Building A Magnetic Game Surface

Pretty much any game with a high counter density is in constant danger of being instantly destroyed by an errant elbow brush, table-leg kick, or gust of wind. And never mind the curious 18 month-old child I currently have roaming the house. So I'm currently trying to build my own portable gaming panel with a magnetic surface, so I can do something like this:

OK, I'm a long way from having anything that works this well, but I did put together a rudimentary approximation to the basic concept. Currently I have three 22-gauge metal plates, side by side, backed with a sheet of 11/32' plywood. That's not very sturdy, but it does have the merit of being something I can move by myself if necessary. That's the right size for both World in Flames maps at their usual scale, or for a single map if it's been double-sized as in the image above. I really need to buy a set of self-driving wood-screws to connect the plates more firmly to the wood. Currently they're just held on with duct tape and carpet tacks. (I tested this with two tiny screws I found around the house, and they work great.) I definitely should have bought a sturdier wood board, too, even at the cost of needing a second person to transport the game.

Alas, the set of  400+ game counter magnets I own seems to have been stored improperly (too much heat? not aligned correctly during transport?) and the magnets no longer grip the metal as well as they should. The idea of turning the board vertically and mounting it on the wall seems to be out of the question. At the same time, they do snap together into useful stacks, and they don't slide around nearly as much as they would if they were free, so I still consider it an improvement over non-magnetic counters. At least I should be able to move it into a back room less accessible to toddler fingers and pedestrian traffic, in between sessions.

If anyone has the slightest idea of where to buy the (apparently discontinued) 1/2" game counter tiles that used to be sold in a box that looks like this one, let me know. I see only a single instance of them being sold on Ebay within the last year, so the existing stockpile must be either dwindling or subject to hoarding. Looks like an economic opportunity for a magnetic-sheet manufacturer to exploit. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking, in an age where hex-and-counter games are virtual dinosaurs.