Packing up the Display Case Figures and Other Stuff....

As we continue into this chaotic mess known as "pre-planning/pre-packing, and pre-staging" for our upcoming move, one of my biggest projects is "Moving all of my gaming stuff".  Truly this is going to be a Herculean effort as I simply have "a lot of toys". Not as many as some but still...enough.
One of the task I have before me was to pack up my painted 28mm figures that I had in my display case for storage/transport. The case is over 6 feet tall and originally came with three shelves, (we've added four more since them, and have two more that can go in), and is packed with over 600 painted 28mm figures, (most of them mounted on 1/4" fender washers for bases.). So this was going to be a bit of a job I thought.

The Display Case...

Some of the many figures needing to be packed and ready for transport. 

Oddly enough this was simpler than it seemed.
A while back, (Sept 9, 2016 to be exact), I made a purchase of some IRIS scrapbook cases at Hobby Lobby. I had waited until I caught them on sale and then went in whole hog. Unfortunately "whole hog" in this case was only six, (for a total of eight that I ended up having).
These cases by IRIS (They are advertised as holding 12" X 12" stuff but their actual measurements are 14 5/16" X 14 1/8" X 3 1/8" in size). Unfortunately, since this Covid 19 mess, the Arts and Crafts stores have gotten a little pricey and these things were always pricey, (hence my one time purchase and HL and only then on 50% off days), at usually anywhere from 8-15 bucks a pop. So imagine my surprise when a certain office supply store had these on sale at 6 for 28.95.  So yeah I jumped and ordered a dozen, and strangely enough the USPS (not Amazon), had both boxes on my door in less than a full week.

 These items are study; opaque but clear enough that you can see what is in them, and easy to work with. They are "slick" plastic though. To keep the figures in the case, I also bought some adhesive magnetic rolls.

 By cutting the rolls in half, you can do two boxes with 12 X 12 inch squares. SUGGESTION: To get a better adhesive grip, wipe the inside of the case with a rag wet with rubbing alcohol, and let dry. This removes the oils from the plastic, and provides a better grip for the adhesive.
Cut the adhesive and slowly apply in the middle of the box. You will have about an 1/8th to a 1/4 in gap space on either side if done correctly, (Depending on the magnetic sheet).

Not too shabby to hold the figures in, and pretty easy to do, even for me!

Two of the finished cases awaiting figures.

So, at this point you can begin to load up figures.

Each case can take 144 28mm figures that are on 1/4" fender washer bases, (12 rows of 12). 

Larger and smaller washer bases will be different.

And in they go....

144 figures per case...not bad...

Once they are done, 2-3 layers of soft bubble wrap is placed on top of the figures to hold them in place and the top is then closed.

Easy peasy....

Quick and relatively painless storage and transport of figures.

I was surprised as it only took four cases to do the entire shelf, (well a good 95%). There are some figures in there that are not on the fender washer bases and thus will be individually wrapped and bagged before being stored. But overall the process was quick and relatively painless.  I still have the other cases to mount my painting queue figures in, and eventually once we are moved and the "Man-Cave", is up and running, these cases will be converted over to troop storage for my 15mm stuff and my vehicles, (which seem to be constantly growing.) 

On a sad note, my once stuffed full display case, is now looking sad and lonely and very, very, empty....

Waiting to be restocked with figures again...hopefully, one day soon....

More to come!

So I did a stupid thing....

So at the beginning of May when we decided to move, my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), discussed the fact that "When we move, I will need a man cave."  Now in "woman speak" that could mean "Sweetie, let's get all of your gaming stuff in an area where you can play and paint and have yourself "your space".); OR in some cases it is "We need to find a place for you to store all of this silly crap and not have it clog up the house like it has been."
Thankfully, mine was the former.
BUT....
During this time, a stupid idea flowed into my head.
"While I am getting all of this stuff together, why not go ahead and count it all out and inventory it and see what I have?"
Sigh...I never learn do I?
The last time I entered into this blog o' mine that I did (or even attempted to do) an inventory was 6 June 2014, and the number came out to around 872....
"So!" sez I. "I'm going to sit down and count my 28's..."
My wife smiles. "Your 15mm needs to be counted also."
"No woman!" I say, wagging my finger at her. "That way lies madness!"
"And your 20mm needs counting, as well as your micro armor, etc..."
I sighed.
CURSE THIS WOMAN AND THIS THING SHE HAS CALLED "LOGIC"!!!!!
So I started counting.
And counting.
And counting.

After about a week, I finally stopped counting....
The current (mostly accurate tally) is:  6134
Yes that is correct. Six thousand, one hundred, and thirty four unpainted figures.
This includes all the lead and the plastic, and the Reaper Bones IV KS, but it does NOT include the Reaper Bones V KS that will be arrived next year and will add another 4-500 figures to my horde.

Still...
The number makes me blink.
So then I broke it down:

25-28mm
Fantasy: Regular Size:     527
Fantasy: Large:                25
Pulp/Retro/Interwar:        88
RCW:                               323
Western/ACW:                 189
Victorian/Colonials:         200
Horror/Gothic:                 77
WW1/WW2:                    22
SYW/AWI/18th Cent:      29
Pirates:                            249
Sci-Fi:                              16
Modern:                           7
Gangsters:                      59
Misc: (animals, etc):       119

20mm
Vietnam:                      191
(This includes figures, vehicles, etc)

15mm
Vietnam:                      246
WWII:                         121
ACW:                          413
AK47/Modern:            637
Sci-Fi:                         141
Misc:                           14
19th Cent/Colonials:   10
Zombies:                     21
Napoleonic:                 83
Ancients:                     14
Medieval:                    3
VEHICLES
Wheeled:                     15
Tracked:                      27
Aircraft:                      9

Misc:
Micro Armor:              52
Dystopian Wars:         7
Wooden Ships:            1

Whew...
So there it is...
The breakdown.

So I decided to work this formula...
"If I was able to sit down and paint four figures a day, every day with nothing else to do, it would take me 1,553.5 days to paint ALL of them."
So this would take me: 221.9 weeks to do them all.
This would be 4.26 YEARS....
And that is if I do NOT buy ANY MORE FIGURES...
...
...
...
And the Reaper KS V will be coming....
I'm going to go cry now...

A long, overdue, update....

Overdue Update, Explanation, and MOVING!!!!

Holy crap, it's May 2020!

The last thing I know (well here on this blog at least), was that it was April 2018.  

And then here it is now...

You're probably wondering "What in the heck happened?"

Well...the only real thing I can say is that "Life happened."

Things got weird towards the end of 2018 in our lives, (medical wise, family wise, legal wise, health-wise and job wise), and the more we seemed to solve issues the more issues kept piling up. Some of it was of our own making, but a lot of it was also due to us having to "adult" a family member that was living with us that essentially had no goals or initiative in their life to do anything other than play video games all night and sleep all day. 

Money became tight, and repair bills became constant. 

In the summer of 2019, I had an accident, which resulted in me being in a wheelchair for six months. I spent most of the months of Jan and Feb re-teaching my right leg "How to walk again."  I am now able to move pretty well. True I won't be winning, (or even running), any marathons in the near future, or wowing the chicks with my slick moves on the dance floor, but I can get from point A to point B pretty well now. Sometimes though I take my walking stick (aka "Kinderschlager") as a "just in case".

Due to life taking priority; gaming, (and this blog), took a place far on the back burner.

Sadly enough, earlier this year my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), and myself took a cold, hard, look at the reality and made the decision that "We have to move."

The reality of it was this:

1: Indianapolis is expanding like a cancer. Our current area is building up quickly (commercial wise).

Developers are looking at the residential areas where we live and salivating with the opportunity to get them rezoned commercial and thus make $$$.

2: As a result of this expansion, street repairs, and "enhancements" that should have been done years ago, are now finally getting done. 

3: As a result of this, our property taxes have continued to skyrocket. They've increased steadily over the last six years.  This will result in the people in the residences being eventually unable to pay their property taxes and thus be forced to move. The developers will then buy the residential properties, rezone them into commercial and thus make $$$ (See #1 above.)

4: Sadly also, our neighborhood, (which we have lived in for 14 years now), is becoming "A hood".  We've got a guy a few houses down from us that I am just waiting on him to get a visit from the ATF one day as well as the FBI coming around to ask about "his biker buddies with the swastikas coming over to visit all the time."

So yeah...we have to move.

Our current plan is to look for a nice little place out in the country. My wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), wants someplace "Country" so that we don't have to worry about it. She also wants to have a garden and perhaps a small backyard chicken coop. (You can take the girl out of the Kansas Farm, but you can't take the Kansas Farm out of the girl.)....

So small town living and country houses it is.

On the plus side, the wife has said that "I need a man cave." So one of our "needs" is a place where I can finally, FINALLY, get all of my gaming stuff unpacked (some of it since has been packed up since the mid 90's), and get it all together, and set up as well as a dedicated gaming table. 

So that is where we are at with this.

HOWEVER....

One of the biggest chores I have ahead of me is packing up the gaming stuff. During this time, I also did a STUPID thing, (silly man that I am), and counted and inventoried my unpainted lead. 

Honestly? It almost made me cry.

So I started slowly packing up the unpainted figures and labeling them for inventory and loading purposes.

This is where I stand right now....

My unpainted lead. 

Yeah....I feel ashamed....

The first two columns of boxes are just the 28's alone...

The big box on the left is my Reaper Bones IV KS...sigh; followed up by the second box being NON Bones KS Reaper figures, (all the Reaper figures I have that are not in the 4 or 5 KS). The black box is my "The Chicago Way" stuff, followed up by a box of the plastic sprues (28 and 15mm) from Wargames Illustrated Magazines. On top of that is the 1/43 (28mm Die Cast Vehicles),  finally topped of with the 28mm Boxed sets of figures.

The second column starts with a plastic case of NON-Reaper 28mm fantasy figs, followed by 28mm Odds and Ends figures (In the blue box), then #8 box is 28mm SYW/AWI.  Boxes 9-12 are 28mm Pirates, RCW, Colonials, and Western/ACW respectively.

All in all approx a dozen boxes for 28mm figures.

To the right of that, is ONE box holding all of my unpainted 15mm figures and the smaller square box holds ALL of my 20mm stuff (Vietnam war).  

So yes....the ladies are right...."Size DOES matter!"

The open box is currently all of the "odd stuff", (Dystopian Wars Fleets, 1/35th WWII, etc.)

So yes, this is all of the unpainted figures.

No buildings, no terrain, no scenics, nothing... None of the worktable stuff, etc...

And NONE of the painted figures.

Speaking of painted figures...

This is what I still have to pack....

As well as the figures in the Display Case.

And after ALL of that, I can then finally start packing up the worktable, and all of the supplies that I have, (paints, brushes, tools, lights, etc..)

To be honest I am going to need a small cargo van just to move the figures and gaming stuff...

And then there is the booze....but we will get to that later.

So, here's to coming back to this blog in 2020 and getting it going again.
I will keep updating as things progress.