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Hello,

Having never played any game that use that block of minis style of movement or trays, i would like those who already played them to tell me if they are too difficult to handle, specially when there's 3d terrain to manage.

Game on,

Keraun0s, Keeper of the Cookies.

I've played them going on thirty years. I don't find them cumbersome. I rather enjoy them.

There are all kinds of tricks you can use to make it easier to handle. My favorite is gluing washers on the bottom of the bases and then magnetizing movement trays.

 auticus wrote:
I've played them going on thirty years. I don't find them cumbersome. I rather enjoy them.

There are all kinds of tricks you can use to make it easier to handle. My favorite is gluing washers on the bottom of the bases and then magnetizing movement trays.

If you want a good time with 3d terrain my advice lies alongside this. Magnetised rank and file bases are a blessing.

Yup.
Magnetise movement trays, use unit fillers and take a block friendly approach to terrain building with removable trees, walls and stepped hills.
When all of this is sorted it's super easy to move your models around as usually there will only be a dozen or so elements per side.

Keraun0s wrote:
Hello,

Having never played any game that use that block of minis style of movement or trays, i would like those who already played them to tell me if they are too difficult to handle, specially when there's 3d terrain to manage.

Game on,

Keraun0s, Keeper of the Cookies.

Moving six trays is infinitely less cumbersome than trying to move a hundred individual round base. I don't see how anyone could think otherwise.

I ussually transported the, in individual boxes already ranked up so I didn't have to disassemble them after each game, too.

I really like the way Kings of War doesn't require you to remove models, so you can create neat little dioramas with each unit. It also really helps cut down on the cumbersomeness.

Best way to get an idea is to watch some video battle reports, here's one where they film the actual moving of minis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80yfTlGm2cg

I think rank and file like WHFB (removing models) are cumbersome, but the way virtually everything else does it (blocks with certain dimensions) isn't bad, and arguably better because as Raatcharch says it lets you do dioramas on the bases, and you don't actually need to have like 20 guys on a base, since the number of models doesn't matter it's the size of the base; could be a neat way to stretch models further by having like 10 guys on a 20-model sized base in a neat diorama, so you can get two units of 20 instead of one unit, since the base size determines the number.

I don't find it cumbersome at all. Even if you have to remove models, compared to a game like 40k, WHFB is a dream. Instead of 50 individual models to move, you just move a handful of movement trays. Model removal is usually only a few models at a time so it doesn't take much time out of the game (unlike the movement phase in a game made of loose formations where the movement phase can take bloody forever).

I don't even have my models magnetised, it's a few minutes extra setup time at the start of the game and a few extra minutes at the end, no biggie really given it'd probably take me a day to magnetise all my models

I just make custom sized movement trays with a sheet of plasticard and a few strips of quarter round plastic...

https://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=quarter%20round%20evergreen

I only played a few games of 40k with my Tyranids because it's just an exercise in boredom moving all those models, rank and file games are much less painful.

Just don't try and play them without movement trays.

Yes, movement trays are a blessing, not a curse.

I agree movement bases are way better than moving models individually.

More agreement, here. Also, the "regimental bases," where you have 4 guys on one base were awesome when forming large blocks of skaven, which also come off in handfuls when they start taking a beating.

It comes down to the individual.

Some people will think it's cumbersome no matter how easy you make it, and some will think it's fine even though they've made it hard on themselves.

Most of us fall somewhere in the middle; we recognize the places where things CAN get cumbersome and take steps to minimize or eliminate it.

I only think its cumbersome without the movement trays.

Back in the day, we had a game called Legend of the Five Rings. They didn't have movement trays.... People ended up making their own out of balsa wood.
Needless to say, it gets rough without them. without the movement trays, you have to mark the backs of the mini's as well, so when they start bleeding into each other, you can tell the units apart. With the movement trays terrain, as well, is not an issue. You just move the terrain, or side move the unit around it.

Last point is that the units themselves don't honestly last long... You whittle them down quickly, either in History or large scale combat games...

As long as you are willing to create magnetized movement trays for your units its not cumbersome at all.

dosiere wrote:
As long as you are willing to create magnetized movement trays for your units its not cumbersome at all.

Magnets, how do they work?

hobojebus wrote:

dosiere wrote:
As long as you are willing to create magnetized movement trays for your units its not cumbersome at all.

Magnets, how do they work?

http://shogunminiatures.com/index.html

Check out this guys product. It just makes life so much easier for storage, transport, and playing.

Movement wise not cumbersome no.

Does put some limit to kind of terrain you can have but then again if game involves rank and file odds are historically battles weren't fought in kind of terrain where such terrain limitations would really be of an issue.

 Chute82 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

dosiere wrote:
As long as you are willing to create magnetized movement trays for your units its not cumbersome at all.

Magnets, how do they work?

http://shogunminiatures.com/index.html

Check out this guys product. It just makes life so much easier for storage, transport, and playing.

It's from an insane clown posse song...damn kids today got no respect for the classics.

Whoop whoop....

 Grot 6 wrote:
I only think its cumbersome without the movement trays.

Back in the day, we had a game called Legend of the Five Rings. They didn't have movement trays.... People ended up making their own out of balsa wood.
Needless to say, it gets rough without them. without the movement trays, you have to mark the backs of the mini's as well, so when they start bleeding into each other, you can tell the units apart. With the movement trays terrain, as well, is not an issue. You just move the terrain, or side move the unit around it.

Last point is that the units themselves don't honestly last long... You whittle them down quickly, either in History or large scale combat games...

Wow, you actually played a game of L5R? Amazing. The Daimyo Edition rules are a mess, but the fluff is so good.

As to the OP, moving blocks of units around is not tedious at all, I find it much less tedious than moving every individual model in an army.

That is probably why when playing a skirmish type game I only measure the first model I move in a unit, the rest of the unit is simply placed behind the first.

When a ruleset is based around massed R&F formations, it's not cumbersome at all (I've seen Hail Caesar, DBA and Black Powder games).

When you try to shoehorn 40+ man units into a skirmish game, it becomes fething awful.