Skip to main content

So, What's Left in the Mountain of Lead?

Part of the Army of Zichenau during the October 2017 Grand Review after two months of rebasing.


And part of the Stollenian Army across the field, during the same autumn maneuvers that year.  Both forces have grown considerably since, and there has been reflagging for many of the units at different points too.  Interested parties can scroll back through the various subsequent blog entries to inspect those claims more closely.

This last week, I've spent a bit of time here and there during the evenings -- while waiting for coats of gloss varnish to dry -- to inspect my stock of unpainted Minden and RSM95 figures residing in the infamous Drawer o' Lead to my left.  And, of course, to take a gander at the spillover in a nearby closet here in Zum Stollenkeller.  The resulting 'audit' is tentatively encouraging (he said), but my work is cut out for me.  After the planned monster-sized regiment of Austrian hussars, here's how I plan to complete the Grand Duchy of Stollen Collection during the next (third) decade:

Electorate of Zichenau

  • Kurköln Wildenstein – Single-breasted Austrian Coats (Blue faced Red). . .  Use Russians (60 Minden)
  • 2nd Ansbach-Bayreuth -- Austrian Coats (Blue faced Black) (60 Minden )
  • Kurmainz Wildenstein -- Austrian Coats (White faced Green) (60 Minden)
  • Palatine ‘Effern’ Regiment -- Prussian Coats w/ Swedish Cuffs (Blue faced White) (60 Minden)
  • Grenadiers in Bearskin (48 Minden)
  • Lanciers de Saxe (30 Minden)

 

Grand Duchy of Stollen

  • 3rd Waldeck Regiment – Hessians (Blue faced yellow). . . (60 Fife & Drum)
  • Fusilier Regiment Erbprinz – Prussian Coats (Blue faced Rose Pink) (60 Minden )
  • ??? – Prussian Coats w/Prussian Cuffs (Blue faced ???) (60 Minden )
  • Grenadiers in Mitre (30 Minden)
  • Holstein-Gottorp Dragoons (30 RSM95)
  • Nassau-Sarrebruck Cavalerie in Bearskins (30 Minden )

 

Odds and Ends

  • One Wagon, One Stagecoach, and Teams
  • Various Villagers/Civilians
  • Various Generals and Staff
  • One Squadron of Russian Dragoons (Young Master Paul’s)
  • 30 RSM95 Prussian Hussars (not sure what I'll do with these just yet)
  • Leftover officers, NCOs, musicians, and a few others (again, not sure what I'll do with these besides drawing on them for the grenadier formations)


So, that is the not inconsiderable stock of figures to draw from.  Hence the self-imposed moratorium, more or less. on further purchases or gift requests in recent years.  But when is a hobby project ever really "done"?  Model railroad enthusiasts always seem to be working on one or another part of their layouts over many years.  And some of them occasionally tear down their work and start from scratch as they perfect to art of replicating the real world in one or another scale.  

I've become a real fan of N Scale layouts thanks to Youtube incidentally.  But back to toy soldiers!

As I told the Grand Duchess late Friday evening over a second glass of wine by the hearth -- she was kind enough to ask (blame the grapes) although I kept my reply short and sweet to avoid her eyes glazing over -- the long-term plan outlined above should do it for the painting part of the GD of S project.  The goal is then to play with them into my dotage.  By that point, I suspect, the ol' eyes just won't manage close-up work anymore beyond the odd group of staff or villagers, and it will be time to simply enjoy the collection.

And on that note, I think I'll set up my table this summer and get some terrain laid out.  The Young Master is older now as are the Grand Ducal felines Gunnlaug and Onyx, so I think things might be safer left in situ than once was the case.  Because the Grand Duchy of Stollen enters its 20th year in 2026, I'm feeling like another attempt at Sittangbad. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Time to fetch another mug of coffee and get the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment onto its permanent bases!

-- Stokes


Most, but not all, of my scratch-built structures laid out during the same Grand Review during October 2017,  A rather large market town somewhere along the Baltic coast from the look of things.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
6 comments
Read more

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...
3 comments
Read more

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
1 comment
Read more