A Two-Year Milestone. . .

Here's a close-up shot of Stollen's 1st (Princesse Waltraud's Own) Battery of Artillery in action during the recent Action at Pelznikkel. Of all the Stollenian units engaged that day, this unit acquitted itself well by all accounts. . . unlike the easily driven off allied dragoons and infantry along with the lethargic jaeger corps!

The Grand Duchy of Stollen blog is now just over two years old. While the kernel of ideas that have become the Grand Duchy of Stollen “classic wargaming” project can be traced back to December 2005, the continuing documentation of that project began right here on August 19, 2006. Australia’s own Greg Horne (the man behind the Duchy of Alzheim) had an article appear in an early issue of Battlegames that year, which inspired me to have a go at blogging about the hobby myself. And, two years later, here we are with 33,126 visits!

As a thank-you to all of the wonderful friends, acquaintances, and interested parties around the world, who have helped to make this blog (and, indeed, my wargaming experience) what it is, here is yet another picture taken earlier this month, during the Action at Pelzkikkel. This time, we see a full crew (according to the guidelines outlined in Charge!) of Revell plastic 1/72 artillery crew, manning two metal 25mm MiniFig cannon. KA-BOOM!!!

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

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