What the hell was I thinking? A tour of the Basement of Heaped Miniatures

 Hi Kids,  Since film is no longer an expense I can just go nuts taking pictures.  I was taking a few shots of assorted figs and decided to go ahead and capture some images of the Basement of Heaped Miniatures.  The room is only about 10 or 12 feet wide so I couldn't get far enough away to get the entire bookcases/shelves in the frame, but I'm sure you get the idea.  Obviously the craters on the lower left and the plastic toy dinosaurs just above them are painted, but just about everything else you see is still awaiting its turn on the paint bench. About 15 years ago I started buying plastic tupperware-ish containers to store figs, usually by army or type.  Some are labeled: Warzone Bauhaus, GW Imperial Army (remember before they changed the name to Imperial Guard), Southern Militia & Northern forces for RAFM Heavy Gear, Reaper, Kryomek, 25mm Nappies, Tau, Adeptes Astartes, Void,  Dystopia Wars...  Yeah, I've got my work cut out for me.

 Here we have one of the other units, this one is packed with everything from dice and rulers to rulebooks. The black box lower right is 90% Rackham figs, but there are also swarms of Flames of War Italians, Brits, USA, Russians, and Germans.  Since you can't just do WW2 in one scale there are also a couple hundred bucks worth of 25mm WW2 figs, along with a pile of Company B, Westwind, Chieftain & Battlefront (the 25mm kind) vehicles.  There are also entire armies of 25mm Macedonians, Carthaginians, Starship Troopers....    nothing is painted.
These two pictures show less than 50% of the lead shielding down in the bunker. The other shelves are blocked by the pool table.  Which is for sale, by the way.  Anyone want a Brunswick Windsor VIP table?

 The first 40K army I ever had: The Eighth Imperial Shock Assault Legion.  Nicknamed the Imperial Dicks.  Back in the days when you had to make up your own army list.  There are a few more dreadnoughts still in the boxes of course.  More beakies too.  Not pictured (to the left of the speeders) are the world famous skyboard riding assault marines, an idea stolen from Judge Dredd comics.   Down in front are the Chainsaw Warriors in green camo.  All the back banners are hand painted.

 A few of the Space Orks.  Yes, that one banner is the 10SS Drop Legion. Got your RT book handy?  Yep, they're in there someplace.

 Some more of the unwashed masses. Shock Attack guns, grots, even a Super Cybork.  Those funky things on the left are what I use for Mad Doc's cyborg bodyguards, RAFM space orks in heavy armor. I gave these units what I thought were catchy names; 10/3 Heavy Mob, 1040th IRS, 13th Ju-ju Warriors, 427th Chevy...

 Some of the orc mechanized troops; meckanics, buggies, bikes, off-brand dreadnoughts....

The Heavy Support of the 251st Iron Stompers, three Gobsmashas.  At least that's what I think they are called.  Old Armorcast vehicles, back when resin stunk to high heaven.  It was recommended to use a blowdrier on them to stop the stink.

 Two orc vehicles for scale, and a RAFM Heavy Gear Assault Mammoth.  I really dig those old heavy gears, I wish the game had caught on around here. I own about 4 editions so far.  Why yes, that is the world famous 13th DBLE triple grey and black camo scheme.

 The Heavy Support of the other side, three Armorcast Shadowswords.  I like Armorcast since these things only had about 10-15 parts.  The 13th DBLE one I painted, the others were from Ebay or Bartertown.

 The only Land Raider I ever built and painted, in the livery of the 8th ISAL.  Got another one floating around here someplace.  Afterall, they came two to a box for about US$20.00

 My first kitbash, a 8th ISAL dropship.  It started out life as a plastic Gundam heavy lifter kit.  Had to stick a lot more weapons on it of course!

 Mr. Peabody, set the wayback machine for 1985!  Its a Citadel Miniatures Hobgoblin Rocket Team. 

 Sometimes my rule of not fielding a mini until its painted bites me on the ass.  I still own three of these things, never got to use them.  I think they were written out of the rules about 5 editions ago.  Yeah, that is the price tag.  UK Pounds 6.50. That was about US$9.00.  This thing would probably retail for US$50 nowadays.  God only knows about Ebay.  I cry for the children.

 This is one of the ugliest figs I've ever owned.  When I opened the box I was horrified how two dimensional it appeared.  Chances of being painted.....    ZERO.  The Fighting Uruk-hai I bought at the same time have been in thousands of battles.

 

 Some Call of Cthulhu figs from Grenadier.  Cold Ones, Mi-Go...  not sure who made the flying snake.  Back in the days when I didn't paint the bases... afterall, what would you do if your figs move from outside to inside a house?  You would have to repaint the bases.....  The ignorance of Youth. Gotta love it.

 One of my Marauder monstrous spider riders.  Back in W$ 3rd Ed this was the only way to break a dwarf unit, since they caused fear.  If you lost a combat to fear causing opponents you broke automatically. No check required.  Yessiree, back then we had to make our own bases out of balsa wood.  You even had to measure them.  This one is 40mm.  You kids have it so easy now.

This is the fig that started it all. This is the first one I ever bought.  A Ral Partha Sea Elf with Two Handed Sword in true 25mm. It is about as big as a single 40K Terminator arm.  I bought this thing on vacation at Fantasy and Strategy World (or is that Strategy and Fantasy World?) in Boston back in the late 1970's/early 80's.  I think it cost about US$0.90.  It is painted with Testors Enamels just like all my plastic model airplanes.  The square bottles were all you could get at hobby stores around here.  Well, I figure I've bored everyone to tears by now.  Only two questions remain: "What the hell was I thinking when I bought all this crap?"  and "Who's up for a painting party?"