Facing My Figmentia (1 of 2)

If you have known me for any length of time, you will know that I have sporadically acquired, collected, and otherwise accumulated a fair number of miniatures.  Some might call it hoarding, but my addiction may not be quite that severe.  Could I have sold, given away or dumped hundreds of them on eBay if hoarding was truly an issue?  I doubt it.

A more fitting term, coined and made popular a couple of decades ago, is Figmentia.  That is, "Figure' + "Dementia".  While the word and a few corollaries were just jokes, not scientifically backed, I've found there are grains of truth to them.  "Miniac" has fit me pretty well to varying degrees over the years.

Like most fantasy miniature collections, it all began innocently enough; Jr high school, back in the early '80s.  First came a few poor-quality lead minis to represent my D&D characters, then others for AD&D.  When I started DMing for AD&D, still more were added for encounters and my players.  I remember trading some comic books and sports cards to a friend in exchange for a few of the Grenadier yellow boxed sets.  Those were treasured items and some of my first painting attempts mostly with - you guessed it - Testors enamel, a bad brush and a toothpick.  Yikes.

Fast-forward thru 20 years of on & off hobby addiction.  The collection was static for long periods, then would suddenly grow when I hit convention auctions.  There was one glorious event where a good buddy and I pooled our money to outbid a game store for a big stockpile of mostly Ral Partha AD&D monsters.   We sat down afterward and sifted through them, alternating choices like we were picking teams for dodgeball in high school.  His team was mostly beastmen, like centaurs, while I went for the undead.  Good times.  I wonder whatever happened to his share of the hoard. I still have part of mine, but some has been sold.  I will have to ask him about it sometime soon.

See?  There I go again, trying to justify adding to the collection rather than trying to unload some more of it.  Figmentia...I haz it.  :-/

I digress.  Please excuse my wandering down a side road off Memory Lane.  Over the more recent decade or so, the Mountain of Madness (unpainted metal, plastic and resin) has grown sporadically,  depending on the game at hand or ease of access.  RPGs, tabletop war games, convention auctions, game stores, board games with minis, online shopping, crowd-funding and more have all played their part.  Occasional sales reduced the pile somewhat, but maybe not as much as needed.  I found it difficult to let go.  I know...shocker.