The Wargames Room and Storage

I thought I would have a brief break from the Campaign series to provide an update on my wargames room and a Eureka moment for me on storing my 6mm armies.

I recently completed decorating the house and included in that was my wargames room. I took the opportunity of reorganising it which has given me a little more space to expand the playable area of my wargames table.

1st up was to align all my shelves along one wall. The wooden boxes are storage solutions for my figures I started making over 20 years ago when I used to transport them some distance to a club. I wanted something robust that would hold the figures steady. The downside is that when full the larger boxes in particular are quite heavy and cumbersome. More of how I intend to resolve that later. There is more stuff stored in my garage including the bulk of my terrain boards. The towels on the right should be on their way soon giving me a couple more shelves.

My rather cluttered painting desk. I just never seem to have enough space on the damn thing! 

Over the years my wargames table has taken various forms. The best though proved to be what I have now. A couple of years ago I purchased a set of 3 trestle tables from my local Lidl store for something like £30. They are very light and can take an amazing amount of weight considering their flimsy looking appearance. They have proved to be very adaptable. I can use just the number of tables I require for the size of any particular battle. When all three are aligned they cover an area 6' x 3'. I cover them in MDF boards which give me anything up to the 7'6" x 4'6" maximum for the room.

Onto figure storage. As my 6mm figure range expanded, my wooden storage boxes were proving to be not up to the task. The main problem being organising the figures into various units then after a battle remembering where they all went. I had marked on the base of the boxes where they should go but it was not very clear. I did not have this problem with my old 15mm or 28mm figs. The problem now being that instead of a few hundred figures I now have 1,000's of the little blighters! The solution was embarrassingly simple that many wargamers have been using over the years. That of the clear plastic A4 size storage trays. I already have quite a few for storing terrain but dismissed them as being too small for my figures. Having seen online quite a few examples of figures being stored in these I came up with:

This is the entire French 1st Corps for Waterloo at a ratio of 1:20. So a little over 1,000 figures stored in one box. I also printed out a template which I stuck to the bottom of the tray showing the location of each unit. A second copy was attached to the underside of the lid so that I could see at a glance which unit was where. So I now have 30 boxes on order! I will certainly have some work to do when they arrive. 

And finally my latest painting project:

Wars of the Roses Crossbowmen and Handgunners for the forthcoming Kingmaker campaign. 

Hope you enjoyed this brief interlude from the campaign and an overview of my hobby space.