Some of you may recall, a few weeks ago, my concerns over downsizing my collection of toy soldiers. I invited The Estimable Mrs P. to examine the problem, and she did have a few comments. The first one was to suggest, as gently as possible, that I perhaps had too many soldiers. Given that the labels had fallen off some of the boxes, it was not unreasonable to suppose that I had forgotten what was in them. In point of fact, of course, I had not, but the suggestion remained on the table, as it were.
Taking my concerns to the blogosphere resulted in some suggestions. Firstly, some smaller boxes, in terms of height, were suggested. This is well taken, but remains to be implemented, although the Estimable Mrs P. has authorised further investigations. In truth, I have only just measured the height of a lot of my troops and started to determine which armies will fit (basically, those without pike or lancers) and which will not. The results suggest that a considerable saving in height could be achieved, with the subsequent ability to pile the boxes up higher and reduce the footprint of the collection that way.
The main effort, however, has been aimed at rebasing some of the troops. A number of target armies have been identified that could straightforwardly have the quantity of infantry bases halved by doubling the number of figures on the base. A quick survey of the armies suggested that most of my ‘barbarian’ would benefit from such treatment – Celts, Germans, Spanish – as well as the two versions of Romans – late Republican and early Empire. The early Persians and the Greeks, too, could be moved down this road. A lot of space would be saved, I think, and, after years of denial, I have to admit that I am somewhat won over to the idea of having more figures on a base. There are pros and cons.
The cons, as it were, are my questions about how deep the formations really were. A six or eight-man deep line of musketeers or pike, or hoplites or legionaries, is not actually that deep compared to the depth of the base, or the ground scale of the game. On the other hand, a single line of troops does not really convey the feeling of a unit, perhaps more a skirmish line, and, despite what some people I’ve met over the years might claim, pike, at least, did not skirmish.
So, deep breath time, and the project is on. Despite what I just said above, the initial target was not Greeks, Romans, or barbarians, but my collection of Aztecs. It was going to be just the Aztecs, while I pondered the fate of the Inca armies (which are much smaller). Painting the Inca is what finished me with using condensed scale DBR, incidentally. I painted 28 strips and then worked out that I needed as many again to create the armies according to the lists. Morale collapsed, and it never happened, which, given the present conundrum, is probably just as well.
Still, the Aztecs and Inca were stored in 3 box files and had taken over the top of the cupboard in which some of the armies are stored. This was unsatisfactory, as that is also the surface on which I run the wargames, so some reduction would be welcome in both the shorter and longer terms. I also forgot to count the number of bases, but it was something like 28 Inca, as just noted, 14 Aztec ‘knights’, 62 Aztec militia types, 20-something archers, and 20-something skirmishers.
As a result of my despairing post, someone kindly suggested building a shelf within a box file to add more storage. As I proceeded with rebasing the Aztecs, The Estimable Mrs P. bought me some nice coffee (to sustain the process, you understand. I’m not addicted. My days of 6 cups in a morning are long gone). This coffee was ‘Machu Picchu Blend’. The fate of the Inca was thus sealed. They were staying as well.
The process of rebasing turned out to be not that painful, although it was rather lengthy. I found that as the basing material is poly-filler, sealed with PVA glue, and then painted, it would break off if I gave the plastic card bases a slight twist. The strips of soldiers could then be removed and rinsed to get rid of the filler dust, while half the bases were recycled for the purpose of rebasing. The result is a much smaller, although still substantial, horde of Aztecs.
The reduction in footprint is substantial. The Aztecs and Inca now fit into one box file, as shown above, with my own interpretation of the shelf suggestion, as shown. The Aztecs are on the lower portion; you can see the generals, skirmishers, porters, and the edge of the archers above. The Inca and the singly based officers are on the upper portion on the right. The shelf was created using half a sheet of plastic card and a sheet of steel paper, as all the bases have retained the magnetic strip they had to start with.
Undressed, as it were, you can see the details of the construction. The rest of the Aztecs fit around the legs of the shelf. I added the fifth support to prevent the shelf from sagging, but I am not sure whether it would have done so or not. In the best tradition of a former Blue Peter watcher, the supports are made from things I had lying around, in this case some corks from our wine-making operation. Fear not, they are unused, because the quality of corks has declined over recent years. They are unusable for their original purpose because they tend to stick in the neck of the bottle. My Aztecs will not start smelling of wine, although you might consider that a bad thing.
Now, this has a number of consequences. Firstly, I need to think of a campaign using the Aztecs, and then one using the Incas. And then I need to start to tackle the Romans and Celts. The footprint of the Aztecs and Incas has been reduced by two-thirds. I doubt if the rest will be that spectacular, but I am determined to diminish the storage problem, not the number of toy soldiers I have.
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