The Grand Duchy of Stollen

Just overwhelmed with various projects at the moment, wargaming-related and otherwise.  But the Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II, his long-suffering English man servant Hives, and their miniature minions passed the 150,000 visits sometime last night.  Hmmmm. . .  I can't decide if that sounds like the title of some film noir from the 1940s, or a romantic comedy from the 1990s with Andie McDowell, Meg Ryan, and Hugh Grant.  But anyway, thank you to everyone who drops by here often, or occasionally.  Your continued interest is greatly appreciated.  Look for the resumption of more normal nattering on about painting soldiers and such to resume before too much longer.  Now, if only I could find the time to read that latest issue of Battlegames.  Charge!

Just a quick post, to spread the good word about this upcoming work -- for those of you who might not know already -- which I am sure will be a gem, and a solid addition to the literature that is such an important part of the wargaming hobby.  The Wargaming Compedium by Henry Hyde, who is the creative force behind Battlegames magazine.   At the moment, Henry is apparently writing hell for leather (pardon the bad pun) to finish it, though, apparently, the book's Amazon ratings are already pretty high for a work that has yet to appear.  Of course, it has been added to my yearly birthday/Christmas list, which I'll forward to the Grand Duchess in early September.   I feel safe in suggesting that this one will rank right up there with various works by "the greats" of the hobby: Featherstone, the Grants, Young & Lawford, Wesencraft, and Wise.  Can't wait to see it become available!

Four squadrons of 15mm MiniFigs French Napoleonic Dragoons (with two Essex elite company figures in Bearskins), a gift from good ol' Mom for Christmas 1989, finally painted during the late winter-early spring of 2006.  She and my step-father lived in Southampton, England at the time where he was a lecturer at the University of Southampton, and when they returned to the States in late December '89, she brought me a shopping bag FULL of 15mm Napoleonic MiniFigs.  Still one of the greatest Christmas gifts I have ever received. A few evenings ago, while rooting around through several boxes of things that were never opened after our April 2008 move into "Stollen Central" -- looking for some carefully hoarded heavy cardboard tubes for the current building project -- I unearthed my boxes of carefully painted 15mm Late Napoleonic Minifigs, on which I have not set eyes in more than five years.  Many of us have parts of our toy solider -- Ahem, military miniature! -- collecti

Oh no!  It's Windmills 10 -- Don Quixote 0. . .  Kind of how I fell, er, feel at the moment. Have you ever had one of those days when you planned some kind of wargaming related activity, and then real life intervened?  Of course, you have.  We all have.  And such has been the day so far this morning here in the Grand Duchy of Stollen. I woke far too early for a Saturday -- 6am -- and couldn't fall back to sleep, so gave up the ghost and rose quietly at 6:30.  A short while later, safely ensconced before my computer here in Zum Stollenkeller, I realized that I did not feel quite right and returned to bed.  Since I volunteered last night to get Young Master Paul up at 8:00, I informed the Grand Duchess that she might need to bell that cat after all.  I then fell fast asleep for another 3.5 hours, though that was interrupted intermittently by. . . The dreaded Terrible Twos !  Yes, although Young Master Paul is only 19 months old, the routine screeching and tantrums have begun i