The Close of Turn Three in the Battle for Neu Sittangbad. . .

Above, General de Latte's 11th Hussars charge home on von Tschatschke's Leib Grenadiers at the close of Turn Three.

". . . And that's how the Colonel von Adalnowski's kitchen maid became Frau von Topfsange, Lady of the Manor. Damned bad luck for poor von Topfsange though. She never did learn how to hold her tea cup properly. And the way she danced the Minuet. Scandalous! I've heard they moved to Riga several years ago now. There was a Lutheran bishop there, a cousin to von Topfsange and quite a sharp player at the card table I am told. Anyway, he had one of those lovely old red brick townhouses with the gabled front in a better part of town that had a receiving room, furnished with red damask chairs and a maroon chaise lounge with golden dragon flies all over it, made by a Monsieur d'Oie from Paris, of whom you might have heard, and he. . . De Latte? I say, De Latte? De Latte! Wake up, old shaving mug!"

"What? What? Oh, frightfully sorry there, old razor strap! Must have dozed off. You lost me somewhere around the stable boy falling down the well with an armload of Frau von Adalnowski's best silverware and the costume ball to celebrate Old Uncle August's 91st birthday."

"Never mind, never mind." said von Tschatschke, "Now, where are we on the table?"

"End of Turn Three, old fruit," smiled de Latte, stifling a yawn and rubbing sleep schmutz from the inner corner of his right eye discretely with his pinky finger before continuing, "My hussars have closed with those grenadiers in your front line. Doesn't look good for them, what?"

"What? Oh. Um, no. Not good. Not good at all," replied von Tscatschke. "Melees take two turns, correct? Shall we agree to conclude Turn Three then and issue our orders for Turn Four?"

"Yes, let's," replied General de Latte in a decidedly gleeful tone. "We can resolve the melee at the end of Turn Four after we exchange and execute new orders for the rest of our units. Tally ho!"

"Steady on, old shaving brush!" exclaimed General von Tschatschke, "Steady on!"

And here is another view of the same scene. It does not look good for Grand Duchess Sonja's Own, but there are, nevertheless, a few hussars still in the way of one half of von Tschatschke's Battery of guns.

Comments

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

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 ...

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

Search This Blog