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So, my buddy has KR and BF was explaining how much softer the KR foam is. He was saying the BF foam is more firm and "grabby" and often he finds bits broken off of his troops. And when he took the troops out of the BF cases, he showed me where several of the models lost arms or weapons or were broken in half. Has anyone had a similar experience?

What are the pros and cons of KR and BF? Not trying to start a flame war here, just would like to know the advantage/disadvantages of each.





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IDK about KR and BF specifically, yet foam that has pockets for the models will rarely cause a breakage while contoured foam (a lot of my cases have ripple pattern foam) will sometimes cause a simple break because it is pressing on the models. Simple physics. I still use the ripple foam as it is cheap and easily available and works OK for small infantry models.

BF is a sturdier foam than the others. The advantage of BF is that you can get custom cut trays of foam. The advantage of others is that their foam is generally a lot cheaper. If you want pluck-foam, I suggest you avoid BF if you can. If you want custom foam, then BF is the way to go.

I've never had a problem with either type breaking my models except where I tried to force a complicated (dynamically posed) model into a spot where it really had no business being put in the first place.

IT is expensive and hard to find ones for your army.

Breotan, which other company would you recommend? That won't gouge for shipping, that is...

what is KR?

That's literally the name of the company. KR. KR Multicases. They seem to have a pretty diverse lineup, but their site is hard to navigate, imho.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://www.krmulticase.com/

I've got some pretty fragile models, and I use Battlefoam. I've never had a model break save for once, and that was after someone dropped a bicycle on top of the upper tray. (And as a side note, only one model broke, and the breakage was confined to a single cracked wrist.) Never used KR. All foam has always struck me as being expensive. Just my observations.

Never had a broken model in my BattleFoam. I use it for everything.

I've had broken models in my BF, and every one has been MY fault for putting the model in a spot where it shouldn't be.

BF foam is sturdier and more rigid. It will protect your models.
KR foam is soft and "mushy" it doesn't protect your models well at all. KR's model protection is in the cases (which I do not like as much as BF).

I do not own KR, but i own a non-KR tray that uses the same style foam. I also own Reaper foam, Sabol cases & foam, Chessex cases & an old school "tool/tackle" box looking case with foam trays by some long OOP manufacturer. BF is by far my favorite.

Eric

KR = Kaiser Rushforth. They're very very good. Especially their aluminium cases.

 MagickalMemories wrote:
...
KR foam is soft and "mushy" it doesn't protect your models well at all. KR's model protection is in the cases (which I do not like as much....
Eric

Sorry chum this simply isn't true.

While I agree the foam is softer, it offers ample support for miniature within the case. The many KR cases I own and the many events I have been to have never resulted in any damage. KR offers top class product for a range of budget.

I also own and like BF product but where as KR are purely about function, BF focus as well on form and you pay a premium for this.

Yeah, KR isn't short of protection.

My only issue with it is it 'hugs' models, whilst Battlefoam has rigid holes that models sit in with wiggle room. I invariably end up picking armies where hugging foam would be terrible (lots of fragile spikey bits or thin limbs with sharp parts to catch on hugging foam), so Battlefoam ends up being the safer option for me.

I found the battlefoam cases to be just terrible. I got it for my orks, and almost every one of them doesnt fit into slots that they're meant to, and their arms are sticking out. Not to mention that the bike slots dont even fit any of the bikes unless you put them in vertically.. Along with the foam being very very hard, i dont trust the case at all, and i dread using it.

Then i got a KR case for my space wolves. Everything fits perfectly, even the arms on the models dont stick out. The slots for the models are great, and the foam is soft, so i dont have any trouble getting the models in or our, and i dont have to worry about any kind of breakage.
That and KR is so damned much cheaper, and such better customer service

I have an army transport case and an older standard GW case. Both are good.

However my collection of miniatures far outstrips my carrying capacity. And I don't think I will ever be able to transport all of it well.

 amrogers3 wrote:
He was saying the BF foam is more firm and "grabby" and often he finds bits broken off of his troops. And when he took the troops out of the BF cases, he showed me where several of the models lost arms or weapons or were broken in half.
.

That's his fault for either putting the models together poorly, or not packing them properly, so that when stuff got put on top of them or they were jostled around, the pressure broke parts off.

I got a KR double aluminum for my birthday. My first real mini case. I'm stoked. I just wish KR had better custom foam options. It's all pluck foam or pre configured trays. Not terrible but not ideal. It is, however cheaper than BF. The aluminum case is just as sturdy as any BF bag I've seen.

I'm pretty sure KR offer full custom cutting options.

I have a range of KR cases and I find them to be excellent. I do second the opinion that it's possible for long spikes/spears/swords to embed themselves into the foam though (especially if it's a metal model where the 'heft' of it doesn't help). I think as long as you're aware of which models are at risk and take care you'd be alright though. It's not so much a risk during transit as a potential problem if you go to take them out of the case too quickly.

 notprop wrote:
I'm pretty sure KR offer full custom cutting options.

It's possible I haven't looked thoroughly enough, but the custom tray creator on their website doesn't appear to have the same kind of customization as the BF one. There are just pre configured options and you choose a combination, rather than laying it out a model at a time. At any rate, I found it really clunky and frustrating to use so I gave up after about 15 minutes looking for similar functionality to the BF tray creator.

 notprop wrote:

 MagickalMemories wrote:
...
KR foam is soft and "mushy" it doesn't protect your models well at all. KR's model protection is in the cases (which I do not like as much....
Eric

Sorry chum this simply isn't true.

How exactly is that not true? If we aren't talking about thew case, and just the foam, obviously anything softer will not protect as well.

In all honesty, if your fitting a fantasy army I like GW's large plastic 'half and half' cases. Plenty of room for a 2500-3000 point army with 120 infantry slots and a 4" (I think) pluck foam that holds anything not infantry. I had one for my skaven army, and it held 200 infantry (double stacked the slaves) a screaming bell, plague furnace, BSB, warlord on war litter and a doom wheel. Not to shabby.

 Portugal Jones wrote:

 amrogers3 wrote:
He was saying the BF foam is more firm and "grabby" and often he finds bits broken off of his troops. And when he took the troops out of the BF cases, he showed me where several of the models lost arms or weapons or were broken in half.
.

That's his fault for either putting the models together poorly, or not packing them properly, so that when stuff got put on top of them or they were jostled around, the pressure broke parts off.

Can't comment on that. He has been in the hobby a while so I doubt he doesn't put he models together properly. He also said the KR doesn't break off arms and weapons like the BF bag does. So, he uses both BF and KR but says the KR doesn't break off his models. Maybe the BF slots he uses are not big enough, I dunno. I am only restating what he told me.




.

Are there instances where BF would be better over KR and vice versa?

For example, pointy Nids would be better in a BF and non pointy models like Marines maybe better in a KR???

 notprop wrote:

 MagickalMemories wrote:
...
KR foam is soft and "mushy" it doesn't protect your models well at all. KR's model protection is in the cases (which I do not like as much....
Eric

Sorry chum this simply isn't true.

Put your favorite model in a foam tray, and put that foam tray on the ground. Now, put a 2" KR tray (empty) on top of it for added protection.
Drop a nice thick hardback book on it from shoulder high.

Now, do the same with BF foam. Which do you think will be better protected?

I stand by my assertion that the BF tray is more protective in and of itself. I'd rather store my models on shelves in BF trays than any other I have or have encountered.

Dragonzord wrote:
I found the battlefoam cases to be just terrible. I got it for my orks, and almost every one of them doesnt fit into slots that they're meant to, and their arms are sticking out. Not to mention that the bike slots dont even fit any of the bikes unless you put them in vertically.. Along with the foam being very very hard, i dont trust the case at all, and i dread using it.

Then i got a KR case for my space wolves. Everything fits perfectly, even the arms on the models dont stick out. The slots for the models are great, and the foam is soft, so i dont have any trouble getting the models in or our, and i dont have to worry about any kind of breakage.
That and KR is so damned much cheaper, and such better customer service

If they aren't fitting in the slots, then you bought the wrong tray. Just because it's a tray for Boyz, doesn't mean it's a tray for YOUR boyz. You probably did the same thing I did the first time... just bought the tray based on what its' name and/or description was and didn't do your homework.
The KR foam fits like it does because of the "mush" factor of the foam.

I can't disagree that it's generally cheaper (my personal experience would've actually been MORE expensive with KR, but that is not in line with most others' experiences), but I've never had anything but stellar service from BF.

 Zygrot24 wrote:

It's possible I haven't looked thoroughly enough, but the custom tray creator on their website doesn't appear to have the same kind of customization as the BF one. There are just pre configured options and you choose a combination, rather than laying it out a model at a time. At any rate, I found it really clunky and frustrating to use so I gave up after about 15 minutes looking for similar functionality to the BF tray creator.

This was one of the problems I had when I looked into them, and ended up with BF.

 amrogers3 wrote:
Maybe the BF slots he uses are not big enough, I dunno. I am only restating what he told me.

To be fair, then, your position isn't really defensible. You're merely repeating things others have said, but don't have all the facts to back up your opinion. If you did some more research, you might change your mind.


Eric

superdave wrote:
Are there instances where BF would be better over KR and vice versa?

For example, pointy Nids would be better in a BF and non pointy models like Marines maybe better in a KR???

Tyranids are definitely better in Battlefoam.

There's two things going for it - one is the rigidity of the foam. The slots are cut just big enough for models to fit with wiggle room, so spikes and tails and stuff won't catch and break when being lifted out.

The other is the Tyranid line is remarkably static. Models only have, at most, three different poses, and that's only Gargoyles and Genestealers. The rest of the line has either two poses (gaunts) or are single pose, even the plastics. Most guns are single pose in that to get the arms to line up, you have very little freedom of movement, and individual arms like scything talons can't pivot enough to cause problems. The only time arms can cause problems in the precut trays is if you have arms lifted high enough they'd stick out of the top of the tray.

So basically, it's a lot easier for Battlefoam to precut trays for Tyranids, because there's very little deviation, and so the slots are a much better fit. Due to not hugging the models, there's less breakage due to fragile parts catching while being lifted out.

 amrogers3 wrote:

 Portugal Jones wrote:

 amrogers3 wrote:
He was saying the BF foam is more firm and "grabby" and often he finds bits broken off of his troops. And when he took the troops out of the BF cases, he showed me where several of the models lost arms or weapons or were broken in half.
.

That's his fault for either putting the models together poorly, or not packing them properly, so that when stuff got put on top of them or they were jostled around, the pressure broke parts off.

Can't comment on that. He has been in the hobby a while so I doubt he doesn't put he models together properly. He also said the KR doesn't break off arms and weapons like the BF bag does. So, he uses both BF and KR but says the KR doesn't break off his models. Maybe the BF slots he uses are not big enough, I dunno. I am only restating what he told me.
.

Sure, but if a model breaks in half, you can't blame the foam for that. It's not like BF comes with little hammers in the tray to smash your models when you close up the bag. Your friend did something wrong that put some weird pressure on the model if they're getting broken up. I will say that part of the learning curve when I got Sabol trays way back int he day was not to cram figures into slots too tight, because points, spikes, etc would get driven into the foam and make it hard to pull out. You need to give the models enough space to actually fit.

I cant comment on BF, but I recently got a KR backpack and I love it. I like their case design and it worked within my budget.

That is not to say I haven't had broken models, but those models were also easy to repair and were due to me not making sure everything fit snugly into the trays.

 Bookwrack wrote:

 amrogers3 wrote:

 Portugal Jones wrote:

 amrogers3 wrote:
He was saying the BF foam is more firm and "grabby" and often he finds bits broken off of his troops. And when he took the troops out of the BF cases, he showed me where several of the models lost arms or weapons or were broken in half.
.

That's his fault for either putting the models together poorly, or not packing them properly, so that when stuff got put on top of them or they were jostled around, the pressure broke parts off.

Can't comment on that. He has been in the hobby a while so I doubt he doesn't put he models together properly. He also said the KR doesn't break off arms and weapons like the BF bag does. So, he uses both BF and KR but says the KR doesn't break off his models. Maybe the BF slots he uses are not big enough, I dunno. I am only restating what he told me.
.

Sure, but if a model breaks in half, you can't blame the foam for that. It's not like BF comes with little hammers in the tray to smash your models when you close up the bag. Your friend did something wrong that put some weird pressure on the model if they're getting broken up. I will say that part of the learning curve when I got Sabol trays way back int he day was not to cram figures into slots too tight, because points, spikes, etc would get driven into the foam and make it hard to pull out. You need to give the models enough space to actually fit.

Not only that, but Battlefoam designs their trays in such a way that you need wiggle room. KR designs their trays in such a way that foam hugs the models and holds them. Battlefoam uses semi rigid foam and KR uses soft foam.

This isn't rocket science. If he's using Battlefoam trays in the same way as KR - putting them in slots too small to have the foam hug the model, he frankly is doing it wrong. It's hard foam, designed so models sit in it with a few millimeters space each side, so they can bump around but not catch on it, but not enough to actually cause damage. If he's doing this, and his models are wiggling around in the tray but breaking because of it, tell him he's not meant to be using paper glue on his models.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Breotan, which other company would you recommend? That won't gouge for shipping, that is...

I get my SD size foam from Neal, at TheWarStore usually. LFG also carries some various sized pluck foam.