I am a completist, which is a sanitary term for an avid and blinkered, maybe even obsessive, collector. It is my blood (or neurosis). To combat this engaging, but often expensive compulsion, I try to have a plan. If I successfully get all my ducks in a row, then maybe, just maybe they will stay where they are put.

Plan 1.

Plan but do not buy. This is actually pretty satisfying, but has the obvious trap of “well you have sorted it, so why not just dive in”. This has been done, but has led a couple of times to “weak moment plunging”.

Plan 2.

Plan to control the collection, with logic, selecting the wanted items based on some sound criteria, such as “only what is in the movies” or “only what feels right”, or the ever popular “a good representation of the game mechanics/period/story, but no more than that”. Some areas of interest actually help out here. I hate cross-pollinating irrational interactions, so with a little knowledge, I can often draw some lines in the sand.

Plan 3.

Get it all, but have stopping points. Buy from the start with full intent, but with a limited level of collecting such as “one of each” or “X” number of points in a balanced fashion.

For X Wing, I started with the “one period” - TFA. This was impulse driven (5 very cheap core sets as 1e dries up) and in the hope I could contain it to just the ships from this period. As it turned out, this would have worked well with the almost perfect fit for the conversion kits and subsequent release of the 2e expansions and a decent increase of ships, but…….

Scum seemed like a safe addition, adding a variety of extra upgrade slots and ship types and blurring the timelines a little. This led to a small Imperial and Rebel showing (in fairness I was sent the wrong core box by mistake), then more , more again until the original period outnumbers the TFA. Epic fail, although just try and get that collection out of my hands!

Expanding to 2e has actually become a case of relatively safe 2e for TFA and 1e for early period and Scum for both, with the ability to upgrade all to 2e (conversions bought but not unwrapped), but no great compunction to do so. This has also allowed me to put the breaks on at new Rebel and Imperial ships not supported by 1e.

Not learning anything clearly from the X Wing experience, I decided to get just the Separatist and Republic factions for Armada. This had several benefits. The fleets were well matched, less big vs small like the first movies. The factions were known to me, but not well enough to feel the need to fill every hole and finally they are new, so I could literally get them all quickly, without fear of blow out in the early stages. In hind sight, I should have skipped these guys in favour of the earlier period, but I had the wrong plan.

So getting the last pack that my first distributer did not have, I purchased Imperial fighters #2 because it was in stock (rare at the moment) and cheap enough. Just in case I said, probably a waste I said. Makes good sense of the freight I said.

This of course led to a smallish purchase of original period ships, BUT this time i had a real plan and I really intend to stick to it……………seriously :).

Starting from the smaller Fighters and Squadron classed single ships, I decided to do only small ships for the Rebels, because it feels right and a mix of very large to big-small ships for Imperials, because again it feels right. The only fly in the ointment is purchasing the older Core at the very end, because it was way cheaper than another pack of fighters, a Corvette, a couple of separate Pilot cards and some other bits. I now have the Victory class that I did not want, but at worst I will spray it gold and present it as a trophy for something ;0.

Getting back on track, when it comes to collectible games, I think it is really important to take ownership of your version of the game. We are not collecting for the maker, or even for our friends, but for us to live out our table top imaginings. Make the game yours. You bought it, you own it, so own it.

Do I care if someone else is not interested in my take on X Wing 1e? FFG don’t even love it anymore, so who else matters? My toys, my investment. I am even working on a massed battle game using most of the collateral, just with simplified rules and a solo applicable turn sequence. Bare Bones feels right for my take on the game, while 2e is fine as is (X Wing advanced).

Armada for me is going to hero the smaller ships and the little skirmishes that make up the larger picture and it will keep the Imperial “Big Bad”, big and bad. FFG (Asmodee) has normalised epic battle between the Rebels and Empire, which is not accurate to the history of Star Wars, only for the needs of a healthy tournament environment and good sales.

In a much older post I asked whether the story or the game is more important. For me the story and simulating it is most important, so that’s where I go game wise. I cannot stand mixed timelines, blurred story arcs or inappropriate mating of A and X for a gaming edge.

So I don’t.

This has been a trend in my gaming life. I tried to give Flames of War a go once, but was put off by the odd scaling, need to own toys just to use them when realistically, they would be miles behind the lines. Then there came the problem of Brits vs Brits or Late war germans vs early war Americans and other inconsistencies. My own WW2 collection is period accurate, because I want to simulate the war’s different periods properly, not just win games with unlikely multi Tiger battering rams.

How do you go about collecting your stuff?