Lace Wars 15mm Russian Army

I normally try to keep names and faces out of my articles. However, in this case, I think Ray deserves my recognition as a friend and a fellow gamer. He passed away from cancer a while ago.

Once it became clear that his therapy was not going to work, he decided to start selling off his miniature collection to a couple of us that he was close to. I opted to choose his Lace Wars Russian Army. Interestingly, he had already set it aside for me, as he knew that I always liked it.

I finally picked it up from his sons after his passing and put it in the storage room. I had meant to organize the units and post it on the blog. I would pull out the box and start thinking of various adventures with my friend. However, I just could not bring myself to finish it. The boxes would then end up back on the shelf. Well, I finally pulled it out over the summer and went through and organized the collection.

I had to match up all the units and get everything organized. Being Russians, it is a little harder, as the uniforms mostly look the same! He had been building the army for years, so it includes figures from various decades. That helped, as I just needed to match figure types and poses. The cavalry was much simpler, as there was more variation.

I laid out all the figures and matched them up. I decided to go ahead and take a few photos to post the army on the blog to share. With them organized, I then put them into my normal army storage boxes with my other Lace Wars armies.

Now the army is all put together, with more than enough troops to do any of the battles of the period. I cannot help but think of Ray every time I look at the army and this army will help always keep him in my thoughts.

• Manteuffel