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Hi there,

I was thinking I would like to have individual models for all the special/heavy weapons for my infantry squads rather than magnetize, but am now starting to realise that might be a little mad.

Money is not really an object in my situation, but I was wondering how it would be best to go about getting:
2 Flamers, 2 Meltas, 2 Storm Bolters, 1 Heavy Flamer, 1 Heavy Bolter and 1 Multi-Melta for each infantry squad. That would be 9 miniatures in total, basically another entire squad.

I know a lot of people like to play WYSIWYG, and personally, I would love to have individual models for each of these options I could switch out. I would rather not proxy, even if other players were okay with it.

So my question is, does anyone organise their army like this, and if so where do you buy the parts? And if not, would you recommend magnetising infantry units? It just seems a little fiddly, and I'm not sure how powerful the magnets would be on such a small surface area (what with Adepta Sororitas arms not exactly being the thickest).

Many thanks in advance!

I've not magnetised the models you are talking about specifically, but I've been doing some Sisters of Silence lately with equally tiny arms. I've found the best way to do it is with a magnet on one side and a pin in the other. The pin means the weapon can only be removed by pulling it straight out and you only need a tiny bit of magnetic force to make it really secure. Pictures hopefully communcate what i mean (should see a tiny pin on the left side of the image and there's a magnet in the wrist on the right side of the image):



I tend to use beading needles as pins because they are really thin and strong, and just a 1mm magnet in the other side.

If you are after miniature parts (looks like you are in the UK?), there's always ebay and a bunch of good bits resellers to get extra bodies and weapons:

https://www.bitsandkits.co.uk/ (site currently being rebuilt so not available until next week, but they have the biggest ranged by far)
https://www.bitzbox.co.uk/
https://www.forbiddengaming.co.uk/

Magnetising stuff like this definitely is fiddly and time consuming if you it want to look right. If you're not worried about buying/ building/ painting duplicates then it's probably just easier to do that.

That's great, thank you so much.
I think I will probably slowly collect alternative infantry option models over time.

I mostly don’t bother magnetizing infantry.

For my marines, I have their “shelf deployment” where each squad has it’s standard gear. I then have a swap shelf where all the spare special and heavy weapons live. I don’t have enough to spam every weapon in every squad, but enough to make any reasonably balanced list.

How often are you going to need every slot in your army to have the same gear? In a general TAC list you want a little diversity.

I think it's not worth it, and I'll explain why.

the combat patrol is a great bargain, but basically only provides basic bolters and stormbolters (niche but good with a strat) and flamer (almost never worth it). Still buying two combat patrols provides the rhinos, Seraphim, Battle sisters, and even some repentia that you want. (the sister supreriour is also good for naked squads, allowing you to build the mulit part superiors with more interesting weapons if you want.)

The regular multipart kit comes with nearly everything, except for the multimelta. As a rule, you are going to build/use nearly as many MMs as you can get your hands. Heavy bolters are niche, but do get better in a world without AoC. Heavy Flamers are good, but at the range you have to really justify not taking a MM.

That leaves the meltagun, which is also probably the most spammed special weapon.

I think that once you start looking at all the options (simulcrum, different superior loadouts) and four differen squads built from one kit (troop, dominions, celestians, and retributors).... I think you're better off just painting more models than monkeying around with magnets.

Thanks for all the advice all.
I think I will make all my sisters squads bolters only to begin with, then gradually paint up some new miniatures with specials/heavy to swap in as I need.
Looking forward to getting back into the hobby again after several decades

Do you really need every possible option for every squad? How often are you going to want two flamers compared to one flamer and one heavy flamer, for example?

I just made a couple of extra Dominion/Retributor squads to house my extra special weapons.

I've seen people go crazy with small magnets.


Personally I'm a big fan of them, but I also prefer to have practicality as well. Smaller magnets (even with a higher N value for power) are still only so strong and in the end tiny magnets in guns and such for regular infantry models can produce weaker than ideal holds (for me).

It's also a lot of very fine work and very fiddly.


Yes it can be done, but personally I'd rather spend that time building another box of model infantry.

My rule is if its a Tyranid Warrior or bigger then magnets are great (tyranids are also easier because they have nice chunky ball and socket arms everywhere); things smaller and its just more efficient and satisfying, in my view, to just get more models.



I totally appreciate wanting to future proof your army and having lots of options and choices - those are big things for me too. And I've been burned on the past with Tyranids getting weapon loadout changes (sometimes even making certain weapon combos illegal in the rules where once they were legal).

At the same time I'm a big fan of practical modelling.

Where that limit is for me I've said, where it is for you might be different.



One way to tell is to get some small magnets and try it out for yourself. See if the work produces a result you are happy with; see if the time is worth it for you and see if you enjoy it. If not then just gather up more infantry steadily over time. Either way yo uget a great army in the end.