A Little More Stollenian Eye Candy. . .

A reprise of the July 2010 Battle for Teordorstal Valley fought between the fiery Colonel von Adalnowski and the lovesick Major von Topfsange.

Just one more blast from the past today. The photograph above comes from a solo affair that was conducted here in Zum Stollenkeller during July 2010. The battle that unfolded over a number of afternoons and evenings, while the Grand Duchess and Young Master Paul were away, was based on a Charles S. Grant Tabletop Teaser from Battlegames #19. Lots of fun, and the proceedings led eventually to the surrender of the Zichenauer army to the Stollenians. You can read more about the battle, as seen through the eyes of Colonel von Adalnowski and his guest the young Major von Topfsange respectively, by viewing the July 2010 blog entries.

Comments

Martin said…

Hey Stokes,

Nothing like the memories of victories past to warm the cockles of your heart on a cold Winter's day!

Say...speaking of things past, in "Battlegames #2", there was an article called "Campaign In A Day", about a simple system of linking up to five scenarios with a minimum of record keeping. Perhaps you could use it or something similar in your first games of 2012.

7:23 PM

Will Scarvie said…

I've kept this particular post "unread" in my Google Reader queue for some time now. I keep coming back to it. There is something so attractive about the massed ranks of troops and the classic green terrain and model buildings. After looking at this picture over and over, I thought I'd tell you how inspiring I find this one image. I'm committed to basing my own imagi-nation troops in simple green and making some terrain to match. Thanks for the inspiration.

10:53 PM

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...

Warboss Green Bases. . .

I t's amazing how something as simple as applying two coats of Citadel 'Warboss Green' (ex-Games Workshop 'Goblin Green') can enliven a unit of figures and get 'em that much closer to glossing and completion. In much the same way that applying fleshtone early in painting process helps bring the figures to life. Just some limited dry-brushing to bring out the manes, tails, and some equine musculature, and I'm calling my version of Saxony's von Polenz Cuirassiers, circa 1733, done and dusted. Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen might recall (the blog will turn 19 years old in September) that I generally go for an old school approach when it comes to unit bases and paint them a nice, bright green. Exceptions include command vignettes, skirmishers of one kind or another, transport, camp followers, and various other civilian one-offs. The approach is not to everyone's taste, but I like the cheery toy soldier appearance once everything...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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