"How Big is Your Lead Mountain?" Topic

Man, my pile is so big, I don't know how to measure it, I have several thousand 15mm metal figs, I have hundreds of 1/72 plastic kits, maybe a thousand 28mm figs, and several thousand plastic and metal 1/72, 20mm figs, hundreds of 15mm vehicles, thinking of painting and selling off chunks of it until it is manageable.

Enormous. As I rapidly approach my 60s, I'm trying to do something about it, so I've painted some 15mm medievals and Boers that I'm never going to use now, with the intention of sticking on a bring-&-buy soon. Still got loads of 15mm Napoleonics and 19th century armies unpainted. They might get the same treatment over this winter.

Probably have 300-400 fantasy undead (15mm) and 200 or so vikings (also 15mm). I also have some Austrians (Napoleonic 15mm) waiting their turn, maybe 300 of those. So I'd say between 800 and 1000 but I paint pretty quickly, usually a couple units a week (12-16 in a unit), so the pile is dwindling quickly.

My Pile is mega-huge. Scientists would be stumped to sort it all out. It gets angry from time to time so I never speak badly about it. It might hear me. You don't want an angry Pile. If I lived for another 3 lifetimes I'd start to make a dent. The show Hoarders decided to NOT film it. They were afraid of The Pile. It hacked into my wifi and buys more friends to make it bigger. I don't dare refuse its access. It once held my daughter hostage for two days when I sent a package of miniatures back.

The painting gremlins gave up way back in 1987 or so.

So… my Pile is a nice friend… as far as you know. Gotta go… it doesn't want me typing any more.

This is what I think of when I read about people who backed the Reaper Bones kickstarter:

You guys make me feel a LOT better about getting rid of so much stuff. Two projects going with 2 cigar boxes full of ACW and Crimean. I oughta order about 1500 Russian British and French napoleonics. Then FPW, SYW WW1 MAW AWI……yeah, that would beeee greaaaaaat. Whose the patron saint of thriftiness. Is that a word?

The trick is to keep you mountain in unlabeled boxes out of sight in the garage. Only keep whatever scale/era/rule set you are currently fascinated with piled around your painting area. Then when ADHD strikes and you can spend the day(s) digging through your hoard and rediscovering old treasure. Almost as good as a trip to the store.

I am happy to say that after 35 years of wargaming all my unpainted figures fit in a 30x30x40 box (smug smile on my face), although i did get weak last year and bought a ECW Scots brigade box from Warlord games that will probably take years to paint!
The worst guy i know is a member of a Belgium club who had to rent a garage to store his figures as he had no room left in his house. While looking around the house once he found a box marked "Salute 1998". He looked in and realised that after arriving home from the Salute show he had shut the box full of stuff he bought there and didn't find the box again until 2012, 14 years later!

Here I am the one who started this thread, and yet I just ordered more, I couldn't help myself because it felt soooo Goooood! :D

Well, you know how the earth has an axial tilt that causes seasonal variations right?

What a bunch of weenies! My frightening number is about 26,000 figures – but all in 15 mm but across 14 periods. 5-6,000 painted, another 4-5,000 primed and/or partially painted.

"What a bunch of weenies! My frightening number is about 26,000 figures – but all in 15 mm but across 14 periods. 5-6,000 painted, another 4-5,000 primed and/or partially painted."

Must be a Napoleonic player.

I was moving to another place about a month ago… so I had to pack and unpack all my figures and bits boxes, and there was a lot…I still have much more painted figures than unpainted but I guess I have ca. 140 28 mm primed and based, plus about a dozen of boxes of GW and Perrys plastics. From this point of view it is good that GW reduced the number of models in a box ;)
I also have figures from first Reaper Kickstarter, and expecting second in November…all in all, there's a lot of work, and my eyesight is not as good as it was. However, I have bought modelling glasses with interchangeable lenses, should work for me.
The quality of minis nowadays is going up, and indeed temptation is too great to buy something…I've almost gave up gaming, but I'll keep modelling and painting for sure.

A very small hillock for me.
On a budget so have to be very disciplined.

Gosh guys – some of you are sitting on small fortunes of lead doing nothing – mind you with inflation outstripping interest rates you are no worse off

Well if all goes to hell in a hand basket, we'll all have enough for musket balls.

I have a decent sized pile. I bet 3000+ unpainted figures/ships/vehicles. But I need to organize the basement where most of them are stored. So I hope to have a better idea by the end of next month.

Then to keep swmbo happy only small amounts will show up on the painting desk upstairs.

No wonder there's a lead shortage.

My pile is bigger than it should be but smaller than I want it to be :)

Honestly, until I had painted some 100 figures (25mm) I never new what was in the pile. I have around another 100 of the same but around 3000 6mm renaissance and Napoleonic.
The trouble has been buying more of each and painting them rather than reducing the pile systematically. That is being rectified, I hope.

Instead of buying more unpainted lead, I'm trying to spend the money to have them painted.
Unfortunately I'm still buying figures!

" How big is your lead mountain?" Simple answer, not big enough. To complicate matters does that include "lead" destined to become figures?

My guess is around a 1,000 figs/models. All in 15mm and 28mm. sad thing I haven't put brush to mini since march. I painted hundreds on WFB models over a three-year period then just hit a wall and stopped.

Yet I didn't stop buying minis, looking to buy minis, planning purchases, or getting excited about new projects.

10 times bigger than my, plastic, resin and mdf mountains, all together kinda looks like the himalayas….

I have no idea how many miniatures i have.They are scattered all around the house in various rooms.From over thirty plus years of collecting both metal and plastic miniatures.

I'm coming to the conclusion that I mustn't be a real wargamer as I don't have much of a lead pile. OK some of it goes back to the late 70s and early 80s. Mostly I buy it and paint it pretty soon after purchase. I have a small tub of odds and sods I will either melt down to recast using Prinz August molds or use to practice painting techniques on.

Elenderil, I think you could trade pile points for age of mini points… ;)

I reckon ive got just over 1500 unpainted figures in various 'to-do' piles, but I also just got a delivery of another 80 odd 15mm ww2 paratroopers…

It's not the size of the mountain, it's the strategic hiding from the wife that is the hardest thing!

it's the strategic hiding from the wife that is the hardest thing!

You said it, My wife refers to the hobby as "Playing toy soldier but with dice"

I think if you can count them then you clearly haven't got enough – here is my solution to figuring out what I own:

link

A neutron bomb could go off in the side yard, and if I was at my storage bin, I'd be safe thanks to the lead shielding.

I measure it in pounds, not figures.

And its a lot.

All told, "Millions of 'em, Mr. Rico!" Okay, more like thousands. But you get the idea. The mere thought of trying to count them all up is tiring.

I think the oldest figure I have that is unpainted is a GW Imperial War Wagon from 1993 that I bought new. It's partly painted.

Lead? I have about 5 pounds of 15mm unpainted and maybe a few boxes of 28mm figures… my problem is terrain. I am a sucker for a nice table. I have more buildings, terrain etc that I could cover a handball court with terrain.. And yes I mean the stuff I haven't done. Not the painted stuff.

About 75 – 100 25/28mm ACW men
About 30-40 horses
3 or 4 wagons
6 – 8 limbers

Hopefully I can practice a little self -control when this is finished and not order anything else for the time being so I can finish up some big terrain projects.

I have a good amount of pewter stuff and a small amount of lead but probably in the 1000s of plastic including CLIX that I have been repurposing. Unfortunately I keep buying, mostly Chronoscope from Reaper as the only thing we use minis for now is Post Apoc and this is a great line for it. I've also been on a 1/43-1/50 vehicle kick lately.

but I have gotten rid of most of my paperbacks and comics and magazines and 3 boxes of game rules.

"Enough to give me cover from a small-yield tactical nuke – if I crouch."

"A neutron bomb could go off in the side yard, and if I was at my storage bin, I'd be safe thanks to the lead shielding."

I'm with these guys I'm afraid, and I have a hard time letting any of it go because even if my interest in a particular subject might fade at any given time, I can be sure it will at some point rotate back into phase and I'll be glad I still have the minis already in the garage :)

3.

That's 3 S&S civvie vehicles. I suspect this time next month it'll be 0.

I've got a force of 20mm US army rangers that a friend dropped off for painting. He was unclear if he wants me to have them or just paint them. Personally I don't really want to paint them.

Big painting mountains give me anxiety so it's 1 unit at a time basically

So in case of tac nuke attack, I'm dead.

The worst guy i know is a member of a Belgium club who had to rent a garage to store his figures as he had no room left in his house. While looking around the house once he found a box marked "Salute 1998". He looked in and realised that after arriving home from the Salute show he had shut the box full of stuff he bought there and didn't find the box again until 2012, 14 years later

That is insane. Really.

I mean who buys something, takes it home and then instantly dumps it and forgets about it?

"Hey look, groceries from a decade a half ago."

30K

"Hey look, groceries from a decade a half ago."

Hey if there Twinkies there still good! ;D

My lead mountain is so big that I saw it on Google Earth.

My lead mountain is so big that my wife complains about having to hike up to base camp just to see me.

My lead mountain is so big that I have to file an Environmental Impact Report if I want to pull out any figures that might constitute "structural support".

My lead mountain is so big that I don't feel the need to compensate by driving an SUV or a sports car.

That's how big my lead mountain is. How big is yours?

LOL!

My lead mountain is so big you have to use GPS to navigate through it.

My lead mountain is so big that it's a local landmark for giving directions to lost drivers.

My lead mountain is so big that warning signs are posted around it's perimeter "Enter at your own Risk".

This question makes me sad…hah hah ….sob

My lead mountain is so big it has been declared an environmental hazzard!

I've been in a painting slump all summer with just a few battalions, I wonder if increasing it will motivate me.

My lead mountain always has room for a few more…

I have boxes and boxes of unpainted minis, it doesn't help that I frequently scrap minis and warmachines that I get bored of.

Well since my online and blog name is leadaddict I'm sure you can figure the rest. It's 1000's. It's shameful. And I just keep buying more.

I have a two sided walk in closet floor to ceiling with storage for minis and terrain projects(let's call that bronze level)that just haven't made it to the workshop bookshelves(let's call that silver level), and there's 5 fully jammed floor to ceiling bookshelves with box after box of minis, with boxes and terrain projects on the top of the shelving units as well.

If you really peak my interest I will move you up to gold level. Out of the book shelves and into the open shelves around my painting desk(it's 10' long), floor to ceiling. And if you have the right stuff, you get moved to platinum level, and you get out of your stuffy box, get cleaned and scraped and glued to paint sticks and primed. Ready for diamond level service from me, the old leadaddict. Diamond level service includes a custom paint job(sloppy or nice depending on the day), way too much day dreaming, a movie or too, and an hour or two of pure vacation. Diamond Level service is only available on the rare occasions that time, family, friends and work allow, and it usually costs way more than it is worth in paybacks to said family, friends and work.

LA

Whenever I get discouraged about the size of my lead/plastic pile I'm coming back to re-read this thread. It makes me feel better about myself and is much cheaper than therapy.

I think roughly 60 15mm SF. I also have quite few 28mm models (and bits) but those are in storage and I'll probably end up selling most.