A Communique from Major von Hirschbiegel. . .

At the Field Headquarters of Major von Hirschbiegel, the young officer with the flag of truce is kept waiting for several minutes, perhaps in a show of superiority, but more likely so that a tailor may quickly sew the appropriate additions to the uniform of the second officer of the Grenadiere zu Pferde and may locate the various commanders in the confusion of smoke that cloaks the village and firing lines, so that Zichenau may present the appropriate number of unit commanders present behind the Major when the young courier is received. It wouldn’t do to show any weakness.

The missive delivered, a period of calm and quiet extends as Major von Hirschbiegel dispatches a courier of his own towards the west, to bring news of the situation to the main army as it continues its advance towards the field of battle, and convenes a council of his officers. Upon completion of the council, a missive is delivered to the courier for return to von Grundig. . .

My Dear Colonel von Grundig,

I must applaud your grasp of the situation and clear regard for the life of your men in recognizing the clear superiority of our position upon the field and conceding the glorious Elector’s unquestionable right to these lands. Having no greater wish for unnecessary squander of life upon this field than yourself, we accept your concession of the village and most heartily approve of your request to collect those unfortunates of Stollen who have fallen here defending their sovereign’s will.

In recognition of your hopeless but valorous conduct, we respectfully direct that your sword be returned to you, and express our hope that your government shall recognize the wisdom of your recommendations to them and restore to our glorious Princess her rightful lands.

If it meets with your approval, we recommend that the Wolmar-Bock company in the Electorate’s employ be detailed to act as overseer of the collection of wounded and fallen, and serve as a safeguard against impolite action upon the part of more hot-headed men than ourselves of either army.

Respectfully,

Major von Hirschbiegel

Electorate of Zichenau

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...

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

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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