Hurrah for Saturdays!

A parade of Carl Röchling paintings this weekend!  These are as interesting as the various Knoetel illustrations in my view.  First, one of Frederick II and von Ziethen meeting again as the Battle of Torgau ended.

At last, a free weekend for some hobby-related writing and painting after a truly brutal week full of meetings and an annual review on top of the usual teaching, paper grading, reading, movie watching, and preparation activities.  Whew!

Even better, there is another small load of unwanted Minden Prussian and Austrian infantry on the way from Belgium that I have decided to give a good home.  The pile of lead will shortly rival other stalwarts in the hobby, but it should give me everything I need to finish (yes, really) the final stages of the Grand Duchy of Stollen project during the next few years.  And then I will concentrate on playing more games with my toys as I drift ever closer to my dotage. 

The plan is to increase the size of my two semi-ficticious armies to six-eight units of line infantry each.  The two armies currently stand at four line infantry units for Stollen and three slightly larger for it's enemy The Electorate of Zichenau at the moment.  I also plan to augment the respective and related cavalry forces, but for the mid-18th century, which I have discussed in previous recent posts, but there is already enough artillery and light infantry painted, thank you very much, so no additions here though I do have a single company of 15 unpainted Minden and RSM95 Croats that will eventually enter the fray simply because the potential uniforms are so, well, pretty.. 

All of this is just a round about way of explaining and rationalizing the increase in 30mm military spending and related build-up of forces the last few months.  Hey, when am I ever going to turn 50 again?  Of course, I place all of the blame squarely at the feet of my partner in crime Greg, who, I believe, pursued a similar course when he rounded that particular milestone.  No, this latest bout of self-indulgence is not my fault!

Returning to the matter at hand, forces slightly larger than what I have so far built up, and as I have mentioned here previously here at the GD of S blog, will enable me to fight many more of the various scenarios presented by C.S. Grant in his wargame scenario books that came out during the early 1980s.  And, of course, more of his table top teasers will also be possible with slightly larger forces.

Anyway, once these additional figures units have been organized into their respective units,  painted, and based, anything after that will be icing on the cake.  In the longer term, I have a mind to add a field bakery to the collection since Black Hussar of Germany now offer several sets of bakers and associated helpers/equipment to that end.  Can butchers and candlestick-makers be far off I wonder?  A small camp with tents, stacked arms, some crates, and barrels sprinkled here and there might also be interesting to enliven  corner of the table at some point too.  That would give my Naughty Lola and other camp follower vignettes painted during the last several years a handy place to set up shop.  What a wonderful hobby this is.  Happy Saturday one and all!

-- Stokes



Sunday Morning. . . 

A delightfully quiet and unseasonably warm Saturday here yesterday.  I spent the afternoon writing up a short post-playtest of some short horse and musket rules I have written (ok, plagiarized from various sources really) for the upcoming Wargamer's Notes Quarterly #2 and bounced them to Greg on the other side of the world in Australia.  By late afternoon, it was time to join the Grand Duchess and Young Master for a walk around the neighborhood.  

After the latter's bedtime (the Grand Duchess had an evening event back on our university campus), I returned here to Zum Stollenkeller, where I cut 55mm lengths of brass rod for ten flagpoles and cemented Front Rank finials and cords to them using Loctite superglue gel.  The Minden standard bearers are at the stage, barring a few final small details, where I can turn my attention now to the flags themselves, possibly managing to complete four to six during the next couple of weeks time permitting.  

Painting the flagpoles and final-cord combinations should be a fairly quick exercise.  In the interest of time and sanity, though, I'll refrain from attempting any drinking straw red, black, and gold or red and white striped spirals up the poles.  To paraphrase a line in Charge! Or How to Play Wargames by Brigadier Young and Colonel Lawford (and still my primary wargaming touchstone), that is a road that leads to madness!

Finally, I notice that the GD of S blog has picked up two or three new followers, so "Welcome!"  I hope things here are/remain to your wargaming interests and likings.  Glad to have you along for the ride.

-- Stokes 

One of my favorite Carl Röchling illustrations, a parade of captured Austrian standards following the Battle of Hohenfriedberg.  This particular picture also provides more than a small hint about some of the forthcoming flags in the coming weeks.

Here's another Röchling painting of Frederick II at work in his study kept company by his dogs.

Finally, here is a fourth painting, one I have never come across before, and also by Carl Röchling, I believe, of ol' Fred and some Potsdam schoolboys cavorting around him.