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I have always wanted to have a decent way to take my army to my flgs, however I never have had enough money to buy battle foam or the GW troop cases. I did however have an old ammunition box laying around my house as well as a chunk of polystyrene left over from several terrain projects.




This is the box that I have converted to carry my army. I think it is Vietnam War era but I am not 100% sure.



As I was trying to do this project for very little cost, I just used the board that I had leftover from another project. The total cost of the board was $11 dollars from Lowes. (A US home improvement store) The board was approximately 4 feet by 10 feet. In other words you get a good chunk for your money.



I decided to layer the bottom of the box with a portion of the board as it was not a smooth surface and was metal. I attached it with hot glue. I am sure you can use other types of glue, however you will have to wait longer for the peaces to set, and apply pressure for a longer period of time.



This is where I got a little sloppy, as I was running out of board I just modified the random chunks I had left. An easy fix for the problem would have been to map out all my cuts on the board before I started cutting. Another thing I realized that would have made this project look a lot better would have been to map out the dividers on each section with a sharpie, so the case had some uniformity in its pattern.



The top layer was completely constructed out of the scraps from the other two layers. Overall The case holds 1 land raider, 3 predators, 2 vindicators and 3 razorbacks, 33 marine variants, 6 bikes and 1 attack bike. While it may look messy on the inside it does its job very well, I have had it slide all across my trunk and my army showed no signs of damage, however I would not go as far as to perform a droptest, as I am 100% sure that something on the inside would break. Hope this helps someone else get a project of the ground.

How does the paint fare? Does it chip during transportation and so on?

A good idea! I suppose if you don't have an old Vietnam era ammo case knocking about you could use an old suitcase instead

The paint hasn't chipped at all, i gave the models a little bit of space especially on the height. They do shift but not more than 1/8 of an inch.

I'm sure it will work with any suitcase or box shaped item you have sitting idle around your house.

Another idea besides polystyrene is the foam they use in couch cushions.

This can be found by A) cutting up your neighbors couch B) local thrift stores C) you can actually buy the stuff really cheap brand new from hobby stores like hobby lobby michaels.

Also found at hobby lobby is jewerly making material cases. They are about 2$ and look similar to a fishing tackle box. (which, is also a good case, but usually a bit more costly)

" I did however have an old ammunition box laying around my house"

That's not cheap...

Cheers for the tutorial but if you want to advertise cheap you should at least have everything purchseable from a store.

Fair enough, I meant cheap as in stuff I had around the house. Regional vocabularies I guess. In all fairness though it is amazing what you can find at local thrift shops, at least in the US.

I have 2 of those, they are 80mm mortar cases iirc. Ive been thinking of getting custom cut foam from bf to store my minis, but considering the case weighs 20lbs empty....

Nice tutorial, but those ammo cases can be pretty heavy as the poster above me has alluded to. That said, the theory behind using polystyrene is the same regardless of what case you use, so this is a useful tutorial, thanks!

Useful idea. Ammo boxes aren't light but are way cool I'd love to turn up for a game with one of those. I've a tackle type box that I'll convert once I can track down some foam...

I have a few ammo boxes laying around... I will have to try this great thing about them is they are tough as nails and depending on the era and style also watertight .

 Vivalabuffalo wrote:
I did however have an old ammunition box laying around my house

That can only happen in USA jealous in a way

 suspiratus wrote:

 Vivalabuffalo wrote:
I did however have an old ammunition box laying around my house

That can only happen in USA jealous in a way

So true suspiratus, so true.

I have one of those too! And Battlefoam fits in those like a glove!

No wonder you can't afford a ready made case with those millions of tanks

you also could have stuck magnets to the bottom of your minis and stuck them to the side of the box. Im thinking about doing that for my deathwing.....now....to find the time to do that.

How is it possible that I havent tought about that! There is store selling all kinds of army-stuff near me, and they have .50cal ammoboxes there for pretty cheap. Some paint and I have laspack-case complete with aquila for transporting my minis

It's good to see that people aren't buying the GW cases.


anyways, a themed transport case has always been an idea of mine. infact, I have a British surplus ammo crate for my large IG army and a cheap 80 riyal (15 quid, don't know dollar conversion) treasure chest for my freebooter army. Waaarrgh!

Thank god we've got a few army surplus stores in my local area. I should be able to pick up an old ammo crate and some kind of foam pretty cheap.

Cheers for the idea, I can finally carry my FoW safely!

suspiratus wrote:

 Vivalabuffalo wrote:
I did however have an old ammunition box laying around my house

That can only happen in USA jealous in a way

TechmarineNic wrote:

 suspiratus wrote:

 Vivalabuffalo wrote:
I did however have an old ammunition box laying around my house

That can only happen in USA jealous in a way

So true suspiratus, so true.

You Brits are just jealous cause the last time you used Ammo boxes they were full of cookies. And you wouldn't even share with Ashantis.

I am so building some of these for my IG Army. Also going to build a "box" to slide into my Alice pack, should look pretty epic with the Cadian armor i'm making.

Nice idea!

I however will point out that ammo sales here have caused ammo to become scarce. If by chance you leave the can in your vehicle, and or were burglarized at your house... a thief might think they are getting ammo and snatch it where they might not have done so if not look like "ammo" can...

Also, with ammo being sold like hotcakes in the US... you might have hard time finding cans or the prices go up due to people hording ammo and wanting to put in ammo cans etc.

That is just my 2 cents and why i love the idea and think its cool i will not put my figures in ammo can, tool box, or gun case for same reason .

No i am not saying that if figures were in a figure case and or where someone might know what they were might still not take them... just saying it would reduce maybe the quick grab n take of them.

Look forward to seeing some more pics with the can though with different things people do with them .

Great idea! i have a military case as well, but its like 3 1/2 feet wide and ohmost 2 ft deep...maybe if i was playing apocalypse
anyways what type of board did you get from lowes?