Sunday, March 24, 2013

Serious Travel Issues: Enter Battlefoam


The Valhalla event is right around the corner, and I needed a good plan for transporting my models. However, there were a couple serious issues I have been dealing with.

1. My Dark Eldar vehicles literally have real hooks on them, and would probably not be suitable to bring onto a plane as carry on. Need a checked in baggage safe case.
2. The army is huge, old, and highly customized. None of the raiders or venoms for example are standard sized.... even for the old versions. Custom foam is required.
3. Its 6 days of gaming, do I really want to play the same army list over and over? Of course not..... means I need more space for more models.


So I am breaking down and investing in a nice... and large case. So yes, I sat down and ordered a Battlefoam Black Label case. Did I really need the largest of them.... the Black Label RJ-16 Case? Is that even a question? Of course I did.

Now I am of the mind that buying a case was a waste of money, after all, travelling is normally by car, and any case or semi careful transport system has worked for years. I mean really..... a can cost almost as much as a new 40k army.

Hmmmm, buy a case or new models? Well for years, its been screw the case.... egg cartons, cosco boxes, two old (from 1998) GW small cases that I picked up at a good price, and.... I am good. The problem has been yes, there has been damage to models all these years, and it was just well accepted by myself that this was going to occur, and some glue (and swearing) was always needed.

Getting older, hopefully wiser, and with a 6 day play a lot of 40k event coming, it was time to invest. So I went to the Battlefoam site, spent several days watching videos, and playing around with the custom foam tray layout designer.

I have to say, that the way it is set up is very cool. Will my custom sized raiders fit into a custom tray... hell yes, the system they have can fit any shapes you want, and you can even send in sketched drawings of your model outlines for your tray. I just spent a lot of time with my tape measure, my models, and my laptop.

Customer service. I called more than once to discuss the purchase, and customer service was excellent. The one downside of course, is that when speaking to a customer service rep, I always feel better when dealing with a woman's voice rather than a gamer sounding representative, but this is for a miniature hobby. A little biased perhaps? Regardless of my own issues, customer service was very helpful.

Now my order is in, however the case itself is not yet here.... nor should it be yet. I am a couple weeks out still due to the customization of the order.

So yes, thus far my Battlefoam experience has been excellent. I am excited about my investment into protecting my miniatures, and the freedom it will allow in transporting my 40k hobby with ease.