Just Another Lazy Saturday Here at Stollen Central. . .

Some post-Seven Years War troops from the Franconian Kreis of the Reichsarmee. Nothing to do with my current painting project, but they are pretty to look at!

A brief post before I settle in for some painting on those RSM cuirassiers. We're in the home stretch with the Grand Duchess Sonja's pregnancy. Some minor complications arose this week, so she spent a night in the hospital attached to a saline drip and has been put on bed-rest until her next doctor's appointment next Wednesday. Baby and mother are doing well, but Sonja has been told to spend her time in bed or reclined in the IKEA chair in her office here at home.

So, yours truly has been running errands to the grocery store and fixing all meals during the last several days. Sonja's due date is not until November 14th, but there is a possibility that "Little Nimbus" (nicknamed for his/her mother) might be here as soon as next week, depending on what the doctor has to say on Wednesday afternoon. We'll have to wait and see.

On a slightly sad note, Phil Olley has shut down his War Cabinet site for the time being. Too bad as it was always fun to visit and read about his Pils-Holstein campaign, Classic Wargaming, and other related bits and pieces. Along with the Old School Wargaming Yahoo discussion board, I stumbled happily onto Phil's website in early December of 2005 and have been a fan ever since. Indeed, it s largely due to those two web sources that my long dormant plans for a fictitious 18th Century campaign were rekindled finally, and the Grand Duchy of Stollen was born one chilly Saturday afternoon while the Grand Duchess baked a genuine Dresdener Stollen for the upcoming Christmas holidays in the kitchen across the hall from "The Purple Room", my haunt in our old apartment just a few blocks away from our house where we live now.

At any rate, fans of Phil's work are not entirely without recourse. Phil began his Brietenfeld Blog late in the summer, to augment his newest project, focusing on the Thirty Years War. And his most recent post does also features a few photographs from an 18th Century game with Charles S. Grant. So, there is hope that fans of Phil's imaginary Pils-Holstein project might occasionally see related posts cropping up there.

And while the Thirty Years' War is not necessarily my cup of tea, it's nevertheless fun to read about Phil's ideas and methods for developing and painting tabletop forces and scenery. There's always a lot to learn from him where both figures and terrain are concerned. In fact, check out Phil's river sections, which are some of the best I've ever scene. Get it? ;-) Just click on: http://breitenfeldblog.blogspot.com/ .