The Spreadsheet

Been very quiet around here and I'm not going to nauseate you with the details; suffice to say I've had a viral infection and that floored me for two months.

Still my indolence gave that ill-used, oft abused, organ casually referred to as my brain some time to fester on the odd idea; most are best left in a forgotten recess of one lobe or another but some will be dragged blinking into the sunlight for playful examination and violent dismemberment (this is the interweb after all).

One of my many inconsequential personal issues with wargaming is the sheer amount of unused stuff I have accrued since I got back into the past time eight years ago. Speaking to other gamers I know I am not alone, most of us find following that sage advice of picking a period and scale and sticking to it impossible. For example, until six months ago I didn't know I needed GNW Russians or Swedes until they started turning up in all their sparkly goodness on the League of Augsburg site - actually I hardly knew what the GNW was, but enough on the deficiencies of history teaching in British schools and my own ignorance.

I'm finding this constant accumulation depressing!

Of course I haven't helped myself by utilising some questionable work skills and visualising the issue through that wonder of the digital age, the Excel spreadsheet. This combined with the devilishly distracting internet and the cloud means that I can now analyse my failure to complete wargames projects on any number of handheld and desktop devices with a 4G connection (not always possible in the wilds of Bathgate but in these parts it's probably safer not having the final option in the fight/flight/surf instinct).

To be clear I am not recommending fellow wargamers follow this approach unless of course you are suffering from some legal high and need a big downer or have found your recent alcohol consumption lacking conviction. Certainly, under no circumstances should any results be extrapolated out into how much has been spent on unused plastic, pewter and resin, particularly if you are still trying to keep the kids in roofs, tuition fees and toy rabbits. My figures (no pun intended but since it's out there let's leave it in - I don't often hit the humour node intentionally or not) came out at 48% undercoated and 22.91% based; believe me that 0.91% is really important and has gone up by exactly three hundredths in the last two months according to the graphs on worksheet 6.

Obsessive, compulsive... what?

Taking this to even more refined levels of self-inflicted mental torture, the spreadsheet tells me that at my current sloth like rate I should finish painting and basing my purchases sometime around Autumn 2067.

Even my limited project manager powers can see a problem with that and I doubt the twins are going to want forty year old Perry plastics on the sprue or even painted ones as an inheritance; though I would love to see the dimension where they go to court over who gets the 15mm XXX Corps tanks.

"But you got the Jagdpanthers and the half painted Space Orks, all I've got are his early Napoleonics before he'd bothered to research the uniforms properly - I mean yellowy riflemen?!"

Is there a solution? I'm considering temperance, at least I've admitted I have a problem, isn't that half way to a cure?

My name is Colin and I am a wargamer, it's been one day since I bought my last miniature.

(Yeah I was going to type 'had my last miniature' but I am a wargamer, I know how our minds work and we really don't need the encouragement!)