The Grand Duchy of Stollen

By popular request, here are a few panoramic "artist's renderings" of the respective armies as they take their positions outside Saegewerkdorf, scene of the coming battle. In the distance, to the west, you can see the vile Stagonian army, still sorting itself out from the forced march to the field. And in the foreground, the Army of Stollen, under the craven General von Drosselmaier, awaits its fate. Here is another sketch, this time of the Stollenian positions just to the east of Saegewerkdorf. Someone must tell those two sapper officers and that obnoxious little geezer on the drum to climb down off of their bottle caps. Why, it just isn't very manly! Finally, here is a third sketch, by an obviously tipsy artist (You just can't find good help anymore, can you?), of the Stagonian positions to the west of the village. From bottom to top, the vile and varigated army includes: two squadrons of hussars, a two-compant battalion of grenzer, a four-company regiment...

Here, we can see the Army of Stagonia as it arrives on the field and begins the complicated process of assembling itself into battle formation. From the look of things, this will be a tough nut to crack for Stollen! Through a handy spyglass, an officer attached to General von Drosselmaier's retinue across the field spots the Stagonian commander and his staff. Aren't they resplendent in their white coats? And here's another view of those vile Stagonians as they take their places. Stollenian agents have indicated for some weeks that the Stagonian army was large, and this has proven to be the case. Here, you'll note, are five companies of infantry, a large regiment of cavalry, and a full battery of artillery. But the Stollenian army has not been asleep all this either! The final drafts of troops ( a drummer, two sergeants, and two officers) have joined a newly raised battalion of engineers in von Drosselmaier's army. They need only two coats of Future/Klear acry...

General von Drosselmaier (dark blue coat) and his small staff take stock of the valley in which they will fight for posession of the famous Saegewerksdorf (Sawmill Village). Krankenstadt, The Grand Duchy of Stollen, 15 March 1769 -- The Stollenian army, under the disgraced General von Drosselmaier, has taken up a defensive position to the southeast of Saegewerksdorf (Sawmill Village), somewhere just inside southeastern Stollen, where they have set up camp for the night. Across the valley to the northeast, von Drosselmaier and his officers can observe the campfires of a large invading force from vile Stagonia as the sunlight slowly fades. The coming battle promises to be a bitter one, which could very well decide the fate of Irwin-Amadeus II, and, indeed, the Grand Duchy of Stollen itself on the stage of 18th Century Apocryphal Europe! The front line of the Stollenian army, consisting of the Leib (Grand Ducess Sonja's Own) Grenadiers and a batallion of sappers. Von Drosselma...

Sounds like the title of an old Christopher Lee horror movie made by Hammer Films, doesn't it? Anyway, I've had a chance to sort through Jim Wright's package from yesterday, do some rapid organization, and snap a several pictures, which present a few highlights of the package contents. So to begin with, you can see several pairs of mounted officers and ADC's above, which will eventually become brigade commanders and their aides, in keeping with what is suggested for these figures in Charge! and The War Game along with a few officers on foot. The latter will eventually become someone's personal attendants, staff, or something-or-other. This unit (already painted nicely by Jim) will become an engineer/pontoon battalion for Stollen. I've already placed a small order with RSM in Dayton, Ohio for two officers on foot to round out the unit according to Charge! stipulations. I'll paint them and the drummer plus the two NCOs in the third rank of the line in a...

The Grand Duchess snapped this photograph through the rear kitchen window early this morning. The star of the show is a large, red squirrel of a type known as the Fox Squirrel. These are larger than the Common Grey Squirrel or the smaller Red Squirrel and quite common in our part of the Midwestern United States. We've seen this particular miscreant in our yard before. He was fond of eating our unripened tomatoes and pears in our garden and yard last summer. Later in the season, he helped himself to many apples from the very same tree in which the birdfeeders now hang. Look carefully, and you'll notice that he is hanging upside down, gnawing away at the suet, which we put out to attract certain varieties of songbirds to our yard. The Downy Woodpeckers seem to like it! Anyway, the Grand Duchess diesn't care for squirrels. I, however, find them terribly interesting and used to feed them bits from my lunch when I sat on Bascom Hill on the campus of the University of Wis...

Save for a few very minor touch-ups with some GW Goblin Green to the figure bases, slightly more than half of the Von Flickenhoffer Regiment of Fusiliers (Die Blauen) is finished! I made the push today to apply the gaiter buttons, touch up the black hair queues, and apply the coat of Future/Klear acrylic floor finish since the Grand Duchess and I are off to Mexico for Spring Break at the end of the week to visit good ol' Mom. . . the real artist in the family! Here is an aerial photograph that provides a very nice idea of how much work has been done. . . and how much remains before this monster unit is completely painted and finished. At this point, I've completed 42 of 80 figures, leaving just 38 to do in two batches of 19 figures each. While the glossy treatment is not necessarily to everyone's taste, I really like it for at least two reasons. One, it imparts that old school "toy soldier" look very nicely, just what I want for this project. And two, a glos...