T-minus five days and counting. . .

Here's the 1st Squadron of Zichenau's 11th (Prinz Albrecht's) Hussars, galloping behind their newly appointed colonel, "Frieherr Adrian von Muenster" (atop the lively bay steed at front) and their newly issued guidon. Except for two coats of Future/Klear acrylic floor finish, they are ready to take the field this coming Saturday, if "Herr Major Wolfgang von Hirschbiegel" chooses to include them in his advance guard, which will attempt to seize and hold the small village of Pickelhaubewicz, along the postal road to Krankenstadt, the Stollenian capital. The second squadron of the regiment is reportedly on its way from the Zichenauer frontier and should join the 1st squadron by midweek.

Comments

Fitz-Badger said…

Dashing fellows! Your blog is always an inspiration!
Maybe I'll try my hand at a solo battle this upcoming holiday weekend...

8:28 PM

Bluebear Jeff said…

They look great, Stokes. For Stollen's sake I hope that they don't fight as well as they look.

-- Jeff

12:38 AM

tradgardmastare said…

Huzzah for the hussars- they are fantastic! Like Fitz-Badger I fancy a solo game- I will work towards the Christmas hols I think. Thanks for the offer of the playsheet.
Alan

12:54 PM

Captain Brummel said…

Sir!
I arose early this morning to read the latest despatches from Zichenau and Stollen. Imagine my joy at being appointed commander of Hussars. I can only hope to prove worthy of this honour.

Sir, I remain your obedient servant
Adrian Freiherr von Muenster.

superb stuff Stokes, looking forward to the forthcoming fisticuffs. Swords and roses, swagger and dash, this is what wargaming this period is all about.

all the best
Adrian

1:12 PM

old-tidders said…

Nice hussars, superbly painted. I like the guidon.

--- Allan

6:49 AM

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

Sunday Morning Coffee with AI. . .

A rmed with a second cup of fresh, strong coffee, I messed around a bit this morning with artlist.io using its image to image function in an attempt to convert my hand-drawn map from September 2006 to something that more resembles an old map from the mid-18th century. And just like my experiments with Ninja AI in June, the results are mixed. The above map is pretty good, but Artlist keeps fouling up the place names and has trouble putting a faint overlay of hexes across the entire area. Hexes, admittedly, are not likely to be found on any genuine maps from the era in question, but there we are. Frankly, I prefer the appearance of the Ninja map, but there were problems getting it to correct its errors. Grrrr. As is the case with so much having to do with the various AI's out there now, the output generated is a direct result of the prompts entered. For text alone, and when you develop a lengthy, highly detailed prompt, it is...

Continued Regional Map Revisions. . .

F ooled around a bit more with the revised map just before and after dinner this evening, using the Fotor app to reinsert missing text . I also removed a few other things using the 'Magic Eraser' function, which works surprisingly well. Now, we're getting somewhere. I just have to figure out how to ensure that the text is all a uniform font style and maybe figure out a way to add a few bunches of trees to suggest forested areas, Ninja AI is not always entirely cooperative to the tune of "I'm sorry Dave. I can't do that." -- Stokes

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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