It has always bothered me that I seem to enjoy imagining 'playing' with toy soldiers more than actually doing it. A case in point is this great fort by Ron Barzso.  When I first saw the fort at OTSN, my mind was filled with all the posibibilities.   But I resisted buying it.  Then Barzo released the blockhouse over the gate, and my resistance crumbled. I shelled out the money to add it to my collection.  It was just so cool....something I've always wanted.  The boxes arrived and I never even opened them.  The boxes sat unopened  for almost a year.  When Barzso released the Headquarters Building and the stable for the "Fort Apache" configuration, I got right on the phone and ordered those great pieces...and that box remained unopened like the others for months. I shelled out about 400 bucks and couldn't get around to setting it up.  It makes no sense, but then addiction seldom does, does it?

About six weeks ago a miracle happened.  During my morning prayer time, I got convicted about how I had let my whole collection get out of control.  My basement was such a mess, you could barely walk through it.  Things never got put away when I finished photographing them.  It was bad.  I mean really bad.  And the problem was that every flat surface, including most of the floor space,  had stuff on it so you had to make an even bigger mess before you could start putting things to order.  For years I had just kept the basement door closed because the job of sorting things out was just too daunting." It's my basement.", I reasoned.  "No one else goes down there", I rationalized.  "My wife has given up on ever having any usable space down there," I conceded.  "I can live with it," I concluded. I knew i should deal with it but there was no motivation to do it. But that morning, God gave me the grace to face it and start dealing with it. 

Now, about 6 weeks into the project, I have actually set up and played with the Barzso Fort...and you know, it was way better than just imagining doing it.  Jim Clouse did a fantastic job sculpting this baby.  It is a fantastic centerpiece for all my plastic "Marxized" cavalry and indians.  Another cool thing that happened was that on the morning I was finally going to set the Fort Apache up, I found a perfect backdrop hidden way in a back corner of the main basement room. It was tucked away under a shelf.  I had looked earlier for the backdrops after I had found their boxes.  I couldn't remember throwing them away, but I sure as heck couldn't find them. O well. And then, as a little extra gift of grace, right when I needed them, I stumbled upon them  Thanks, God!

This is set up on a three by 8 shelf in the back corner of my basement, right next to the furnace.

Here it is in the raw. 

The Fort Apache Set-Up features lots of cavalry in turquoise, Frontiersmen in tan and Indians in red-brown, yellow and cream. Once upon a time I had spent many hours coverting and painting these figures, but they never got really displayed all together until now.

One of the fun parts of the cleaning/organizing process is that you find out you have stuff you didn't remember having. I had totally forgotten that I had all these vintage turqoise longcoat cavalrymen.  I decided to have them escort my turquoise wagons to the fort. They may have been happier staying in the drawer.

Another figure I had forgotten about was this mounted Custer figure made by Larry Patterson of P and P Products.  He doesn't quite match in color but he's close enough.

I always wanted a turquoise falling rider for my Fort Apache set instead of the cream one.  Now I have one.

The fort is so big that there isn't much room in front of it for battle.  It's still pretty cool.

Another discovery was this group of tan frontiersmen I had painted up years ago and forgotten about.  This is where they belong!

There's a lot of action on the left side of the fort.

I had to bend over, reach into an adjoining shelf, hold the camera out and shoot this shot without being able to use the view finder. Boy was I pleased with the result.

This was another awkward angle shot that came out pretty good. That vintage, yellow chief just feels like an old friend.

One of the cool things Marx did was include powder blue, reverse color rebs in the 1963 Custer's Last Stand playset. They never issued the Confederate figures in turquoise to go with their other cavaly figures.  I always wished they did.  Now I got some!

Here's another figure Marx never offered in turquoise.

Here are some views down into the interior of the fort.

Even more longcoats.