I didn't really get out into the snow with the Joes as much as I thought I would. We did take a couple figures out for some skiing adventures back when it was nice cold dry powder that we had packed out in the back yard. This was the first time I had put a GIJOE figure out in the snow, on skis. It ended up being more fun in my head than actual.
I did draw down on my vehicles, as I mentioned in previous posts, between 2005 and 2009 fairly heavily. "Arctic" vehicles were completely eliminated when I did this however I did pick up the "Wolf Hound" and Arctic Blast in the past few months. Now that it is getting more spring-like and sunny, I'm going to put these away.
I've gotten a fair number of cold weather/ arctic style Joes accumulated here. When they are all laid out there is a whole team in and of itself. Of course, there are still the "doubles" which I am going to keep for awhile. With the exception of the Frostbites (where I would easily keep version one), the other duplicated Joe characters are harder to pick just one to keep, while trading away the other. As much as I do not need another green Rubbermaid case sitting on the pile of others, I'm going to try and see if I like keeping these separated from my usual "by year" storage arrangement. I'm going to add in all things arctic in this bin, both Joe and Cobra, as these guys are very much suited for their respective battle environments; they simply don't jive anywhere else for me. Except for Stalker (1989), he "could" mix it in a little farther south (or north) of the poles than the others, but I think he will be placed in the tundra exclusively here.
My whole two arctic vehicles are going to sit in the Rubbermaid with all the figures, too. This is really a "battle in a box" approach to storing/ organizing that I haven't taken. It seems obvious, so I'm going with it. I might do this with the (more or less) naval style Joes as well. The old divers are very much more limited in my imagination to water adventures, however, some like Topside, Shipwreck, Cutter, Rampart, etc., are more adaptable in placement on land. And I don't really have any exclusive on-the-water-naval-battles occurring in my HQ, these are more coastal actions which may include coordination with a Tomahawk for beach assaults, coverts night landings off the WHALE, or downed aircraft rescue. Mutli-layered operations essentially, that include some other part of the GIJOE forces.
If I did separated it all out, as I did with the Winter Operations teams, I would have to squeeze a WHALE and a Hydrofoil into one Rubbermaid to make it worth the one-pull "battle in a box" organization idea. And this "battle in a box" organization idea could go across the board to my vehicle teams, perhaps one box armor, one box artillery, and another the "cavalry scouts?"
Really this might not all happen, yet. I'll see if I like having the arctic arena in a separate bin first. If it works out, then when I want to pull stuff out for a battle, it would be a little faster than thumbing through my figure-by-year file system in one set of bins, and then selecting vehicles, and enemies for the adventure to be had. If anything, it's the whole set-up process of getting stuff out that's really become almost a chore in itself!