How did you build your collection?

Extra Crispy · Post by **Extra Crispy** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:49 am

I got into Micro Armor by accident. On a whim bid on a collection at a Silent Auction. Since then I've bought and painted plenty, but I've also scooped up painted collections on Ebay and flea markets. As a result while I have a good collection it has noticable gaps and duplications.

How did you build your collection?

pvt64 · Post by **pvt64** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 9:44 pm

Mark,
Most of mine have been ordered directly from the manufacturer. 99% are GHQ. Others fill in gaps as needed, but GHQ are my favorite. A few off of Ebay or through people who carry GHQ.

panzergator · Post by **panzergator** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 11:34 pm

I started out after I played Dunn-Kempf in the Armor Officer Advanced Course in 1978. Bought the first packs at the US Cavalry Store back when it was a little nook in a strip mall off Wilson Road. A pack cost $3.95.

I just wanted a platoon of M60A2s and a company of Russian T-62s. There was no intention to game even then. It wasn't long before I wanted a battalion of US tanks and a regiminet of Russians. Once I had a tank battalion, I needed a Mech battalion with which to cross-attach. And then I needed an A1 battalion to match my A2 battalion. Naturally, I had to up the number of Russians to keep the ratio at 1 to 3. When, at last, I had 3rd BDE, 3AD replicated, the TO&E changed to DIV 86, (J-series) and then I wanted the interim J and the full J, and the next thing I knew... Now I'm at a US division plus and a Russian division plus, with no end in sight. In between, there were three sons to raise and a number of duty stations, which drastically, albeit quite willingly, re-directed the budget. And the hobby budget has to share with my predilection toward 1/35 scale US tanks, although lately, I have been concentrating on getting back to GHQ.

My preference was, for quite some time, to buy from a local store so I could see exactly what I was getting, but that's hard to find these days. I'm quite happy to order direct from GHQ, except for the help a couple of forum members have provided in tracking down M60A2s (Cama and Chrisswim - thank you, Gentlemen) and some filling in missing pieces (thank you, the tourist)

I missed the local convention this year for a wedding in New Orleans, but I will be watching for more. There may be a local wargaming club, The Manhattan Maneuver Group, if it's still active.

pmskaar · Post by **pmskaar** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:02 am

I got started with GHQ in 1981 when I was at the Armor Officer Advanced Course at Ft. Knox.

We used the models in classroom exercises and I was intrigued so went to the Cav Store and bought 2 packs each of T-62s, BMP-1s, and BTR-60PBs. Later I traded and bought a few items from my next door neighbor who had a small collection.

That is how I got started.

When I came back from Germany in 1985, I was stationed in the Los Angeles area and discovered Brookhurst Hobbies. At that time GHQ was just starting to re-vamp some of their older models like the T-34, KV-1, Panther, and Tiger. Brookhurst had almost the whole line of GHQ at the time and thus began my real addiction.

Now, some 30 years later, I still love the models and prefer GHQ among all other manufacturers in this scale.
I now have an extensive collection of World War II and Modern Micro Armor as well as World War I and World War II Micronaughts. I have even dabbled in the 10mm Civil War and Napoleonic lines which have some really exquisite figures.

I anticipate that I will be buying, collecting, and painting until I die or am physically unable to enjoy it. It has been a great pastime for me.

Pete

RedLeif · Post by **RedLeif** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:43 am

My first Micro Armour purchase was three T-34 Combat Command Boxes, a box of Pz IV H and a box of Panthers.

Yeah, I drank the cool aid!

kfeltenberger · Post by **kfeltenberger** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:22 am

I got started with micro-armor in the early 80s at a little game store in York, PA called "The Ordered Line". I think they used Tractics, and most of the gaming was WW2, and we weren't bogged down by a ton of rules.

Then we used Tractics to do modern and I was truly hooked. One of the players was a fan of all things French and being a completist, he had a Pluton missile launcher...and a mushroom cloud that was in scale. Later, in 1984, at GenCon, I played another set of rules and in my eagerness bought a fair bit of a much lower quality manufacturer's product so I could "have more". When the excitement wore off I had severe buyer's remorse as the miniatures looked like tanks, but only barely. What kind of tank they were was a good question.

Since then, I've been pretty much a GHQ stalwart. I have some other stuff from the other good vendor, but they're all oddball items that would never be brought onto the board.

So now we fast forward to a few years ago when I got back into micro-armor after a 25 year hiatus. Rather than just buy packs of miniatures, I decided which nations I wanted to build and play and then found the appropriate army list by Mark Bevis. Rather than using different sources, I decided to use Mark's lists because they were simple, direct, and I could print them out and give them to a player and say, "This is how your units are organized."

For me, having a TO&E that I can use to guide my buying is critical and I know that ever dollar I spend is going for a specific purpose.

Hoth_902 · Post by **Hoth_902** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 10:42 am

My stepfather, a former Marine, got me into war gaming back in the mid 80s.. It consisted of maps drawn on cardboard notebook backs taped together. the pieces were vehicles drawn on small 1 cm squares pieces of cardboard.

In high school I I found axis and allies and loved the game. However, I was not a fan of the generic looking pieces.. still love the game to this day.

Shortly after that I stumbled across GHQ in a little flea market booth. It was set up by a local hobby store that carried the product. Bought and painted a few and got hooked instantly. I was just out of high school so budget was tight so my piece count was low. At this point it was more of a collection than something I would game with. In college I found MBT and wanted real looking vehicles to replace the game pieces. I bought a bunker box of M1s and M2s and one for soviets... Actually played a game or two with the pieces I had painted up. Toted them around for years and packed away doing nothing.

Got to California and bought a few more. Painted them and again stored them away while I moved over the years. I think at this point I had 80 or so. After a couple of moves and reaching the age of 35, I got to a point that I was tired of moving them and feared I would never find anyone interested in war gaming. Sadly chucked all of them in the trash.

I know it was a tragic decision that I regret to this day.

Finally, a year and half after I chucked them, I met a buddy that was interested and I decided to pic the hobby back up. He moved a couple of years later and before I started the vicious circle again, I found a local group here in Washington and went nutzzz. In two short years I have bought both directly from GHQ and from others trying to down size. My collection today is about 350 GHQ vehicles, split between WWII and Modern, about 20 unpainted buildings, and at least 100 1/600 scale aircraft from another company. I feel that even if I do not play, I will probably continue collection and painting till I am unable to paint. Plus it brings me some joy thinking about how my significant other will deal with the collection if I pass before her. LOL.

Mike

kiasutha · Post by **kiasutha** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 10:35 pm

Mark:
Man does that go back! I started when GHQ was pretty new.
I had been buying Roco MiniTanks at the time.
I was 15/16 years old; not sure which side of the "line" I was on. I'll be 62 next month.
Since I helped out in my dad's business, GHQ wasn't too bad at an average of $2 a pack...
My first purchases were mail order; either direct from GHQ adds in a wargames mag, or thru Alnavco- I'd bought some 1/35 model kits from them.
Depending on cash and other interests, I've bought micro over the years ever since.
Some used to come from "local" shops, when there were any.
The last shop was in Pittsburgh, about 250 miles from me, but I had old kin to visit, so...
Last time I was in they hadn't restocked in a long time. The owner said sales didn't warrant the size of the minimum order from GHQ.
Not the first time I've heard that... I've bought very little used stuff.
So now it's all direct, though there has been little new of interest to me in the last few years.
This year I'll order some new trucks, the Marder 1, and the Kagero.

chrisswim · Post by **chrisswim** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:32 am

I had played Risk and then Axis and Allies. I had gone into this game ship a few times, it seemed different, unique. It was, fantasy, sci-fy, Ad&D, etc. I walked out. One Thursday in 1989 I walked into Xeno's (owned by Frank Zeno) in Market Square Mall in Jacksonville, FL. and saw modern micro armor. Ohhhhhhhhh, ahhhhh, ummmm,.... I asked the store personnel, Chip Parker (he owns Borderlands now) and Joe S. about the game on the 5 x 8 ft table. Showed me some stuff on the wall, I would like to play it before I buy it. So next Thursday I played the Americans defending w M1A1 and M2 Bradleys against a Russian attack of T-72 and BMP1s. They wanted me to win, I lost. I was hooked. So I bought, games, bought more when new stuff came out, or different company had stuff. We did a lot of Cold War, Fulda Gap. The next year Iraq invaded Kuwait, and a newspaper reporter came out to interview us. We played Iraq a bunch, about 6-8 of us every week.
. Do not get to play as much, have much more. Enjoyed playing with Drew, Mark F., Paul (AV8), Gabe, Markus, Chad, Don, Dwight, John, Mick C., Rob, Paul W.,and a few others, some that I cannot recall their nFame and many others.
. For games, we have conducted Cold War, US vs. Germany, Germany vs South Africa, Canada, Pakistan vs India, SADF vs. SW Africa. Eygpt vs Israel, Jordan vs Israel, Saudia Arabia vs Israel, China vs. US; Ukraine, North & South Korea, Australia, Italy, Spain, UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Netherlands, Japan, Mexico, Cuba, Angola, East/West Germany, Yugoslavia- Serbia, Croatia, Turkey, Greece are most of the countries that we have fought for and/or against.
. Hope you do not mind the game types/scenarios/countries or list some guys, a few that are still on here.

BurtWolf · Post by **BurtWolf** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:55 am

Was always a cardboard war gamer - Avalon hill etc., through high school. Always solo, no one was interested. Found a hobby shop post college selling used GHQ- bought about 30 pieces of panthers, 88s, Sherman's and a bunch of infantry. Played for a year or two and then packed them away. Fast forward 20 years, unloading boxes and found "lost" Ghq stuff. Wasn't really aware of the company or products much but I looked it up online - epiphany. I was blown away by the work of many guys in the forum like Ritter, Nazgul, cams, mk1 etc. so I Bought some used Ghq minis on eBay, read every post on the forum, literally, and was sucked in. I now have about 1000 ww2 pieces, a lot of infantry, with some terrain boards and about 100 buildings, a mix of homemade, Ghq, and Leven. Truth be told I have BKC2 game rules but after all this purchasing and model work I have yet to play a game!!!!

I do enjoy finding good deals on eBay to rehab micro armor but for the things I want most I buy direct from Ghq.

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 2:47 am

I had a pretty substantial collection of HO / OO scale tanks and plastic infantry as a kid. Then for my 13th birthday (in 1972) I got the AH game "PanzerBlitz". I was so excited! I had read the box about how the commanders closed the hatches on their dreaded T-34s, and Panzerblitz was about to begin, and I just HAD to have that game.

And I opened the box, and it was all cardboard counters, and I was SO disappointed.

Then one day I was talking to the guy behind the counter at my local hobby store (where I bought so many of my Rocco Minitanks), and he told me about another hobby store that had wargame stuff. That store was "Valley Plaza Hobbies" in the San Fernando Valley. I went there and WOW!

I bought some GHQ T-34s, KV-1s, KV-2s, Pz IIIs and IVs and StuGs. They were $2.95 a pack, and came in plastic cases with color-coded foam padding (red for Russians, gray for Germans, green for others). At first I used then on my PanzerBlitz board. Then I found out about the WRG Armor and Infantry rules, bought those, and was off to the races.

Started scratch-building aircraft. Sold my Germans to a middle school buddy to start his collection, and built a few aircraft for him. At that time all we had were tanks, with a few planes. Didn't know about gaming cons or gaming clubs or anything. We figured it out ourselves as we went along. Used our school compasses for measuring, and used 1/300 ground scale. It took the whole backyard to get 3,000m of range! Lost a lot of tank turrets in the dirt during those first few years.

My father, who used to travel to Europe on business a lot, had been in the Tank Destroyer command in WW2. He didn't participate in my hobby, but he was interested in the models and would talk to me about them from time to time. He mentioned my miniatures to a colleague while on a trip in the UK, and was rewarded with a mail-order catalog to Skytrex (who used to make 1/300 scale stuff, but does not any more). So by about 1977 I started ordering infantry and artillery and plastic buildings (all stuff that GHQ did not yet make) to go with my GHQ tanks. In truth, most of their stuff was pretty poor visually, but it was the only source I knew of. The tanks I bought from Skytrex ... some of them were truly dreadful in appearance, and after the first couple of major disappointments I decided to stick with GHQ if they had what I wanted, and the other US vendor if GHQ didn't have it. I kept the Skytrex SU-152s in my collection for many years, just because I didn't have an alternative, but wow I am sure glad they have now been replaced by GHQ SU-152s! The old ones were ... UG-LEEE!

In about 1976 WRG came out with their Modern rules. I started shifting to moderns in 1977/78. Over time I found out about wargaming mags, and through them about other UK vendors. So my collection of moderns includes a lot of kit from other vendors. But as much of that equipment also became available from GHQ it was often replaced.

I started using GHQ infantry as it became available. I also used the other US vendor's infantry. As GHQ moved to the en bloc style figures, and H&R (in UK) infantry became available, in the late 1980s / early 1990s I switched to theirs. Since GHQ moved back to individual infantry I have largely relied upon GHQ for my new forces, but to this date I still have many companies of infantry that are either old GHQ (my modern (actually cold war) Russians) or from other vendors. I even still have some of the old Skytrex infantry!

Today I have WW2 US, Soviet, French (both continental and colonial), Italian and Romanian forces. I have modern US, Soviet (cold war), and French forces. I have a few scattered British items (had started collecting in 1978, but gave it up in the early 1990s), and even some scattered German stuff which I mostly use as war-prize or loan-to-an-opponant forces (I do not play WW2 Germans).

If I were to count up all my stuff, I'd probably say I have about 2,000 WW2 pieces (including guns, infantry stands, etc) and 1,500 post-war pieces. But there are many many hundreds that have not been on a game table in more than a decade, or in the case of the moderns more than 2 decades.

AND, there are some of the old reliables, bought so many decades ago, that have seen and continue to see game tables on any occasions when I get the chance. Here you can see my GHQ KV-2s, bought in 1974, refurbished/repainted using the techniques I have learned on this very forum, taking position with some new GHQ KV-1s on a game table. They still strike fear into the hearts of Pz III pushers everywhere!

-Mark

Extra Crispy · Post by **Extra Crispy** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 5:11 am

Mark:

Next time I'm out in Cali I'll give you a shout. My parents are in Novato and my brother is ni Fremont! Let's dig up something tht hasn't seen daylight and play something!

That's the mode I'm in now. Pick something that hasn't seen daylight in a while and play it!

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 7:24 am

Extra Crispy wrote: Next time I'm out in Cali I'll give you a shout.
...
Pick something that hasn't seen daylight in a while and play it!

I can think of few things that would delight me more!

But give me a bit of warning if you can. I work 7 days per week these days, and so scheduling my free time is a bit tricky.

Extra Crispy · Post by **Extra Crispy** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 8:41 pm

Sucks to have to work every day but I suppose it's better than several alternatives. We usually go out once or twice a year, most years for Thanksgiving, but that is a hard time to get a game in!

OTOH if you're ever in Chicago look me up!

rdenman62 · Post by **rdenman62** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 4:47 am

Started out playing SPI wargames in the late 70s...joined the army and was stationed at FT HOOD starting in 1980. While there as a medic I was tasked with supporting the annual tennis tournament that was held there. Anyways during one of those days I was walking thru the nearby gymnasium and lo and behold there it was, the most glorious site to a wargame to behold. Actual miniature tanks and apcs and helicopters and some great looking terrain that took up a great deal of room. I mean it looked like the terrain in around Graf in Germany....as I was wiping the drool off my chin I was approached by a 1st LT whom proceeded to carry on a conversation with me and "sold" me on these GHQ miniatures. Wasn't long before I was hitting the hobby store in downtown killeen at every pay period building up my armies. The LT and I became good friends and spent many weekends battling over fulda gap.....had some great games and equally great times...fast forward 35+ years and I'm still hooked on GHQ and wonder what happened to them old dunn kempf boards????

How did you build your collection?

How did you build your collection?

Collection

How Did You Build Your Collection