My requirements are that the miniatures be transported safely, without damage or knocking against each other; they should be easily removable from the storage case (which I cannot say for the package they come in); that the storage method be cheap.

Solution:  I scrounged a large, flat box (used to hold computer equipment) with a lid, it measured out at 16- inches by 13 inches by 2 inches.  I bought a 16-in by 20-in piece of 1/2-in thick artist's foam board, and cut it so it would fit snugly in the box.  Just to be on the safe side, I glued the foam board into the bottom of the box with PVA (Elmer's white glue).  I arranged all my planes in the box and marked where the mounting plug was, as well as the wheels and the propeller blades.  Using a sharp X-acto knife, I cut a "well" in the foam board for the wheels and the propeller (where needed) and punched a hole where the mounting plug goes using a needle-file.  With the miniature nestled down in the well, I marked the wings at their furthest point forward and aft, four marks in all.  I punched a hole where the markings were (after removing the minis), and inserted a round wooden toothpick in each hole, with a dab of white glue.  Trim the length so that the toothpick extends above the wings 1/2 inch or so.  Once dry, I simply place the minis in their assigned wells, and hold them in place with small rubber bands tensioned around the toothpicks and over the wings.

The minis are securely held in place by the rubber bands and toothpicks.  I can even take the whole box, hold it upside down and shake it, and all the minis stay where they belong.  To remove the mini, just pull off the rubber band and pop it out!

The rest of my stuff-- cards, pegs, bases, counters, etc.-- fits nicely into a Plano box as mentioned above already.

The box was free (scrounged).  Foam board, toothpicks, rubber bands, and white glue were the only expense.  The whole set-up, including the Plano box, cost me under $15 US.

BTW, I have one copy of each mini released so far, plus a few from other makers, and they all fit in the one box with a little room to spare for future releases.  I may need to make another box, though, as I'm working on a scratch-built Caquot and Parsival, and would like to aquire a few Gotha bombers as well.

I like to use Stanley tool organizer with adjustable compartments.   I picked it up on sale at Lowe's for $20.  I can put everything in it.

Here are my storage containers for Wings of War miniatures and components. The top box, Burning Drachens, contains the flight boards and instructions for all three WWI games.

This box is a Plano box bought at Longs for about $5. It holds damage decks, maneuver decks from the box sets, tokens, measuring tapes, rulers, and pegs for the minatures.

These containers are available at my local Orchard Supply Hardware for about $12 each. A bit pricey to me, but they're absolutely perfect for the expected twelve models in each series:

Series I

Series II

Series III

My storage is similar to Hex Enduction Hour - albeit my planes are first placed in a clear card sleeve.  This way they do not move around at all inside the PVC container.

SHVAK said:

Clear card sleeves? Not sure what you mean, but would like to see a picture. If I can reduce any rattle for my miniatures during transport, I'll do it.

Thanks.

Card sleeves = card protectors, used for baseball cards, Magic (game) cards, etc.  A pack of 100 good ones sell for a buck.  Note that the bombers won't fit in the standard sized card sleeves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_sleeve

SHVAK said:

Interesting. You put the plane itself in the card sleeve?

Each (fighter) plane slips nicely into a card sleeve, including the Fk DVII and Snipe which are larger than the rest.  That plane's maneuvre cards + base go into another card sleeve.  Both sleeves (card/base on bottom) then are placed in the same plastic storage container slot.  Better quality card sleeves are softer and UV protected - so don't worry about fading or scratching paint on your plane. 

Once in a storage slot a plane barely moves, if at all - as the card sleeve acts as packing material.

SHVAK said:

That's brilliant! Nice idea. Thank you for sharing it. I won't hesitate to do the same.

Thank you sir. 

 Great idea on the card sleeves - but what about the bombers? Do you just leave those loose in the plastic box? Or are there bigger card sleeves? 

Oddly, I have all the fighters a few times over but no bombers.  This will change with the upcoming Bristol F2B miniature, as this two-seater is also a fighter.

For the bombers I suggest the following, albeit I haven't tried any of these solutions.  I would probably try option 1 first, as this is the cheapest solution and the materials would already be in your possession.

1.  slip one standard card sleeve over the left bomber wing and another over the right bomber wing. 

2.  use soft plastic CD protector sleeves - maybe cut these in half to make two sleeves as they are quite large.

3.   use 3x5 or 4x6 inch recipe/photo card protectors.

It would be great for someone to post the effectiveness of any of these options.

I went the route of the Army Transport mentioned on the first page.  Here are a couple of pics of my setup...

For the fighters I use the 1.5 inch foam trays.  I can fit 4 planes, their movement decks, altitude sticks (under movement deck) and two damage decks per tray.  I've also slid teh plane's card in to the tray where the plane goes.  That makes if super easy to put the plane back in the right place.

For the two seaters, I use the 2 inch foam trays as some the the planes are a little larger and taller.  I'll be able to get 3 to 4 of these per tray.

Extra card decks and counters are kept in another 1.5 inch tray.

The planes could be placed closre together if they were staggard nose to tail.  You could also put more fighters in a 2 inch tray.  The 1.5 inch trays are not quite tall enough to hold the cards standing straight up, so they have to be leaned, taking up more space in the tray.

If you didn't have the card decks in the trays, would the fighters fit in a 1" tray, and the bombers in a 1.5" tray?  It looks like there is some extra room above the wings.  I was thinking that all 12 planes from a series could fit in a tray, with the cards and bases kept in either another tray or a Plano box.

Peppermeister said:

Most of the fighters would easily fit into a 1" tray. However, the Albatroses will not really fit. They are right at 1", so you would need a little more room to make the trays lay flat. I'd stick with the 1.5" for the fighters. For the two seaters, I only have the DH4 and the LFG Roland C.II. Both of those would have fit into a 1.5" tray as well. I did not think the DH4 would, so I went with the 2" trays instead. Since the trays cost the same, it's not that big of a deal. I so lose a little bit of storage space in the case I guess.

As for keeping the cards in a separate tray or case, that would save you room in the trays for more planes. You could not get all 12 planes from a series in one tray though. With one cell of foam between planes (even rotated nose, tail, nose tail), you could get 10 of the fighters in one tray. Putting the two seaters in there greatly reduces that.

I really like having the cards for each plane located right next to them. It's very convenient just to pull out one tray to play either side. Looking back, I might have gone with 2" trays for them all. I could have gotten 8 planes (fighters) with maneuver decks in each tray. I'm pretty sure that a full series would fit into two 2" trays with the damage decks and counters. You would have lots of extra room above the planes, but you would save quite a bit of money cutting down on the number of trays you need. Using 1.5" trays the way I have them pictured above, it will cost $40 to house all the planes, damage decks and counters. Going with 2" trays, should cost only $30. With three series out right now, that would save $30, enough to buy the trays for series 4 when it comes out.
 

Hope that helps!

I like HMS Haji's idea for airplane storage/transport, and I like Peppermeister's idea for storing the decks and other cards.  Right now, my minis are stacked up on my shelves in the basement, still in their boxes.