The State of My Hobby...

[Orcs]

What have I done with my life!?

I think that's a bit like the George best quote "I spent a lot of money on Booze Women and fast cars the rest I just wasted. "

In your case

"I spent a lot of time and money collecting and painting these figures the rest I just wasted"

[Orcs]

By sundries I am assuming rules to match your period of Armies

1 Book (history or hobby)
A History of the art of war in the middle Ages - Oman.


1 Example of electronic medium
I pad with Solar charger holding painting guides


6 Armies of your choice
Marlburian French and Allied
Italian Wars - Two Armies as  I can use nearly all units on either side
WW2 France 1940 Allies and Germans

[fsn]

Donald Featherstone's "War Games".
Solar powered Kindle

If it's a desert island, I thought I should use the available terrain:

Britsh & Italo-German, 1943 Tunisia.
Anglo-Allied & French, 1813
Greek & Carthaginian, very old timey

[Orcs]

Donald Featherstone's "War Games".
Solar powered Kindle

If it's a desert island, I thought I should use the available terrain:

Britsh & Italo-German, 1943 Tunisia.
Anglo-Allied & French, 1813
Greek & Carthaginian, very old timey

That would give you a very large "table"

[Malbork]

Well, SV52, your post comes just as I am contemplating sorting out what was once the guest bedroom but has gradually become something of a dumping place for my hobby stuff, plus the coffee table in the dining room, the top of the freezer in the garage and the shelves at the back of the garden shed; I was looking for a recent order yesterday and just couldn't find it in all the chaos; Well, I found part of it but not most of it...

All started like so many with Airfix in the late '60s, early '70s, trying to recreate Waterloo on the living room floor. Couple of like minded mates from school and Donald Featherstone's rules, althoug sometimes we used Arthur Ransom's (?) diceless ones. Joing the school wargames club got the juices flowing for 1/300 tanks and also Airfix HO/OO ones. At one time had a German panzer division and Soviet tank corps in 1/300 metal,or at least as far as w could research OOBs in those days.  Two of us discovered Peter Laing and a long-term love affair with 15mm began (I hear cries of heresy). A university grant introduced me to Mikes Models and the Baltic Crusades and Dacian Wars - two falames which still burn brightly. I probably have more Teutonic Knight models than there were actual knights, and who can have too many Lithiuanian cavalry?

The came girls, booze and looking for a job. Coupled with gaming friends being in the same boat, interest waned for a long time, especially after moving abroad.  The advent of wargames magazines stirred old embers and in the early '90s I dipped into 10mm for the first time, building small WWII Eastern Front forces for a campaign which has never really taken off, although all the details are still there in my notebook.  Another long-term love started then, this time the SYW, which is also about to move into 10mm from 15mm.

I dabbled in 6mm for a time but found them too small, although I did like the mass effect, which I couldn't affort to recreate in 15mm and then I though the WWII 10mm forces and eureka. Off went the 6mm an din came the 10mm, large French and Russian Napoleonic armies and an idea to build an Austrian one too.  Have the brits, but not painted yet. An old ECW itch was also scratched and I just have to complete the New Model Army to get a decent game going. I am now sorely tempted by the new Indian Mutiny range as this has always struck a chord for some reason.  A 10 mm Culloden army just has to based and then I'll launch the SYW project.

Rules are a problem. I have a bookshelf full of them, all read, but only few played, despite the fact that I build armies to fit specific rules that I never play. Not sure what syas about me, but you have to start somewhere I suppose. Currently looking at Sword & Spear for the Dacian Wars and Lion rampant for the Baltics - seems to fit with the small scale nature of the fiighting there, although I do want to deploy all those Teutonics for a mass charge  

The lead mountain is scattered around, but is large for all that it is low lying.  I recently found this site that allows you to enter your collection details and prices it for you. Gave me a nasty shock when I see just some of what I've spent over the years.

Armies

15mm
Carthaginian
Republican Roman
EIR
Dacian
Palmyran
Spartan (DBA force)
Anglo-Danish (1066)
Normans
Nikephorian Byzantines
Rus
Early Polish
Lithuanian
Teutonic Knights
Later Crusader
Ayyubids
WotR Yorkists
WotR Lancastrians
AWI British
AWI Continentals
Latvian War of Indepedence Latvians (RCW)
Baltic Freikorps
Bolsheviks
Late War Germans (Eastern front)
Late War Russians
British in Italy
Germans in Italy
14th Army - Burma
Japanese - Burma and elsewhere

10mm
Late War Russian battlegroup
Late War German battlegroup
ECW Royalists
ECW New Model Army (ish)
1745 Jacobites
1745 Hanoverians
1812 Russian
1812 French
Peninsular British (ish)
SYW Prussian (the beginnings)

As you can see, it covers quite a bit and I can't really say that any army is actually "finished", except perhaps the 10 mm Eastern front battlegroups. Rather than add to them, I'm tempted by a Barbarossa force. AWI and the WotR armies are pretty much done, but an odd base of artillery or handgunners never goes amiss for the latter, not Indians for the former.

So, as has already been said, immortality looks assured !!

[Westmarcher]

Have you looked at the Sub-Board "In the Line of Fire" in the "Intro's and Welcomes" Board yet, SV52? Anyway, here is a brief summary of my experience.

• "Real Wargaming" starts in early teens with Airfix soldiers and homespun rules.
• Don Featherstone's "Naval Wargames" opens up new horizons. ACW games played using Featherstone's rules.
• First painted figures (previously only tanks, planes and ships) and first conversions cannibalising other figures and using plasticine and banana oil.
• To "grow up" and focus on career, etc., Airfix ACW, AWI and Napoleonic collection given away to cousin. Career, amateur football, hanging out with friends disinterested in wargaming, marriage, family, etc., follows. But inwardly longing for wargaming fix so continue to buy magazines (including Strategy & Tactics with free board game), and 'commercial' rules, go to shows and play computer strategy games over the next 25 years.
• Meet old wargaming acquaintance by chance on train. We both buy and paint up 6mm ECW and Napoleonic armies, play many DBR and Shako games and run two demos at shows.
• Our short-lived little wargaming 'club' is dissolved when I discover my acquaintance has a secret lifestyle we fundamentally disagree over and which results in his incarceration(!).
• Another period in the wargaming wilderness during which my 6mm armies are sold (but terrain retained - hence the 'Wendy' houses, Ithoriel).
• Family grows, finances start to get slightly better and decision made to start a new collection. SYW chosen. Talk to Dark Lord at Claymore in Edinburgh who flashes his wares. 10mm chosen.  
• Now have opposing SYW and ACW armies in 10mm and 15mm (ACW started before Pendraken's new ACW range). Joined the Pendraken, Honours of War and Peter Pig forums. Have more rules than I can ever play (currently Honours of War, Field of Battle, Black Powder mostly played). I play solo and sometimes with others (e.g., Greenock Wargames Club). Don't have an unpainted figure mountain - more of a "heap."
• Read more than play or paint nowadays (like most of my life, I suppose) but, having recently started a new ECW project, the addiction is still latent within.

I am Westie and I am a Wargame-a-holic.  

p.s. @Nobby: It's 'Augsburg,' old chum.  

[SV52]

Okay...
I started young, aged 11, and got into early 1st edition Warhammer. Then I got introduced to 6th Edition, WRG WW2, DBA, DBM, and from there...
Never stopped.
The wife just shrugs it off, but it pays for her sewing lessons...
My most lax period was during 1998, where I didn't paint for 9 months as I was working away, and during teacher training when I only painted three tigers and 150 Amerindian cavalry.
I appear to paint more often for friends these days than myself, but actually, I'm just ahead this year...

Like it, another nutter.

[SV52]

So for me:

Good choices again, envious of friends group.

[SV52]

Started in big Airfix plastics with trashy rules in the 1970s; discovered 6mm in the 80s; cut back severely to 15mm pike and shot and 6mm SYW in the 90s; and discovered the One True Scale in the new millennium, with 6mm houses and 1:1200 ships in supporting roles

Yup, another sufferer.  Better not to ask the last question. It's like thinking about how much money you've spent on cars over the years.

[SV52]

How about 'Desert Island Discs' time?

A Day of Battle David Ascoli

Don't know that one, like the choices.

[SV52]

Book: A Day of Battle David Ascoli

Electronic medium:  absolutely no chance!

Italian Wars Spanish
Italian Wars French

Ascoli again, hmm.
Luddite
Oh yeah!

[SV52]

Tablet or phone. It's practically the same. Without reception, a modern day phone IS a tablet so..   

After a week the battery will be dead anyway. Just need enough time to carve some of the special rules/tables in a rock or something.

Not convinced, wind turbine available for power (the bits are there, all you gotta do is build it) but no phone service.

[SV52]

I think that's a bit like the George best quote "I spent a lot of money on Booze Women and fast cars the rest I just wasted. "

In your case

"I spent a lot of time and money collecting and painting these figures the rest I just wasted"

Indeed.

[SV52]

By sundries I am assuming rules to match your period of Armies

1 Book (history or hobby)
A History of the art of war in the middle Ages - Oman.

1 Example of electronic medium
I pad with Solar charger holding painting guides

6 Armies of your choice
Marlburian French and Allied
Italian Wars - Two Armies as  I can use nearly all units on either side
WW2 France 1940 Allies and Germans

Nice range again.  Sundries - glue, brushes, stuff like that.

[SV52]

Donald Featherstone's "War Games".
Solar powered Kindle

If it's a desert island, I thought I should use the available terrain:

Britsh & Italo-German, 1943 Tunisia.
Anglo-Allied & French, 1813
Greek & Carthaginian, very old timey

A sandtable and a half.  Very themed selection.  The Featherstone one I know, got too.