The Orders of Battle. . .

The great Steven Fry and Hugh Laurie as Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster. . . some of the inspiration behind my own Irwin-Amadeus II and his unflappable manservant Hives.

An intrepid and ambitious young trooper from a squadron of Stollen's 4th Dragoons rode carefully forward under the cover of darkness last night and identified the following units that comprise Stagonia's army of vile invaders:

1st (von Kirschstein) Kuirassier -- 3 squadrons
Hockdorf Hussars -- 2 squadrons
9th (von Krinkle) Infantry -- 1 company
4th (du Lepps) Fusiliers -- 2 companies
1st (von Hirschbock) Grenadiers -- 4 companies
Umgraben Sapper Battalion -- 2 companies
Feldpaff Battery of Artillery -- 2 guns and crew

It remains a mystery who the general is in command of this most vile assemblage of men! Opposing them on the eastern side of the Saegewerkdorf battlefield are the following units from gallant Stollen's own army, which is commanded by General von Drosselmaier:

Leib (Grand Duchess Sonja's Own) Grenadiers -- 3 companies
Von Laurenz Musketeers -- 3 companies
Jaeger zu Fuss -- 2 companies
11th Engineer Battallion -- 2 companies
4th (Trakehnen) Dragoons -- 3 squadrons
Princess Charlotte's Loyal Battery of Artillery -- 2 guns and crew

As you can see, Stollen has slightly more infantry, while Stagonia has two more squadrons of cavalry, and both armies field the same number of guns. It seems, therefore, that the armies are fairly evenly matched although it might be claimed that Stollen has the homefield advantage since Stagonia has invaded the Grand Duchy. Whether this will have an appreciable effect on the outcome of the battle remains to be seen of course.

On a related note, reports have leaked from the Stollenian capital Krankenstadt, scarcely a day's march north of Saegewerkdorf, that the Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeuss II was only just dissuaded, by his faithful English manservant "Hives" no less, from donning his lobster costume and racing soutwestward to Saegewerkdorf, to lead his small army into battle. Fortunately for General von Drosselmaier and the other officers already there, this eventuality was narrowly averted by Hives' cool thinking.

Eyewitnesses report that just as the Grand Duke headed off toward his chambers, where the armoire containing the lobster costumes resides, Hives was heard to say, "Hark, M'lord! Is that the ice-cream man's bell I hear?" At which point, Irwin-Amadeus forgot all about his stated mission to inspire the men and began scrounging feverishly around the settee and matching armchair for a enough spare coins to cover the cost of a choc ice!

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

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 ...

Fitz-Badger said…

Thanks for the images, both digital and mental!
I agree with the commentse prvious post about the "look" of your setup. Terrain, tabletop, buildings, minis all have a wonderful style that tie everything together into an attractive game. Compliments to the artist! :-)

7:11 PM

Martin said…

So....the sinister Agent Hagen-Daase strikes again!

7:54 PM

SteveI said…

Aswierd as it sounds, as I read this post ther is an episode of J&W on the old T.V., an endearing classic!

1:58 AM

old-tidders said…

Forces finely balanced ? it will be an interesting engagement

-- Allan

6:56 AM

Snickering Corpses said…

I should have known you'd be a Jeeves and Wooster man!