Today Martin takes a look at the KR Multicase and its new inserts for 15mm modern AFV and aircraft
Our friends at KR Multicase asked us if we would like to take a look at their new range of cases and foam trays designed for modern tanks and aircraft for Team Yankee WWIII and Tanks the Modern Age.
Never been known to turn down the offer of some free hobby support, Mark kindly said: “yes, sure, we can do that.”
So on a very wet and windy day, I got home to find a large rather soggy box on the doorstep!
Now, writing a product review is new to me, as is owning many models for the more modern wargames periods we cover here on Breakthrough Assault. Before I started writing this I only had the NATO First Line starter set for Team Yankee WWIII and for some reason alone T-55 for Tanks the Modern Age! So before embarking on this article I quickly acquired a somewhat wider range of models to test out what had arrived.
[This seems a perfectly reasonable excuse for buying more Team Yankee models – Lee]
The first thing to say about the KR Multicase cardboard cases I found inside my parcel is that they are very durable. Despite being sat in a sodden packing box for 12 hours, neither of the cases had absorbed any water and were in perfect condition.
So what was inside the cases?
In one box I was three half trays of standard depth and a pair at x1.5 depth, whilst the other held six standard depth half trays. There were a few extra half trays as well just to ensure I had plenty of options to look at.
The foam comes in a rather distinctive shade of blue and is nice and solid so the trays don’t squash as you stack them up but, importantly, unlike some other foams I have it was still really soft so it won’t rub your paintwork if the models move about a little bit in their holes whilst in transit.
Talking of models moving in their trays there are normally two approaches to this, either use trays designed for very specific models or shoehorn your model into a standard design tray and pack them in with some other material. KR sent me a few examples of trays that fit into these categories such as ones for specific aircraft which I really liked.
Aircraft are a pain to move about at any time (so much so I rarely use my model aircraft even if they are useful) but the KR tray not only held the aircraft but importantly had spaces specifically designed to hold their flight stands, which could be adjusted to take both the shorter or taller Battlefront flight stand.
The other specific tray that was really nice was the rotor tray which could safely hold 8 sets of 180-degree blade rotors or 4 sets of 120 degrees or 90-degree blade rotors suitable for any 15mm scale helicopter.
Turning to pre-plucked trays, these are very good if your models fit in them and are more than adequate for infantry and APC’s. However, larger turreted tanks don’t really work as well with them as either the gun barrel extends beyond the hull, placing it at risk of damage, or the turrets can fall off if you aren’t magnetising them.
Not to fear; the clever people at KR have designed a special main battle tank slot with a narrowed end section to protect those longer barrels on your MBT’s (these worked well for my WW2 Soviet ISU 152 and ISU 122 tanks which I’ve always struggled to store as well).
For APC and other light armour with removable turrets, and also with the models with anti-aircraft radars or turrets mounting high angled barrels such as howitzers, I’d suggest using the self pluck versions of the trays rather than the pre-plucked ones.
Here the KR range really excelled with its clever layout allowing a wide range of openings to be created with not only varying lengths of the vehicle but also the width can be varied with wider perforated sections being separated by narrow ones all of which could be removed and the strength of the tray being retained.
The added bonus here was I could store the turret and hull separately allowing me to use the standard depth trays rather than wasting valuable case space on deeper trays just for a couple of models and is something you might want to consider when choosing your trays.
Overall the most versatile tray in the selection for me was YA2 which held a couple of helicopter models and four main battle tanks. If you play Tanks, combining this with a basic tank holding tray is all you need! More info can be found in this KR press release about this tray.
Needing just two trays leaves enough space for dice, cards and template all in a half-sized case. Another nice feature of this tray is the way in which KR dealt with the issue of rotors for the helicopters placing a hole for the rotor spindle into the tray so they can sit flat between trays and won’t get damaged.
There were a few things I did find a bit irritating, the layout of some of the helicopter holding trays in particular. The flight stand cut-out was too near to the corner of the tray which made them a bit floppy; not so good with these rather fragile models. This issue wasn’t present in the fixed-wing aircraft trays.
My other criticism of these trays would be that the standard depth tray is too shallow for the bases and I would suggest getting at least one of the deeper trays that will hold these to avoid the flight stand bases sticking up into the tray above and making the case difficult to pack. There is a flight stand only try that can hold all of the stands you will ever need and if you have a lot of aircraft I’d certainly consider this option.
The possible combinations of trays are quite bewildering so be prepared to spend a bit of time on their web site if you want to pick the perfect set of trays for your collection. If like me, you are starting out then just the standard loadouts will meet all your needs, after all, you get a bit of everything just like most of us when we start building up a new force.
Overall for the models, I had the trays are excellent and just one standard case will hold my full 100 point NATO army of 13 tanks, 3 howitzers, 5 APC’s, 4 helicopters and 2 fixed-wing aircraft as well as a platoon of infantry.
So now what are you waiting for? Isn’t it time your figures got the transport and protection they deserve?