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I was playing a game last night at my FLGS and before we started we had an interesting idea/challenge for 40k

a 1850 balanced shoebox army. that is an army that can fit into a single shoebox. obviously feet differ in sizes and as the person with the biggest shoe size (US 13/ EU 47) I was elected to measure a shoebox for "official" dimensions. after getting home I posted the results to our facebook page for the challenge, I picked a fairly average one that contained a pair of minimalist running shoes. The dimensions were 15" L x 8.5"W x 4" tall (38cm L x 21.5 cm W x 10cm tall for you in the rest of the world)

One caveat was nobody likes scratched models so they need to be packed reasonably well. foam trays/ bubble wrap etc.

packing is p to the person a point of reference would be that a generic foam tray 7.5" x 13" 2" high (leave some room around edges for some bikes or something ) holds 40 basic size infanty and 2 would fit. additionally for terminator size models the same tray holds 21 models. 2 of these fit as well. obviously 2 trays means no vehicles.

I am working on my list later today but figured I would pose the same challenge to dakka dakka, what could you come up with that would be an effective take all comers list any army or formations are acceptable.

Aside from taking really expensive elite and HQ units that actually sounds pretty difficult.

 Luciferian wrote:
Aside from taking really expensive elite and HQ units that actually sounds pretty difficult.

I've fit a 3000 point army in a shoebox before, without scratching up every single model and I was running 2 Land Raiders and a Knight.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
Aside from taking really expensive elite and HQ units that actually sounds pretty difficult.

I've fit a 3000 point army in a shoebox before, without scratching up every single model and I was running 2 Land Raiders and a Knight.

2 landraiders and a knight would probably take up the whole box, this isn't a boot box just a fairly small running shoe box. a land raider itself is 6.5 l x 4 w x 2.5 h. on their sides the land raiders take up 1/3 the box almost and the imperial knight better be magnetized or I don't see it working (if a dreadknight you meant then it'd fit probably but not much room for more

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
Aside from taking really expensive elite and HQ units that actually sounds pretty difficult.

I've fit a 3000 point army in a shoebox before, without scratching up every single model and I was running 2 Land Raiders and a Knight.

2 landraiders and a knight would probably take up the whole box, this isn't a boot box just a fairly small running shoe box. a land raider itself is 6.5 l x 4 w x 2.5 h. on their sides the land raiders take up 1/3 the box almost and the imperial knight better be magnetized or I don't see it working (if a dreadknight you meant then it'd fit probably but not much room for more

I magnetized the tops of the land raiders so I could hold their guns on the inside as well as 5~ tactical Marines.

Actually, now that I checked, the Knight didn't fit in the box, but the other 2500 points did.

1850 sounds like quite a lot, though if you space the box out well enough with multiple layers I can imagine you can fit in a lot of infantry.

Infantry is probably what I would go for, with 1 or 2 vehicles to save on space. I fancied doing an Eldar list, and it went like so:

Guardian Battlehost (idea was lots of smaller bodies), with minimal vehicles. 3 Vaul's Wrath batteries.
Aspect Host seems ideal for something like this. Fire Dragons, Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders. Flesh this part out quite a bit, using 2 of them and giving the Fire Dragons a Serpent.
Hemlock Wraithfighter for a bit of air support, and its slim design would fit in the box fairly nicely.

Grey Knights do this easy. 10 interceptors 2 libbies and 2 5 man terminators is already 1000 points

Actually, at the moment, I have a shoe box. I use to carry extra things in. It contains 2 Dreadknights, 3 Razorbacks and 6 Thunderfire cannons plus my cards and tape measure.

I have enough space I could adjust the blank space to put foam in there for 5 man grey knight strike squad plus 15 marines + 10 tech marines. Assuming a 3 stack of foam treys designed to hold 10 marines each.

My Dreadknights are magnetized at the waist. This makes them actually take up less space for storage.

The cannons are magnetized at the mounting of the cannon to the base track.

Here is what I came up with, went taus and suit heavy

commander shadowsun,

commander in iridium armor, stim injector, drone controller, oniger gauntlet

3x stealth suits w/ fusion blasters

2x 3x crisis suits w/ burst cannon and missile pods, 3 gun drones 3 shield drones

5x 5 man strike team w/ pulse rifles

6 marker drones

2x pathfinders, 4 w/ marker lights, 1 w/ rail rifle plus recon drone

2x 2 broadsides with HY missiles, smart missiles 1 EWO, 1 velocity tracker 1 shield drone

2 broadsides w/ heavy rail rifles and smart missiles 1 EWO 1 velocity tracker 1 shield drone

total
39 infantry size models
6 broadsides
7 crisis suits plus drones

It's easy. Just make it a ferromagnetic shoebox and have miniatures everywhere including on the top of the box. Max density no scratches.

And you can fit an all warp spiders army very easily that way.

Can't fit any kind of mech in there though.

I make use of 'ardcoat matt varnish and not using metal models, I just pile up my more sturdy models on top of each other inside margarine pots in shoeboxes. Reckon I could get a good 150+ guardsmen packed into squad-pots inside a decent sized shoebox!

If you magnetize three knights at the waist I think you can get them all to fit into a shoebox with a minimum of buffer material and no scratches.

You could probably do a good rhino based Gladius. Infantry pack real tight, and rhinos are very space efficient.

For the aux pick you could go with a 10th or 1st co TF. While not as nice as podding in, naked sternguard in a box can still work.

If you magnetize the models and put sheet metal on the sides bottom and top of the box, you could probably fit double or triple the models.

as to 1850 balanced list. probably stock up on elits and heavies and stay minimum on the troops as boring as that can be.

Well, if you are going that route, My friend primed, drybrushed and minwaxed a bunch of tyranid. Now, that they have had many years to harden. You could just toss them all in a box and call it a day. No need to worry about them ever chipping.

I like this idea. This is partly why I started playing Inq armies and Shadowwar. Having only to carry a shoebox into the store is fun : )

This thread got me thinking:

Just yesterday I bought a new pair of sneakers, so I’ve got a fresh shoebox kicking around. Just to check out how the sizes worked, I got some foam from my KR and checked the fit. Almost perfect! My shoebox (from a more reasonably size 10 sneaker) was the same depth and hight as a half tray, and about 2” wider (good for dice and templates, or a pair of rhinos).

Now I’ve got a pretty good grasp of what I can fit in half a KR. Using the tightest trays, that’s 100 infantry. Or you could swap half of that for 4 rhinos. or 12 bikes, or any combo of 1/2 hight, 1/2 width trays.

But I do know I’m holding on to that shoebox for killteam/combat patrol/SWA/etc. Much easier to drag around then my Kaiser 3.