I grew up on the Cold War. Eventually finding a sort of comfort in the daily threat of thermonuclear incineration (and fully believing that the world leaders weren't silly enough to toast us all, silly me). Though I came to gaming by way of colonials and World War II, in little time the Cold War became a major part of my hobby, mostly in 6mm, and to a lesser degree in 20mm. When the wall came tumbling down, and we all became friends again, the Cold War faded from my hobby, largely leaving the it in my gaming past.
A few years ago, I began to again have that taste for the Cold War, and started planning and rebuilding the Cold War in 15mm. Unfortunately, my 15mm Cold War adventure has gone more slowly than anticipated, as life has found many new ways to interfere with my hobby. All the while, my 6mm Cold War armies have mostly collected dust, with only occasional ventures out of storage.
A few months ago, while lamenting my slow progress in 15mm, both in mastering my own models, and in acquiring those from other sources, the little light-bulb went on in my head. Why not simply re-animate my 6mm armies? While not best suited for many of the infantry oriented games that I'd like to play, micro scale is probably the best choice for the armor heavy battles that still capture my interest. And, with thousands of miniatures already setting around, I should be able to get there pretty fast.
So, not too long ago, I pulled my micro-armor "cubes" together, and started to take inventory of what I currently have. I sold a thousand or so models off some years ago, when in a bit of a financial pinch, and had a bunch of stuff (like another 800 models) damaged in a car accident several years back, when a woman decided that her red light didn't really mean "STOP".
Somewhere around 1987, I started building my micro-armor storage cubes, 1 foot square cubes with six drawers, that each store between about 220 and 400 models depending on size and period. Currently I have three of them full of Cold War vehicles.
One of my more recent cubes, using thicker 1/2" plywood for the box,
originally, they were more like 5/16" ply.
Some years after the Cold War gaming faded, I started playing a lot of Arab-Israeli games, so a lot of my NATO v. WarPac stuff got repainted and re-purposed for the desert.
Egyptian...
... and Israeli. There are smaller numbers of Syrian and Jordanian
vehicles in one tray or another, as well.
My NATO and WarPac stuff is in a bit worse shape, having been scalped for the middle east, and generally in a state of disrepair, as I focused on mid-east and WWII.
A small portion of my old Warpac stuff.
Some of my US stuff to the left above and below.
For now, I am going through my TO&Es, and see what I can field without new purchases. I need to update the painting, adding markings and more weathering to a lot of models. In time, I will fill in the gaps with new models, but should be able to build a lot of company and battalion sized units with my dusty, forgotten legions.
Funny, I just commented on TMP a day or two ago, about not having any armies to paint. Silly me.
