Loveing KR Multicase – Review and Guide

 

As many of you know, my relationship with Battlefoam is, to put it in a word, strained. There was a long time where I would defend both the owner and the company, but those days are long behind me. I won’t rehash why, but I am sure you can read my posts on your own.

(skip straight to the Review and Website Guide here)

Suffice it to say that I’m not going to patronize Battlefoam any longer. That has not kept me from acquiring more models and filling up the trays I own at an unsustainable rate. For quite some time I have been lacked space in all of my cases, sometimes needing two to take my army with me. Even though I’m not going to use every model, I like having an option if people don’t want to play against the list I brought, or if someone has a different size game they are eager to try. Carting around my entire faction is part of gaming for me.

My unwillingness to buy Battlefoam along with an strong stock of their product left me with little options. I took the easy way, and ignored it, filling my desk and bags and wallspace and everywhere I possibly could with miniatures. Maybe, perhaps, if I ignored it long enough, It would go away, right? No chance in hell. Thankfully, someone (my apologies, I can’t remember who) introduced me to KR’s accessory case.

What really sold me on the case was that the top pops off completely – Normally a down side for me – and doubles as a dice tray. As someone who goes out of their way to roll so that they opponent can see their die roll, this is excellent. I’m not rolling across the table, or in some strange spot that can bang on models. Instead, my rolls are contained to a certain spot on the table, every time, and I can expect them to be seen by the opponent.

That Accessory Case included the brochure which highlighted their Case system and their entire product line. I read it for a bit and though I had been skeptical for years, I now felt I finally understood what they were going for. I got it. I was hooked.

KR isn’t selling you Foam, or a Case, or even a transportation Solution. What KR is selling is a miniature organization and storage system. Every other foam company I have come across is concerned, for the most part, of keeping your miniatures safe between point A and point B. This cause is admirable, but isn’t, really, what a person needs. Its what they want, I’ll give you. What they need is a way to store, transport, and prevent blemishes on models. For that KR has every solution you could want, and likely more.

The foam, they advertise as soft, so that your miniatures don’t chip or rub off paint. I can’t attest to it personally, but I have had a number of people say its so. The blue foam (that now comes in a plethora of colors) is soft and supple while still being sturdy enough to support your miniatures. I have had many problems with both Sabol and Battlefoam being coarse and rubbing the paint off the miniatures over time and, sometimes, very swiftly.

The soft foam, though will have stability issues, especially when carried in bulk or stored on top of each other. This problem is solved with their card carrying System. Each card Case carries up to 4 trays, or 110mm of foam, in some combination. These cases are the core of the system, and are what every other portion surrounds. The foam in the cases, the cases in the bags. Each of these cases can house portions of a faction, or for smaller games, an entire game. Take Malifaux, for example. While right now I have an entire bag, and foam, for Malifaux, I’m pretty sure that almost my whole collection will fill just a portion of a card case, along with Relic Knights and Infinity. That a single “case” will contain three games, and that I can just grab it and go is pretty damned cool to me.

Additionally, these cases can be stacked and labeled for easy organization. You can order, or find from other sources, card sleeves that stick to the sides of the case, that you can then use to label each one. For instance, I plan to have a Card case that is the Gargantuan + Heavies (or even one 1/2 foam for each), one for small troopers, and one for Cataphracts and lights. I can easily swap them out with another faction without having to look in each case and each tray to find out where my models are – its pointed out to me on the side of each case. Instead of grabbing another $90.00 bag, filling it up with foam and dragging it with me, I have a single bag (that is $214, filled) that I make adjustments with on the fly. I can switch between each army and each game system easily and without trying to figure out which models are in which tray. Organization is easy, looks sharp, and is easy to transport. I’m pretty stoked by replacing all the bags on my shelf with labeled cases.

The final part, as I alluded to earlier, is the bag itself. A singular entity, sized to meet your needs and what you expect to bring out as a gamer, their line is fairly extensive. They have aluminium cases with out pockets for maximum protection, bags that are essentially sleeves for single and half cases, all the way up to wheeled 8 case massive trunks. Thankfully, I feel that I’ll only need the Kaiser 3, a bag that fits three of the card cases. I think it’ll be able to tote around most of my factions, as well as my mercs, in almost all scenarios.

all of the above lead me to deciding that I was going to switch completely out from what I have now, mostly battlefoam and sabol, to KR. This meant selling what I have and buying more foam, but I figured how hard could it be? Sadly, the KR Website deserves its own guide, which I’m happy to provide.

First off, there are a ton of options on the site. Its got such a plethora that it is hard to choose, at first, what you should do. I originally graviated to filling a case with Core foam, but even that became a chore as I realized that, like most non-GW gamers, that my models don’t fit nicely into the defined spaces all of the time. While there might be one or two of the Core Foam Fills that I would want after my initial purchase, it quickly became frustratingly obvious that my foam needs were not being met. Eventually, after hours of flailing around, I am 99% sure of what is going on at the site, how to best order foam, and how to make sure you get the most out of the KR Kase.

First, there are 6 Categories of Foam: N, R, M, D, V, and J. Each of these categories represents the slots in the Foam.

The first three represent pre-cut Foam Trays

M is Squat  – Columns of 5 ( 5 rows for Half, 10 rows for Full)
F is Tall – Columns of 3 ( 6 rows for Half, 12 for full)
N is standard – Columns of 4  ( 5 rows for half, 10 for full)

The second Three represent Pick and Pluck Trays

V has 30mm x 30mm pluck outs w/ 10mm barrier walls
D has 40mm x 40mm pluck outs w/ 10mm barrier walls
J has 50mm x 50mm pluck outs w/ 10mm barrier walls

The allow you to figure out what type of models you want to hold in your trays. The next step is to figure out the height of your trays. These are indicated by numbers.

1 is a 110mm tall, or a full card case
2 is 51mm tall, or half a card case
3 is 32mm tall, or a third of a card case
4 is 25mm tall, or one fourth of a card case
5 is 71mm tall, or two-thirds of a card case.

There are inverse to their proportion. One fills the whole thing, and 4 is 1/4 the normal size.

Finally, you want to figure out if you want a half tray, or a full tray. Half trays will sit side by side in a full case, or completely fill a half-case.

T is a Total Tray
H is a Half Tray.

Totaled out, these divide into a multitude of choices that can boggle the mind, but be careful filling your case.

There are essentially two types of foam: 3/5 foam, and 1/2/4 foam. due to the math of the trays, you cannot combine these. The combinations are many, but easily verified.

3 + 5
3 + 3 + 3

or

1
2 + 2
2 + 4 + 4
4 + 4 + 4 + 4

Now, if you take half trays, you can mix and Match, a “3/5 side” and a “1/2/4” side, but you can’t intermix, it won’t work.

Now, you can create almost any tray you want, they already have it! Just combine the “slots” of tray, with the “Height” of the tray and then choose if you want a Half or Full tray. Each will combine into a 3 character code that delineates your type of tray.

V1H is a full-case Half Tray that has 30mm pluck foam
M4T is a 1/4 case full tray that has 50 squat trooper slots.

However, now that you’re able to put together a case, none of the standard options are going to make you happy. You’re going to want the trays you want in the capacity you want. Sadly, there isn’t really an easy way to do this. Their App is good, but it doesn’t reset correctly and requires a hard refresh after every tray creation, and errors aren’t correctable. Instead, do the math on scratch paper, and figure out what fills how many cases. Then using the Bespoke ( I have no idea why its called that) button, you can just Input the tray numbers you want.

It won’t prompt you to keep filling the selected case if you don’t, but it does give you a warning that you should make sure you have enough trays.

Example:

I know that I want a Kaiser 1.

I know that a Kaiser 1 fits a single card case, and from above, I have decided that I want to fill it with a F3H, V5H and 2x J2H’s.

I start here:

 

And Choose the 1.

then I need to choose the Core Foam Selection

After that, it’ll pull up a selection that allows you to choose from Troops, Vehicles, Cavalry, or a combination of two of them. However, unless you have a large army with a ton of similar models, which is unlikely in Warmachine/Hordes, Your going to want to start filling a Bespoke Tray out. Click on the button below, which is located both above and below the tray sets.

Once there, it’ll take you to an one-form fill field, one where you can just go crazy entering Foam Tray Codes. Here is where you need to pay attention, though, as you’ll need to make sure that your foam selection fills the bag your ordering, or you will end up short Foam.

Here is where I type the foam I would like for the bag, something like this:

Once you’ve gotten the basic steps down, you can fill pretty much anything.

Step 1: Determine Slots, Height, and Size, of your foam trays
Step 2: Arrange the Trays you need so you figure out the least amount of Card Cases possible.
Step 3: Choose your bag or Case type
Step 4: Fill your Bespoke Bag with three letter Codes – Multipliers in front – enough to match your desires.

 

Hit order and go!

Its not easy to explain, and I am sure its not easy to order ( it took me three separate sessions sitting just to figure this out) , but once you get it, it makes perfect sense, and getting your product can’t be easier. Make sure you understand and can decipher the trays from one another, and you’ll be all set to go with what I hope is one of the better Foam Companies out there!