The Grand Duchy of Stollen

The field of battle, basically laid out, though I need to add a small river and mill run for the mill. S pent a pleasant few hours yesterday evening, after the usual post-dinner long walk around the neighborhood, applying acrylic gloss to some cavalry figures until about 10pm.  I then thought it was time to set the table for the planned Action at Sägemühledorf , aka Sawmill Village.  So, here is what we have minus a few forthcoming last-minute details. Since each side will have an element of light infantry added to its order of battle this time around, it made sense to have a slightly larger playing area available.  What you see above is a 6'x8' surface covered with a single Hotz matt .  Atop that are roads and fields, also by Eric Hotz .  The trees are cake decorations that I've had since 2006, affixed to Litko terrain bases back in 2016 with The Young Master's help.  The various houses were scratch-built at different times by yours truly. The mill is the most

  The completed mill, touch-ups included.  Well, I could hardly resist sharing another picture, could I? T ying up a few small odds and ends here before the start of the new university semester/term next Wednesday.  So, what better way to do that than to bring two small projects to a close? The first involves our mill, which I played with a bit more before addressing a few final touch-ups with paint and small (old, worn out) brush.  Looking at my photographic references again, I decided to to add some more timbering, using a small plastic ruler and and HB pencil to start, followed by a yellow Sharpie marker, and then a dark brown colored pencil over that.  I am pleased with the results I must say.   Finished the painting yesterday afternoon in about 20 minutes as The Young Master supervised.  It is clear from his remarks that the mill is his favorite model building in the collection.  He asked all sorts of questions about how I constructed it (and some of my others), including

  It won't win any modelling awards, but my model of the mill at Plessa is a nice, cheery little structure that fits well with the rest of my buildings.  Quite a few of them now looking down from the shelves where I display and keep them over the painting table. A lmost finished now with the saw-/grist mill.  It looked pretty good without the timbering, and I worried about making a mistake in the application of, which would have required time consuming backtracking (That's a mouthful!) to fix.  In the end, I jumped in up to my hips and took half an hour or so to approximate some timbering just across the front end of the mill, which you'll observe above.   Just a few small touch-ups with the paintbrush now.  After all, a reasonable paint job can hide a multitude of other sins in the construction as we observed a few evenings ago in the final episode of Endeavor , which, if such a thing were possible, is even better (and darker) than the original Inspector Morse an

The mill after another hour or so of tinkering yesterday evening.  Over the years, I've managed to neaten up my construction process and don't leave quite so many fingerprints fossilized in glue all over the models as I did once upon a time in the distant, dimming past of the mid-1980s. T he mill is slowly coming together, but I cannot remember when a scratchbuilt model structure presented so many challenges.  Ok, frustrating problems.  But it's all a learning experience, right? As indicated in yesterday's post, the roofline and waterwheel, in particular, have taken several attempts each to arrive at something that, at least, gives the right impression.  The details are not exact enough for, say a model railroad project, the best of which feature meticulous and painstaking attention to detail, but it will work well enough in a wargaming context.   Underscale, stylized structures, as I mentioned a couple of years ago in an article on building a North German tow

 Here is the eventual mill (grain, or lumber take your pick) in progress. A ll has not completely quiet during the last few days here in The Grand Duchy of Stollen.  While The Young Master and I enjoy our final two weeks of summer vacation before school cranks back into action for the both of us (The Grand Duchess, bless her, is on a 12-month contract as a member of the university administration), I have been plugging away at a mill building to feature in my Sawmill Village refight in the near future.   The various roof angles and waterwheel have given me fits, and I've probably started and thrown the pieces cut for them away three or four times (poor measuring on my part), but things are shaping up at last.  Still lots to do, but it should look pretty good once finished and painted.  I'll give my mill a bit more half timber effect to make it look more at home in the mid-18th century though than the lovely, restored structure shown below. Ok.  Time to find my shoes, w

The initial positions of the Stollenian rearguard at the northern edge of the field, and the Zichenauer advance guard at the southern edge. O n the afternoon of 11. August 1769, an advance guard under Zichenau's Colonel von Kohlkopf clashed briefly with the Stollenian rear guar, commanded by Colonel Kartoffel.  The action was over fairly quickly with the Zichenauer army sustaining heavy casualties and routing in short order while Stollenian forces came through largely unscathed and managed to stop the invading Zichenauers in their tracks.  Here is a brief account with illustrations. -- Stokes The Orders of Battle:   The Stollenian rearguard consisted of, from left to right: a squadron of hussars from Lauzun's Legion, a combined battalion of grenadiers from the 6th Hausgrenadiers and the von Hessenstein Regiment, and the red-coated Hansastadt INfantry along with a gun, crew, and limber from the Corps of Artillery. The Stollenian commander was Colonel Karto

The 6. Hausgrenadiere (right) and von Hessenstein Regiment (left) all glossed, based, and striking a pose before Blasthof Farm.  The photograph has been cropped and sharpened using Pixlr Express online. O k.  While setting up for the Blasthof refight, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of the freshly glossed and based grenadier battalion.  Very pretty.  But can they fight?  Or will they fail their first morale test and run away?  Stay tuned to find out. -- Stokes  The same photograph, this time NOT sharpened in Pixlr.  Can you tell the difference?  Not sure I can.

Soubise, his aide, and the paint bottles are more in focus, but this photograph provides a decent idea of the composite grenadier battalion painted during July.  Just a few tiny touch-ups around the edges of several green bases, and we're ready to tack 'em down to the Litko bases!  Monsieur Soubise and aide merely need some groundwork this evening, and then I can also call them finished. H ere there are. . .  My recently FINISHED composite battalion of Minden (Prussian) grenadiers in the midst of permanent basing.  Largely based on illustrations (Kronoskaf and Knoetel) of Wurtemburg's 6th Hausgrenadiere and Hessen-Kassel's  von Hessenstein Regiment, circa 1749.  Some of the tiny details are not quite right, but overall I am pleased with how things turned out.   The acrylic varnish on them is my usual is Liquitex 'High Gloss,' suggested to me by Mike Siggins some years ago, and I have applied 2 and 1/2 coats to get'em really nice and shiny.  I say 2 a

A quick photograph after clearing up today's game to illustrate my point.  Everything is now safe and easily accessible for another quick game later this week.  A refight of Blasthoff Bridge. I t's funny what goes through one's mind while doing other things.  Yesterday evening after dinner, I took my usual long walk around the neighborhood between 8:30-9:15pm give or take.  The sunset was peachy, the crickets sang, and the air temperature was dry and comfortable with a slight breeze from the northwest.  Perfect for thinking about nothing in particular. Until it occurred to me at one point that, given my usual lack of time for games during the school year, it might be interesting to keep one of those large plastic tubs with a lid (and figures inside) readily accessible.  These containers are just large enough to hold four infantry battalions, two squadrons of cavalry, two cannon, limbers, and crews, two command vignettes, and two singly mounted aides fo

The Stollenian forces deploy and position themselves along a low ridge at the northern edge of a shallow valley.  General von Fuß inmund decides to place his squadron of hussars ahead of his right flank to threaten the approaching Zichenauers whose left flank will soon be exposed. Several hundred yards to the south, across the valley, The invading Zichenauers begin their advance on the Stollenian line.  General von Arsch rückwärts orders his grenadier battalion and dragoons to wheel right, march around the copse to their front, and attack the Stollenian left flank beyond.  His provisional line regiment and gun will pound away at the enemy center. The Zichenauer dragoon squadron wheels to the right and begins its long advance toward the Stollenian left flank across the valley. J ust before Noon on the morning of 4. August 1769, advance elements of the Army of Zichenau crossed the frontier and moved into the long contested Mark of Schleiz, sandwiched between The Elector

Pain medication and swollen face permitting, a small game is about to take place.  Look familiar? H aven't felt terribly well, or like doing very much the last couple of days since my set to with the periodontist on Thursday morning last week.  A pretty invasive procedure all things considered, and I both look and feel like someone has smacked me in the side of the head with a baseball/cricket bat.  Not exactly pain, but a persistent, dull throb, which has finally let up a little today.  No, dental implants are not for the faint of heart! That said, I finally felt good enough midday today to clear The Young Master's things from my table and set things up for a small action between limited forces tomorrow.  The first in a series of four linked battles, all of which are based on well known demonstration games as presented in titles by Donald Featherstone (Three Basic Battles), Young & Lawford (Blasthoff Bridge), Charles Grant (Sawmill Village),  and H. G. Wells (Hook&

  A nice, bright shot of the newly commissioned grenadiers, showing the sword knots, which were a royal pain to paint.  "Uff!" as they might say in Norway. H ere are some newly brightened and cropped photographs of the finished composite grenadier battalion, more or less according to the guidelines laid out in Charge!  Or How to Play War Games (1967), which continues to inform how I organize my tabletop forces. The final few painting steps were all pretty small items in restricted spaces, and I made a number of flubs in my haste to finish yesterday, but these were corrected pretty quickly and painlessly.  Depending on how I feel after the periodontist this evening, I might begin glossing the figures, or not.  The idea of a night off sounds kind of nice to be honest, and I have a new John Sandford 'Lucas Davenport' book to read, so. . . In theory, if one could keep up this sort of pace, it might be possible to paint up a Peter Gilder-sized army of, say, 8-