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!

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...

Warboss Green Bases. . .

I t's amazing how something as simple as applying two coats of Citadel 'Warboss Green' (ex-Games Workshop 'Goblin Green') can enliven a unit of figures and get 'em that much closer to glossing and completion. In much the same way that applying fleshtone early in painting process helps bring the figures to life. Just some limited dry-brushing to bring out the manes, tails, and some equine musculature, and I'm calling my version of Saxony's von Polenz Cuirassiers, circa 1733, done and dusted. Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen might recall (the blog will turn 19 years old in September) that I generally go for an old school approach when it comes to unit bases and paint them a nice, bright green. Exceptions include command vignettes, skirmishers of one kind or another, transport, camp followers, and various other civilian one-offs. The approach is not to everyone's taste, but I like the cheery toy soldier appearance once everything...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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