How do you organize your minis?

[Xveers]

I'm writing this one cause i've finally reached critical mass (about 350 or so tanks/trucks + a horde of infantry) and I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to organize my collection. I've a few obvious ones, IE all the tanks that are the same go in the same box, same with infantry (to a degree), and limbered/deployed guns are kept together, but beyond that...

How do you organize AT/artillery guns? Do you have the needed prime movers in the same box, or another one?

With infantry, do you try to set them up like proper battalions and support battalions, or do they get sorted simply by what they are?

Same for mixed units like SP AT guns/reconnisance units and AA weapons.

Any/all advice appreciated!
Thanks!

[shawno]

I also organize them in ready to deploy units. Usually I have an infantry company with some support vehicles such as medical evacuation and logistical vehicles, sometimes an organic tank platoon.

I store the armour in small hangar like buildings I made, for instance, each company or squadron gets a building or in you case could be a box. It all comes down to, for me at least, grouping and storing them as they would fight.

[Mk 1]

Most of my collection are stored in company-sized boxes. I use 250-card boxes that I get at the local comics/baseball card shop -- they turn out to be almost the same size as the plastic hinged boxes that GHQ used some years ago for their larger models (and that their competitor still uses). I slice up some foam to add to provide padding.

Those boxes are sized right for a company of Russian armor. Once I look to the US, though, the boxes are too small for the size of a US armored company. So then I use Bunker Boxes or Panzer Keepers or some such.

I have started to seperate out the HQ elemenets. So for example, to field a Russian tank company, I might grab a box of "T-34m43 Tank COY", which would have 10 T-34s, and a small box of "Russian Tank COY HQ", which would have one truck and one jeep. To make a battalion, I would grab two such combos, and a small box marked "Russian Tank BAT HQ" which would have an extra T-34 (box has 3 or 4 different one-off tanks), a canopied truck, a truck with boxes, a truck with POL barrels, a recovery vehicle (turretless tank or Stalinets tractor), a BA-64 or BA-20 AC, a jeep, and an AOP stand. Since I have perhaps a few dozen tank companies, and I don't use more than 2 or 3 of them at a time, I save on duplicating the HQs that way.

I do the same with infantry, for the most part. I have tried boxing up the infantry by battalion, but I find that to be unwieldly. Too many sub-units, too big of a box required. And in the end I seldom place a full TOE battalion on the battleboard anyways. So company sized boxes, with battalion HQs and attachable platoons (pioneers, medical sections, transport sections, etc) seem to be the way to go.

Then of course there are some units that don't form full companies, or that are just "pool" units. I have a US amored cav squadron in a box that has a proper allotment of jeeps, and I have jeeps in many/most of my HQ element boxes, but I still have an extra box of jeeps, some with MGs, some as radio/command jeeps, some with trailers. Same with halftracks, trucks, amored cars, etc.

For me that seems to be the best balance between having fully organized units ready to go right out of the box, and avoiding excessive duplication, and having the flexibility to create new combat organizations as a gaming scenario may require.

[Extra Crispy]

I mount all of my models on steel bases. For bulk storage they are kept in the magnet lined storage boxes I sell. Though I make one box "multi-level." The bases are then grouped as units. So 9 Soviet infantry stands make up a company. Each stand has a unique colored stripe to help with unit integrity on the table as well as re-sroting for clean up. Similar items are stored together, so all T-34s here, all PzIVs there.

To transport, I pull what I need for a game. Units are placed on CD trays lined with more magnetic sheeting. Then the trays go into a portable CD carrier. I can get quite a lot in a very small space this way. Then, each player has a place to put casualties or to clean up to.

I have a separate box for terrain but use the exact same system.