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So I plan on magnetizing both my Dark Elves and my High Elves. Problem is I have no reference point to guide me.
How do YOU personally magnetize your bases? Rare earths? Cheap wal marts? How do you get your magnets to stick to the base? What glue?

HALP!

I use bog standard rare eath magnets (the ones that maelstrom games sells) stuck on with superglue. I add a small piece of card into the base so that the magnet will be closer to the ground, then just superglue the magnet to the card.

Then I have a couple of metal trays that I stick my models to while carrying them around.

If you want to go the extra mile, there are magnetic strips you can buy which you can turn into magnetic movement trays. This will give you extra sticking power if you add magnets to the bases of you models as well, rather than just a small piece of metal.

There are also pre-made magnetic bases which you can buy as well, though I imagine they would work out quite expensive.

Premade magnetic sets are about $9 per unit which I'd rather not spend, and the fact that I'm using custom resin bases. I'll have to drill out holes for the magnets.

My biggest questions are what metal do I line my movement tray with and will the rare earth magnets hold stronger than the glue( meaning when I pick up my model the magnet stays put and comes off the base).

I went into B&Q (hardware store) and looked in their metal section and tested the metals they had there with the magnets I was going to use for my models. A couple of pretty big sheets of magnetic metal were £7ish each and are easily enough to hold 2-3000 points of CSM between them.

Off the top of my head they were probably something like 20cm by 50cm by about 3mm thick.

The magnets I have are strong enough to hold almost all of the models on the metal up to about 30 degrees of tilt, and almost all of the plastic models upside down (it is the sideways sliding forces they don't handle too well - a ruberised surface coating on the metal may help with this).

I found that metal models required at least 2 magnets to hold them on the metal securely enough to not fall over (with metal raptors - the top heavy beggers that they are needing to really be packed in between vehicles or similar to stop them from falling over).

Larger characters like my DP's and Summoned Greater Daemon have between 3 and 5 magnets holding them on and they are pretty secure.

I've not had a problem with magnets coming away, though I do advise drilling your holes shallow enough so that the magnet is as close to the metal surface as possible - some of my least secure models are ones where the card I used was not quite thick enough and the magnet is a little too far away to hold as strongly as it could.

3mm metal sounds pretty heavy.

Good to know that superglue will hold the magnets with no real issues.

I'll have to make a trip down to the hardware store and test some out for myself.

Sorry, now that you mention it it is probably more like 1.5-2mm. I was trying to remember off the top of my head and I don't have a ruler to check just how big 3mm actually is

I wanted it quite thick so I could carry the plates round without them bending too much. The thinner plates seemed to hold the magnets fairly well too though.

Look for flashing in the roofing section. Be sure to take a magnet with you too. I found small sheets of modelling tin that fit my trays perfectly, but I''ve also used the flashing.