Magnetising a Heavy Gear Naga Strider… Part 1

Thank you !

I find using paperclips as tools quite unnecessary for magnetizing… More hassle than anything, truth be told. You can use toothpicks or other non-metallic objects if you really need it.

If you want to put bits of metal instead of one of the magnets, you may use paperclip bits, or some wire from a hardware store or model store… However, I find that the bond is stronger with two magnets, especially on smaller joints, and that you can then use the magnets on the spare parts to store them efficiently on a metallic surface (the lid of a metal box for example) when not in use.

In further parts of this tutorial, I use an exacto blade for separating two magnets that were slightly glued… But that’s about it for the tools I regularly use.

And yes, the tattoo was new-ish when this was filmed… Thanks for noticing !

BoW Romain

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maxwelledison

Sorry I meant paperclips or other magnetic material instead of a second magnet (should have explained what I meant really) for when the piece in question may be too thin or small for even the smallest magnet

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Edited the comment above when I realised what you meant. Sorry for misunderstanding, it was obvious… I must be tired !

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maxwelledison

I know the feeling, soon be the weekend though 🙂 and time for some more purple necron painting.

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acrizer

This video has inspired me to give magnets a try. I’m thinking I might also add a pin near the magnet (like a snipped paperclip) to maintain orientation so the magnetized weapons don’t twirl about.

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I endeavor to please…

You’re welcome to use bits to impede turning, but you don’t need to : When you use two magnets of sufficient strength, the bond is strong enough that the weapons do not move around unless you manually turn them.

Moreover, you can position them any way you like, and make them turn towards the enemy and shout “pew pew” ! Great fun.

BoW Romain

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I really like Heavy gear, but As I got a few FoW minis due to friends insistence I’m postponing getting any (That, and the fact no one I know around here plays it), but I’m interesteed in general magnetizing techniques. Sometimes I even cut the magnet itself (Keeping the original polar regions). Found out I had to do it on some modeels. The paperclip option is what I used when I had to magnetize the armblades on my Manticore Omnimyrmidon, drill a hole, put a suitably sized paperclip piece inside, and magnet covered on the sides with green stuff. I just have to work a bit on the arms magnets. I hope we can see some magnetizing tutorials on minis from other systems as well.

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The reason why Heavy Gear often has miniatures that have tutorials for magnetizing is the fact that there are so many weapons that can be attached to them. For the larger units, such as the Naga, there are three or four different weapons configurations that can be used on one unit alone.

For those whose wallets are in need of a break, magnets are an excellent way to go.

While you may know that no one around your area may play it, you ought to check out the Dream Pod 9 forums and see the living player database… someone might be closer than you think. And if not, you can always introduce a couple of your friends with the Starter Kit and see how they like it.

On top of that, the Pod is offering a ton of special offers on their starting army lists and starter kits, and armor, for a price that is easily 25% off. If you like Heavy Gear, join us on the forums, and definitely see about getting in on the sale before it is done.

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You obviously seem very well informed.
I’m sure fans of this game will thank you !

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Me? I’m just a resident forumite over on Dream Pod 9. Go by the handle Kris_Din, but I always sign my name at the bottom.

And I’m nowhere near an expert, that’s left to some of the other forumites who have been able to the play the game much more than I have. What I have gleaned, however, is all given over by the Pod. They like to keep their fans on the up and up about things, and very hush-hush on others. Usually, the hush-hush stuff is the new models and books and what’s in them (which of course drives fans crazy, but hey, whoever said we weren’t in the first place? ;)).

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There will be more magnetizing tutorials on other miniatures from other systems, but, as @brandonkf777 said, a heavy gear model and its interchangeable weaponry was a great opportunity…

I strongly advise against cutting magnets… Many rare earth magnets will be cut irregularly, possibly crumble into more than one fragment. A magnet that is shocked, hit too hard, heated or otherwised damaged is at risk of losing power, reversing polarity or demagnetizing altogether in some cases.

I don’t know the physics of this, and I’m not a physicist, I’m just repeating the warnings from most magnets, as well as most products containing magnets, from most companies (not just magnets designed for magnetizing models, mind you).

If you had good results cutting your magnets, by coincidence, feel free to do it… But it would probably be better to select a magnet of the proper size. They’re not that expensive, really !

BoW Romain

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Well, it worked very well when I did it (Twice, for magnetizing my Wave Serpent Shields and my Manticore arm blades), but I´ll keep that in mind.
Actually what you said would be reasonable on a country where hobby stores and other shops dealing with related stuff existed. I´m brazilian, and I have to say that unfortunately we have no hobby stores, at least not in the same model as you find on the US, UK or the rest of Europe.
I buy my magnets online, and unfortunately they only ship considerable quantities, and then it doesn´t become cheap. Due to that, however, I have loads of varied sized magnets stores from previous purchases, so instead of buying another 100 magnet box plus mail charges just to get a magnet small enough to fit a small bit, I went to cut it. Even if I lost one or two magnets to this it would still be cheaper than the alternative. But I´m happy to see that BoW will continue supporting wargamers worldwide with nice tutorials.
I´m familiar with Heavy Gear from the old PC games (Had both, but I must say I preferred the first one… So many customization options), and it´s good to see the wargame keeps the spirit of that first game (Wide weapon variety and nice models). We are currently trying to organize a club here on Sâo Paulo with a few more friends, renting a space to be dedicated to gaming, maybe in the future we can try to expand (The most played game is 40k, a fellow gamer is initiating people on Flames of War, I´m trying to make people try out Warmachine, as I got a sizeable Retribution force already, and some of us dabble with Infinity as well). I´m going a bit off topic, but we will give it a try in the future, try the Heavy gear arena to grab people who want faster games with fewer models and then expand to Blitz, maybe.

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I understand your predicament…
I would have done the same.

Shipping to Brazil might be problematic for many of the regular online hobby retailers. As for me, I use a french/german website, but prices are of course quite high for shipping oustide of the E.U….

I’m sorry I can’t really help out 🙁

At least, you have some spare magnets !

BoW Romain

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I can understand the want for smaller games. Dream Pod 9’s International Shipping costs run around 20 Canadian dollars, which might be steep, however they are very good in their stores about helping folks with large purchases… anything that goes over 100 Canadian dollars is free, or so I think… I will have to double-check.

Heavy Gear Arena! is great for all the customization options, of course, and the NuCoal Field Guide introduced the ability to use your Duelists in the Blitz! board games as well.

On top of that, the earlier War for Terra Nova 2 book included further upgrades for a ‘campaign’, where your Blitz! forces survive each skirmish by a certain number – 3 units – and can add Special Abilities of their own.

And glad to meet another individual who enjoyed the Heavy Gear computer games. They were great for their day and age, but Blitz! has taken us way far beyond the fanciful 2nd edition Heavy Gear computer game… in truth, forumites treat that more like it was a movie than a real event. 😉

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Oh, and talking about Heavy Gear and magnets, it reminds me of my favorite weapon on the first Heavy Gear PC game, that magnectic cannon that fired a high speed metal ball that would just tear apart any body part of a Gear it hits. Don´t know if they have that weapon on the wargame, but I loved to just snipe out my opponents legs and then speed up close for a kill with a type of small, short ranged Gear hand cannon like weapon they had. Or just a headshot on enemy gears if I wasn´t looking for a thrill. Hope you can still do that kind of thing.

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This sounds awesome !
I wouldn’t know about that in the wargame, but you can ask Andy…

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Oh, and finally got to see the video at home (Busy week, and I was commenting from the cell phone). I think the tips on marking the poles and using bigger drills (The small to big drilling) are pretty nice hints for someone new to magnetizing (I had trouble keeping the poles at mind when working on my Myrmidon… quitee a simple solution, actually). I’ll try to measure the magnets I have here, from the smaller ones to the bigger ones, and see if I need to buy a batch of smaller or flatter ones (I think the smallest I have is 2mm diameter and 1,5mm deep). And magnet wise, i buy mines on a brazilian webstore… it’s just that it is such a specific product that it’s hard to find on hardware stores. They only sell from 50 magnets up, that’s why I was talking about quantity (I think I got nearly 300 magnets of varied sizes here, originally I had an not so creative thought of magnetizing the bases of my warhammeer fantasy army and painting my movement trays with magnectic spray paint… but I found out is just too much work so you can shake your movement trays freely. I’ll probably unglue the magnets from the bases of my Swordmasters and White Lions).
And I must say, your work looks way more tidy than my first attempt on magnetizing… spent a whole afternoon and got some nasty cuts on my fingers while chopping off pieces of the model to open space for the magnets (Oh if I had the bigger drill),

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Well, picking the place of your shot isn’t possible in the wargame, but yes, the light railgun and heavy railgun are still around. As is the handcannon… probably a frag cannon or snub cannon is what you’re talking about there. All the weapons from the original computer games are in Blitz!.

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After reading about it it was, if I recall, the medium railgun and the snub cannon. I saw in the faction videos that one of the best factions to have good weapon availability is Peace River. Usually, in the games, I went with the South due to the rounder design of the gears (In contrast with the angular design of Northern Gears). If I’m not mistaken the heavy railgun could only be taken by walkeers and heavier gears, and even so it really limited the rest of thee arsenal… it was one of the most powerful weapons in the game, tho. The medium one could be used on medium gears, and it was great due to the combination of high mobility and high firepower.
The variety of weapons on that walker model is really big, and looking at the gear blister descriptions they also come with a lot of variety. Is magnetizing a viable option for gear hand weapons? And how do you work on metal models, like many of the gears? (Is it just harder to do the drilling?)

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Magnetizing is not always an option with metal, as parts to be magnetized are heavier and sometimes need stronger bonds… And it is much more difficult to drill. However, it is possible for many of the weapons on the smaller gears, which are quite light.

Magnetizing hand weapons isn’t too much of a problem, as gear hands are large enough to drill into to fit small magnets (1mm or thereabouts). However, magnets this size may not be strong enough to hold the biggest guns… I haven’t had this problem, but I haven’t worked with every gear in the catalog.

Hopefully, plastic or resin will become the new standard for Heavy Gear at some point in the future… But resin is at the moment still less convenient for the smaller models.

I hope this answers your inquiry…

BoW Romain

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