When too much is too much

If you happen to see my copy of these rules floatin' around, please drop me a line.

Last Saturday I was supposed to host a playtest of my Chickasaw Bluffs game at the Game Matrix.  Because I am frequently forgetful, I always start laying out everything I need for my games a couple of days early.  Figures, check. Terrain bits, check.  Rules and scenario information, erm, shit!!. I almost always write up scenario details in the day or so before a game, but I usually need the rules to help me with it. 

Brother Against Brother is the rules I will use with Chickasaw Bluffs.  Unfortunately, my set has gone missing.  I tore apart my den, went through my boxes of figures, couldn't find them.  Friday, I swallowed my embarassment and canceled my game.  The rules, of course, were last printed in 2008 and are nowhere to be found, but my friend Mark Waddington has offered to provide me with his.  I've rescheduled the game for the 31st. 

Like many gamers, I have a lot of stuff. I don't intend to list all the miniatures I have, but it's probably 5-10,000 painted miniatures for lots of historical and fantasy periods in 6mm, 15mm and 28mm. To go with that I have many terrain pieces, including table sized (and table plus sized) felts, rivers, roads, buildings, etc. I have a couple hundred painted aircraft, 70 or so painted ACW ships.  Then there is all the unpainted lead-again, more than I'd like to count, the books and rules sets-you're a gamer you know what I'm talking about.  It's a lot of stuff. 

I like to think of this as fairly well-managed, but part of my problem is I live in a relatively small house, with limited storage space.  The space I have is full and there is not likely to be more.  I have a ton of stuff I don't use-rules I bought and looked at, maybe even tried and decided, these are not the ones. I am not a magazine person, but somehow I've managed to acquire buckets of mags--Campaigns and Tradition, the Courier, MWAN, Miniature Wargraming and Wargames Illustrated. In addition I have terrain pieces that have never left their boxes, unbuilt ships from Merrimack Shipyards, a pile of non-necessaries. 

With all this pointless chaff taking up space, it's easy to misplace the important stuff.  Losing my BaB rules is not the first important set I've lost.  I use a handful of rules sets:  Regimental Fire and Fury, Medieval Tactica Siege, The Sword and the Flame, Action Stations, and a few sets of home grown rules.  Why do I have five sets of AWI rules I gave up on years ago?  While I'm a sucker for nostalgia, my life would simply be better if I did a big purge and parted with the rest in the Enfilade Bring and Buy.