Making Room

"It's not that I have given up on wargaming," I said to Audrey, "Lord knows I still have enough models, but boardgaming and RPGs make way more sense from a time and social capital prespective."

"How do you mean?" she queried.

"Wargames can be adapted to play with groups, but they are designed for the most part to be head-to-head encounters between two individuals," I explained. "If I set up a game with someone, I need to prep by putting together an army list, unpack or pack up an army's worth of models, and if I am hosting, deploy a tabletop full of scenery.

"The game itself, including unpacking, chit chat, scenario selection, deployment and re-packing will take a full afternoon or evening at minimum, and while tremendously fun, is only entertaining for two people."

"I think I see the issue..." Audrey mused.

"That's right!" I continued. "I can put the same amount of prep into a role-playing game and that is entertainment for 4-7 other people instead. And even less preparation is needed for a boardgame! There is only so muich free time, and while I still enjoy painting models, I would far rather do it for smaller scale skirmish games or characters and monsters for D&D than units for large armies."

Why did this topic come up? Well, with Fenya moving home from Toronto this month, we need to make a little room around this place for her stuff. As our household's most egregious accumulator, it fell to me to go through a number of boxes in the basement closet, some of which haven't been moved in years.

I was initially resistant to simply giving away some of these items, many of whiuch were rare or represented an expenditure in terms of effort well in excess of their physical value. But in the end, it was helpful to have younger people in my life who I know will put a number of these things to far better (i.e. any) use than I have over the past two decades in this house.

The go-pile

What kind of things? Well...

A bunch of old pressed-foam scenery, including a very cool cemetery

An entire fortress (with unpainted gate house because I had two of these and kept the other one)

Some siege towers with which to besiege the castle (and can you believe it, the little drawbridges still lower when you turn the wheel at the bottom!)

...and siege equipment for both attackers and defenders

Two Formula Waagh racers I converted out of old Ork warbuggies and snotling pump wagons back before Gorkamorka was released

Some unbuilt city ruins for Warhammer 40,000

And despite selling it instead of giving it away, it was still hard to part with this entire Tenth Company/Space Marine Scout Army, still in the wrap and with nearly a kilogram worth of bitz for converting them!

I finihsed going through the closet today and found some non-wargaming goodies that raised some nostalgia but went to a better home, like this electronic Star Wars Battleship-style game:

And when the recipient tells you this was an item on their childhood Christmas wish list for multiple years, it certainly makes the divesting a lot easier to take!

Other things went straight to recycling; old cylinders or movie reel canisters that could have become scenery but failed to actualize, a broken Planet Killer spaceship from Battlefleet Gothic, and over a dozen 80-90% empty spray cans of varnish and paint are headed to the Eco Station.

One of the film canisters also contained an esoteric and nostalgic assortment of bits: a keychain from Terrace BC, a handcuff key, a Canada flag lapel pin, a piece of petrified wood and four miniature badges featuring a beloved comics character.

And since they don't take up much space, some of this gets to stay - at least for now.