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Hey folks!

This question is for those of you who travel further than driving distance to attend large events.

I've got a PACK 1520, and am hesitant to check it on a plane - I've been considering shipping it to myself when I go somewhere; like for the Nova Open, shipping it to myself at the hotel so it will be there when I arrive. I'm concerned about my Battlefoam being tipped over, manhandled, models broken....

Any advice? Experience from other traveled tournament goers?

I love my battlefoam but there is no way in heck I would check my battlefoam bag!!!

I would possibly consider checking a pelican case that was hard exterior, but I worry about TSA 'opening' it and models falling out and then they not making any effort to put them back in their little holes.

If I had to do more than 'carry on' I think I would choose to ship them. It may be expensive, but the models will make it there in one piece. And I feel shipping has less of a chance of things going lost than airplanes.

Air travel is the one thing that keeps me from buying battlefoam. I always carry on to the plane. But I'm using the Sabol army transport, haven't found an overhead yet that it doesn't fit into.

The problem with shipping it to yourself is you run the same risks as checking it for the plane.

I drive to GT's as much as its pain in the butt at times. My reasoning a friends story.

A buddy, a former manager of a local GW store attends the company wide conference in Las Vegas. He checks his bag. Upon which he gets it back AFTER the airlines folks clear opened it to check it, then stuffed everything back in, breaking and damaging an entire 2500 pt Vampire Counts army rendering it useful.

The only way i'd ever fly with my army is to bring it on as a carry on and check the rest of my luggage. Current overhead comparments in US Airways fits a pretty nice carry on standard luggage... which ironically fits enough army transport trays to safely keep models safe if packed correctly. That way as long as you always know which way need to be up, your ok. The most important part is protecting your minatures from the open side of army transport, this usually takes some TLC with paper towels and getting creative with extra plug foam.

I would never check packed models.

Too many uncertainties. It's carry on or bust...

If you have a battlefoam bag they are expensive enough that you really should consider safety of the bag too, ironic as that is. 1520...canvas exterior...even if your models arrive safe (70/30 in your favor imo), I would wager your pack 1520 won't arrive unscathed. I'm sure you know why baggage "handlers" are referred to as "throwers"?

I flew from London to NYC the other week with a KR Multicase (card) full of models.

It travelled inside my 'main' suitcase, which is hard plastic, and was well padded by my clothes. I checked it at Heathrow, and had absolutely no damage at all when I got it back at JFK. (And this was an entirely metal and quite fragile army!) It was a seven hour flight, and there was no way I was sacrificing books, laptops and stuff just to take my KR case as carry-on.

However, from what I've seen of Battlefoam trays, the actual foam is a lot harder and the models have more wiggle room. In the KR trays the foam is very soft and the models are held very tight in their slots. I would imagine this means that the models have more potential for breakage when being thrown around in the Battlefoam case?

for adepticon I am checking my army. I am just bringing too many models for carry on. I have a direct flight and they fly several flights per day on this route and coming in a day and a half early. here is to hoping they don't get mangled

I would ship it.

Your checked bag just goes through too many hands to ensure that it is always handled properly.

Checker -> who knows how many handlers at the home airport -> who knows how many handlers at the destination -> the luggage trough.

With fedex or ups or whatever they are at least judged on how well and what condition your item arrives, something the airline really isnt.

Sooooo.. in short, if you are going to use battle foam and plan to travel, use an army that fits into a 432 or plan to turn on the charm to let the flight attendant let you put your 720 in their special luggage area near the cockpit. Provided the plane you are on even has one of these.

as long as the tsa doesn't screw it up. they should be fine. as they are in foam boxes inside of a samsonite hardside.
oh and it is free to check two bags on southwest.

IMO, you're going to have to find a way to take it with you on the flight... There are about as many horror stories from shipping your models somewhere as there are taking them on the flight with you.

My question to you is: Do you need to take all the models you have in the whole 1520 pack? If there is a way you could make use out of a 720 bag or smaller, you might be able to take it with you as a carry-on. When I went to Adepticon last year a couple of my teammates were able to bring their army in 432 cases and brought them as a carry-on bag which worked great.

If you absolutely had to check your army, I would pack it in a hard case that could be kicked, punched, dropped, ect to where you have enough piece of mind not to worry about it...

I always have my army as carry-on.

I can go a weekend without clothes (or at least buy some more) but I can't go without my army.

That is one of the factors that goes into what army I am going to play. The smaller the better (I also like playing small elite armies).

I have checked sabol cases (on the flight home if I pick up too much swag) and my army has come back ok. I just bought Battlefoam, but I would imagine that it would be ok as well.

A lot of people carry on what they can, and then pack the big stuff like tanks etc, in their luggage protected by foam and their clothes, and there is not much that TSA can do to harm them.

Blackmoor wrote:I always have my army as carry-on.

I can go a weekend without clothes (or at least buy some more) but I can't go without my army.

This. Of everything I travel with, my models are the hardest to replace.

blood angel wrote:I would ship it.

Your checked bag just goes through too many hands to ensure that it is always handled properly.

Checker -> who knows how many handlers at the home airport -> who knows how many handlers at the destination -> the luggage trough.

With fedex or ups or whatever they are at least judged on how well and what condition your item arrives, something the airline really isnt.

Sooooo.. in short, if you are going to use battle foam and plan to travel, use an army that fits into a 432 or plan to turn on the charm to let the flight attendant let you put your 720 in their special luggage area near the cockpit. Provided the plane you are on even has one of these.

I'm pretty shocked by this. I think common sense says that checking a bag is safer than shipping. Back in the day when everyone had to bring tower PCs to LANs, I heard it was common for people to take out motherboards and pack them between their clothes and the like. The above poster who mentioned putting a KR multicase inside a larger suitcase also sounded like a sound idea. Personally, I'd go that route Way sooner than shipping...

Easy answer.

1) Get loads of condoms
2) load mini's into condoms
3) swallow all the mini filled condoms you can
4) get a friend who owes you a favor to help shove the rest of the mini filled condoms where the sun don't shine
5) fly to your destination and remove the mini filled condoms.

Note: Vehicles and the like are placed in carry on luggage.


For seriousness, I would rather take them with me as opposed to shipping them, wrap them up well to ward off any rough handleing.

Kindov curious; is Battlefoam really that, well, 'loose'? The foam carrying cases I've seen for minis pressed against the sides of the models, meaning you could turn the case upside down and they wouldn't move, and the layers were packed into the soft or hard cases tight enough that there wasn't any wiggle room, so they could just be slung over a shoulder to transport.

Either you have a really delicate army, or a really expensive paintjob to leave your models loose in their carriers.

One thing to consider when worrying about airline baggage handlers tossing your stuff around is that the same thing happens when you ship your stuff. My friend is a driver for UPS and he worked on the loading lines for years and the stories he has told me about how packages are handled scare the hell out of me.

I think if I were to travel far to a tourney, I'd bring an army that I can pack into a case small enough to carry on the plane with me. That would mean leaving my DE and my beautiful new 1520XL at home.

Anvildude said: Kindov curious; is Battlefoam really that, well, 'loose'? The foam carrying cases I've seen for minis pressed against the sides of the models, meaning you could turn the case upside down and they wouldn't move, and the layers were packed into the soft or hard cases tight enough that there wasn't any wiggle room, so they could just be slung over a shoulder to transport.

Either you have a really delicate army, or a really expensive paintjob to leave your models loose in their carriers.

I recently got my first Battlefoam bag and I can understand the comments about the trays seeming a liitle loose. The most obvious instance are the DE wyches tray and the DE warriors tray. Both are cut nicely with different sized cuts to accomodate different weapons but both trays are 1.5 inches thick. They are a little deep for the troops. I think they could have gotten away with 1 inch or 1.25 inch trays and the fit would be a little better.

At the very least with shipping you can usually pay for some sort of insurance, with some of the airlines around here asking for 35-50$ for extra checked bags it's not even really that bad of a bargain to just send it. If I were going anywhere far enough away that I had to fly I would ship my models to my room.

Standard dimensions for a carry on bag at 22" x 14" x 9".

Sabol Army Transport's exterior dimensions are ~14" x 13.5" x 9" (a little over that last dimension when you stuff the pockets with dice and stuff, as I have a bad habit of doing). It fits very well into carryon, and that's been my standard solution for several years.

Battlefoam's PACK 432 is listed at 16" x 12" x 7.5" (though they also say it takes 7.5" of foam, so those must be interior dimensions) so should work fine too, though I think the slightly shorter long axis and thicker narrow axis of Sabol's bag actually suits a lot of overhead bins a little better. I haven't done a side-by-side comparison at the overhead bin yet, though.

Shipping or checking can both work if you pack your minis very well, have extra padding, and a hard-sided box. But when you're talking about using those minis being the very point of the trip, for my money, you want the peace of mind of actually having them in your physical presence.

If you're flying a direct route with several flights a day and getting there at least a day in advance (like skkipper), checking is pretty safe too, provided you go for the extra-safe packing I mentioned above.

RiTides wrote:

blood angel wrote:I would ship it.

Your checked bag just goes through too many hands to ensure that it is always handled properly.

Checker -> who knows how many handlers at the home airport -> who knows how many handlers at the destination -> the luggage trough.

With fedex or ups or whatever they are at least judged on how well and what condition your item arrives, something the airline really isnt.

Sooooo.. in short, if you are going to use battle foam and plan to travel, use an army that fits into a 432 or plan to turn on the charm to let the flight attendant let you put your 720 in their special luggage area near the cockpit. Provided the plane you are on even has one of these.

I'm pretty shocked by this. I think common sense says that checking a bag is safer than shipping. Back in the day when everyone had to bring tower PCs to LANs, I heard it was common for people to take out motherboards and pack them between their clothes and the like. The above poster who mentioned putting a KR multicase inside a larger suitcase also sounded like a sound idea. Personally, I'd go that route Way sooner than shipping...

See the problem is that when you check a bag the TSA will sometimes open your bag and rifle through your belongings and then close it and smash all your minis. When you ship something they aren't allowed to do that (unless it smells like cocaine or plutonium).

So it really doesn't matter how well you pack your bag when you check it. It might get searched and when it does your mini's have a good chance of getting destroyed.

Yeah. Kevin Nash just beat me to it.

You can pack an army well enough to withstand a few kicks and tosses, but what you can't control is your checked bag passing through a metal detector, generating suspicion, being opened with callous disregard for fragility and value, rifled through, re-sealed incorrectly, THEN kicked and tossed.

Ship or carry on.

As a former UPS employee I would advise you to NEVER send models through UPS. The simple fact of the matter is that if sent UPS, at some point, your box will have thousands of pounds of other boxes weighing down upon it. Shortly after it will be smashed into a wall of other boxes by an underpaid package handler who doesn't give a crap about your package =(

A PACK 1520 is definitely too big to carry-on, so it sounds like I'm going to be SHIPPING!

xtceze, the last time I sent my Battlefoam somewhere via UPS, I got $1,000 worth of insurance and they put a little red dot on my box to indicate that it was highly insured. I took pictures too, just in case.

Kevin, good to see you - I'd been wondering if you were still on Dakka.

My advice would be never to ship them. I sent all my 40k and LOTR from my old home to my new one via the postal service. THey lost them all. I talked to postmasters everywhere and at every level. they said they had no idea where my models were. NO IDEA. :(

A full month later the missing box arrived. It had been labeled clearly that it was fragile etc. The box was crushed on all six sides, had holes punched in it and many of my models inside were broken. WHen i talked to the postal service they only shrugged. Dont take chances. Pack them and send them through the airlines as luggage.

sennacherib wrote:My advice would be never to ship them. I sent all my 40k and LOTR from my old home to my new one via the postal service. THey lost them all. I talked to postmasters everywhere and at every level. they said they had no idea where my models were. NO IDEA. :(

A full month later the missing box arrived. It had been labeled clearly that it was fragile etc. The box was crushed on all six sides, had holes punched in it and many of my models inside were broken. WHen i talked to the postal service they only shrugged. Dont take chances. Pack them and send them through the airlines as luggage.

Did you have insurance on it?

With checked luggage, what I worry about is not having my luggage searched, but just not arriving.

Luggage gets lost all of the time. There were a couple of people at tournaments that arrived and there luggage did not.

I would feel better about shipping my army than checking it. With modern shipment tracking I would feel better about it, or maybe it is just a false sense of security.

I refuse to fly without being able to see my army case. Same with my laptop. No fething way, no how. A thousand dollars worth of models, including a bunch of irreplaceable very out of print, is not going anywhere I can't see them regularly. I can replace my clothes easily. I can't replace my laptop or my miniatures.

I think I understand about the Battlefoam now. I didn't realize they actually made foam with specific cutouts in the shapes of the models. The foam I've always seen was the kind where you pop the little square columns out.

Without the 'perfect indentation' (which should't really work for non-metal models anyways, should it?) the foam is tight enough to actually squeeze around the model. Most of the sheets seem to be either 2-4" thick, or about 1" thick.

Heh, maybe the 'high end' expensive stuff works worse than cheaper, do it yourself materials?

My issue is 100% of the planes I have ever flown on quickly fill up the overhead compartments and the second those are full, the sad sacks who are the last to board have their carry-on bags ripped from them and thrown to the tarmac to be stuffed up under the plane.

Woe be to people who carry on models and are in boarding group C or D!

I am surprised someone hasn't come up with a case designed for shipping figures by mail. It just needs to be light and durable and can even be a cardboard box... Imagine a cardboard box with 2" of foam inside that then fits regular trays in the middle part. Reusable to a point and light enough not to have a ton of shipping fees.

nkelsch wrote:My issue is 100% of the planes I have ever flown on quickly fill up the overhead compartments and the second those are full, the sad sacks who are the last to board have their carry-on bags ripped from them and thrown to the tarmac to be stuffed up under the plane.

Woe be to people who carry on models and are in boarding group C or D!

Then pay the $10 for early check-in on Southwest. (And don't fly the other airlines.)

@Dash

I always go with carry on for the minis I am using. If the army I am taking an army that cannot fit into a single carry on, then I ship. I dont ship with USPS, I go with Fed Ex and ship out the package to the hotel a day before you arrive (just in case they deliver a day late). Notify the hotel that they will be receiving a package for you and to hold on to it until you check in. Also when your done with the tournament on Sunday, you can then repackage it and take it to a fed ex (they are open sundays but they dont ship till monday) and fly back home. I also insure the hell out of the package and put up to $1,000.00 for it.

Scott Simpson used to take a train to the major destinations and it allowed him to ride with his entire army in tow, I only recommend it if you have the time for that kind of travel.