 |
Figures in Comfort
Figure Carrying Bag
Review by Steve Crofts
|
First Thoughts
OooH! The Editors being kind to me and rewarding me for all my hard work! He’s sending me off on a round the world tour of all the show’s and historical sights!
No such luck!
But, I do get to review something that is out of the normal and rather useful to boot!
I speak of this rather nice figure carrying bag from Figures in Comfort, let’s have a good look and see what we find!
Hmmm…. This looks like a useful piece of kit…
First of all the Bags looks…
 |
As you can read from my first thoughts I thought it was a travelling bag, very well made and pretty stylish.
The bag is well made, (no shoddy workmanship here!), it looks very professional, and has a good carrying strap, which incidentally has metal fittings and not plastic so it should stand up to quite a bit of wear.
The outside also sports a pouch which has a Velcro fastening flap it is slightly bigger than A4 sized, so it does hold rule books dice and tape measure quite easily.
The Velcro is of a good make too and should withstand a heck of a lot of use.
An additional feature is a clear plastic fronted pocket into which you can slide a “This bag belongs to” type card in.
Opening up
 |
To open the bag I found that the best way was to first lay it on it’s back, then undo the top strip of Velcro which secures the top flap, and then undo the two side Velcro’s and open the front flap, (see the pictures).
Inside I found three trays
Each of the trays had the following type recesses cut out….
Tray one, 36 recesses, 25mm wide, 55mm long and 25mm deep.
Tray two, 36 recesses, 25mm wide, 50mm long and 60mm deep.
 |
Tray three, 4 recesses 25mm wide, 55mm long and 25mm deep, plus 16 recesses 55mm wide, 65mm long and 25mm deep.
These are not however the only trays you can get, there are 22 different ones to choose from and from what I’ve been told by the Manufacturer, more are to follow.
Each of the trays are priced individually, and are reasonably priced, although this can be had cheaper through buying trays of the same sort, (Now that’s good isn’t it!).
About the Company
 |
I did put a few specific questions to the guys at figures in comfort and these were soon answered, as follows….
Firstly, how long have you been producing these carrying bags and what gave you the initial Idea?
A. We started looking in to it March last year, and had a proto type ready for Salute, we got good feed back while walking around the show. We then went in to production of the Ultimate Storage (the larger 8 tray case) System July 2003, The Mini went on sale in Jan this year.
 |
When a bag has been ordered, or inserts what is the rough estimated delivery time a customer in say the UK, US or Europe?
A. we aim to take under 7 days, but as a safe guard for both us and our customer we do have a maximum of 28 days, we have managed to get foam to Serbia in 12 days.
Are you planning further releases aimed at the Wargaming market?
A. Yes, I am continuing to design more trays and cases, we currently have 28 trays covering 6mm - 54mm, I intend to increase this to about 35 trays
We have 2 more cases in development at the moment, both larger The Ultimate plus will hold 12 trays, and the Super Ultimate will hold 20 trays.
 |
Do you intend to expand your range further?
A. we are looking at developing some trays for the model railway hobbyist
Do you support customer Ideas, in regard to improving your Bags?
A. some of the developments we have made have been from suggestions made from customers, many of my friends at local clubs have the cases and foam, they feed back all the time.
Who was the designer and is the designer a gamer or was the designer told of requirements by a Wargamer?
A. I have designed the trays (Julian Evans) and have been a Wargamer for about 20 years, I approached a long term friend (Duncan Geddes) with the idea, he has been in the packaging industry for about 15 years and who now runs a foam factory, (foam Technics) and the rest is history, so as you can see we have managed to cover both bases, although we are still will to learn from customers and other traders, Jim at Alternative Armies has been a big help over the last year.
 |
Well I hope the questions and answers that were asked/ given are of use to you and I know the guys at Figures in Comfort will be willing to answer any others that you may have.
Final Thoughts
What better way I thought, than to let my son road test the bag, after all he’s 11 and would really put the bag through it’s paces, obviously at his age he’ll give it a bit of hammer during his frequent trips to friends houses to play his Wargames than I ever would!
At the end of the two week trial the outcome was a perfect slate, no breakages or damage to the figures rulebooks or whatever! And I do assure you it is certainly waterproof!
The problem I have now is trying to get it off him!
Figures in Comfort do have a website which I will add below, I do suggest you check it out as further details can be found here.
How much? I here you cry! Ok at first glance the price may seem a lot,
£32.50 but think of the cost of your lead, the time you spent or money you spent painting or having your army painted, then think how safe and cosy your figures will be in one of these! The price does start to look pretty reasonable then.
A very good Idea, and a very useful product, I can see these being “All the rage” at shows.
Please remember to mention Wargames Forum when contacting traders!
