The Situtation at the Close of Turn 8. . .

General de Latte's first assault across the River Elbow comes to a standstill thanks to Stollenian musketeers and artillery Not much is left of the first wave of von Flickenhoffer's Fusilers (foreground), and the Ermland Garde (background) have suffered badly the hands of von Tschatschke's 13th Musketeers.

For the next hour, General de Latte's advance stalled as his officers and NCOs attempted to sort out their men and restore some sort of order. By 7:30pm, General von Tschatschke asked for the return of his telescope from the Grand Duke-Irwin Amadeus II, who remarked cheerily, "I say! Did you know that if you look through the other end of this thingy, everything looks farther away?" Von Tschatschke raised an eyebrow in reply, as did Hives, and took back his telescope. He surveyed the scene before him.

Reduced below 50% of their initial strength, de Latte's remaining Irish Grenzers (in the distance) turn tail and flee while the Mittau Volunteers attempt to recover from brutal musketry and cannon fire.

Von Tschatschke noted the great gaps that had opened up in the Zichenauer front line thanks to his infantry and artillery. Much of de Latte's army had ceased fire and seemed to be wavering. An odd lull hung over much of the battlefield save for the occasional clatter of another musket volley in the distance or the thunder of the Stollenian guns.

Flush with their recent triumph over the squadron of enemy hussars, and contrary to his explicit orders, General von Tschatschke's Jaeger zu Fuss advance and fire on the right flank of de Latte's reserve line, inflicting light casualties (one artilleryman and a company officer in the Ermland Garde).

Von Tschatschke finished scanning the scene before him. He snapped his telescope shut, handed it to a nearby aide, and pondered the situation for a moment. Should his men be permitted to continue firing on the enemy at will now, or should he order an advance across the less treacherous stretches of the Elbow followed by a bayonet charge?

Meanwhile, in General von Tschatschke's rear area, the Leib Grenadiers and 4th Dragoons have just about reached their intended new positions in support of the western flank.

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

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 ...

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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