudes i always use my nippers a little bit away from the model so
that it's not a flush cut i get that perfect flush job later when i use my hobby knife i like to grab
everything i need and make myself little piles of dudes so that i don't have to keep returning
to the sprue over and over next up was cleaning i take my knife out and cut straight towards my
fingers no this is not dangerous i actually don't put any force behind the hand holding the knife
and instead i push the knife blade with my thumb that is holding the model this gives me lots of
control and is how i find hobby knives comfortable and safe to use to clean my mold lines i like to
make many many small soft scrapes i find that this works out better for me than a couple long hard
scrapes then i wipe away the crumbs and check if i did a good enough job or if i have more work to do
i go back and forth on whether i like building models or if i think it's annoying sometimes i'm
in the mood for painting only and i think building is just a frustrating speed bump and sometimes i
have no interest in painting and i just want to sit and scrape mold lines while watching seinfeld
to glue plastic models together i have two of the same glues tamiya extra thin cement and tamiya
extra thick cement i like to use extra thin on areas like this torso where the fit is perfect and
every piece of part a is in contact with part b contact is the most important thing when using
plastic glue on areas like these legs where the fit is not quite as good that's when i break out
the extra thick the melted sprue inside the thick cement adds in more surface area and improves the
quality of the bond tamiya extra thick cement is just thin with about two or three inches of sprue
thrown in and allowed to dissolve i also decided to scrape off the imperialis from the torso of
these models i want to add in my own death watch decorations none of this common loyalist garbage
the death watch are the cool kids who get all the best stuff i just finished cleaning up all of the
armors i actually found some reaver bodies that i've decided to throw into the mix the death watch
are the tacticool chapters so i think having a few different armor loadouts is going to look really
really cool and now all i have to do is throw these up on some handles and then clean and prep
the 18 weapon loadouts i prepared my favorite paint handles little one-inch cubes of wood with
some 3m 3 4 inch double stick foam tape and stuck them together then it came the very satisfying
peeling of the plastic tape preserver and then my sticky holder downers were ready for some models
i stuck on my fellas i really like these the size is very comfortable for my hands and the tape is
surprisingly strong and doesn't leave any residue it is truly the perfect product for holding down
models i looked back on my paperwork to find out what parts i needed and then i got out my sprues
and hunted down those weapons i found what i needed clipped them out cleaned them and prepared
them for the laborious process of putting magnets in them magnets might be a bit challenging but you
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now with that said let's get ready to magnet magnetization can be a tricky process especially
on small infantry models because there's just not a lot of room to work with now you might think
that the best option would be to cut the model at the wrist and then hide your magnet there and it
definitely seems like the most practical solution but let me explain why that might not be the best
solution when magnetizing minis dynamic cool poses can be something that has to be sacrificed in the
name of modularity if i put the magnet here at the wrist i am committing to a straight forearm pose
with all his left-handed options more convenient and more modular but looks less good in my opinion
if i glue the gun and arms and shoulders all together then i get the cool pose i want but i
have more painting to do on the back end it's more work but it's how i want to tackle this project
as you can see i can get some really good dynamic poses if i incorporate the arms and shoulders into
the weapons much better than just a wrist swap here's an example of a wrist magnet job and it
works it's a little bit floppy it looks alright with a gun but it doesn't make for the most
impressive sword pose it's just not the perfect thing for this mini but that's not always the rule
this tactical marine has a great two-handed grip on the gun and this makes for a really
good wrist magnet job as his left hand keeps the gun straight and secure you have to really think
about what you want and how you can achieve it to get best results so i have my plan of attack and
i know exactly how i want to install my magnets so now let me introduce you to my favorite magnet
sizes i use three sizes of magnets for 99 of my magnetization projects
i use these tiny little 1.5 millimeter by 1.5 millimeter disc magnets for tiny tiny little
things like wrists heads and props these are good enough but i like to use bigger magnets when i can
for larger connections i like these three millimeter by 1.5 millimeter disc magnets
these are what i use probably eighty percent of the time they have a good strong hold and don't
let in a lot of wiggle and for big things like vehicle weapons i like these big chunker six
millimeter by one point five millimeter magnets these could hold your minis up on the fridge
to sync my magnets i started by making myself a pilot hole by poking my hobby knife right in
the middle and giving it a twist quick tip this is also a good way to drill gun barrels then i broke
out a drill bit that is the exact same diameter as my magnets for these guys three millimeter will do
the job right i use my hand drill for this i don't like drilling into models with a dremel or power
drill it's just too much oomph i feel like i'm not in control of the drilling then i took out
my magnets i always worry a lot about messing up the polarity because it is a project or sometimes
impossible to get that magnet back out and try again so i like to take all the magnets that i'll
be using and mark one side so that i can tell at a glance what is what i put a drop of super glue
into the hole and then slid in my magnets holding onto them as a stack and then once i felt the glue
begin to hold i slid the stack away leaving behind one magnet that i poked into position
then i just repeated the process until they were all magnetized to keep things simple i did all
the magnets the same polarity nothing different with the right and left arms they are all the same
magnetizing is the same process for the arms but a little trickier as there is less to hold onto
i started by making a pilot hole with my hobby knife to help keep my drill bit on target the
drill is going to want to follow the path of least resistance so it's important to go very very slow
you don't want the drill bit to grab onto the model and start tearing out plastic
you basically want to slowly shave down a hole the waste plastic made from drilling
shouldn't look like a small plastic spring but instead should look like dust
and if you find your drill bit wants to wander you can stop and fix the hole with your hobby
knife smoothing it out so the drill can continue to cut right where you want it another reason to
drill slowly is that you are relying on finger pinch string to hold the part and if your drill
bit is biting too hard the model will slip from your grasp now for the magnets i am super paranoid
so i stick the magnet onto the torso so i know 100 it's in the proper orientation then i put a dollop
of super glue into my armhole and then i squish it onto the magnet then quickly slide them apart
i poked it into position and let it dry i find that doing it this way gives me the best chance
of getting a good flush connection versus just inserting a magnet straight into the arm
i have my torsos magnetized and i am working on getting the arms magnetized up
now it's time to finish building some of the last weapon options and for these i am worried
that the connection will be too weak with just a super glue or plastic glue bond i want to glue
this big old gun to his little wrist so i think pinning is in order i took some metal rod and a
drill bit the exact same size and began drilling holes in the same spot on the wrist and the gun
then i inserted my rod and clipped it at around a quarter inch or less of stick out
then i stuck on the plasma gun and now i have a super strong connection with no danger of snapping
no matter how rough i am with my models while i was working i kept close track of my original
paperwork and as i knocked out my weapon options i added them to the list this helped me stay on
track and not accidentally overbuild on any of the options that took a while it takes a long
time to get the models as modular as i wanted them to be but also look as good as i wanted to be but
now all 18 options are done and built so now comes the fun part decorating them space marines are the
best of the best of the best and the death watch veterans are the best of the best of the best
of the best they're gonna have a lot of bits for the heads i decided bear heads i need the practice
in painting naked heads and i think it'll make my death watch veteran stand out on the chests i
plastic glued some grenades from the space marine infiltrators kit that i had lying around who says
primaries have to be boring i put holstered bolt pistols on all the legs and don't these look
suspiciously like last pistols perhaps a holdover from rogue trader i found lots of great little
dangly bits that i sprinkled here and there these are trophies of my warriors many many great deeds
on the heavy gunner i decided to give him a big old knife with an easy reach
and of course how can i forget about the backpacks space marines can't leave home without them
with all the decorations on there oh yeah these might be the finest space marines i have ever made
my models are done being built and now allow me to let you in on my plan
of attack for the different magnetized options for these kill team operatives
i suppose you would call this loadout the take all comers list it has a good balance of death
watch both guns versus special weapons on the close combat fighters and the frag cannon on the
heavy but really there is no such thing as a true take all comers list especially in kill team next
up the bolter spam this loadout maximizes the potential number of shots with a special issue
ammunition with every guy in the squad having a bolt gun and the sergeant will get two ups to hit
on his bolt gun and can get one shot off with his kami plasma once a game to delete tougher targets
and last but not least maximum damage with this loadout i have the most possible high
damage weapons in the xenophase blade on the sergeant plasma gun guy on the veteran gunner
and frag cannon on the heavy i can't wait to slice up marine equivalents with this team but
that is my deathwatch kill team i had a great time building these guys and i can't wait to see what
they do in game i think having all those options is going to make them play really really well but
now i need your help i need some names i have a sergeant a warrior a fighter a gunner and a heavy
gunner and they all need names so please in the comments below give me some name suggestions bye