The Grand Duchy of Stollen

  F or several days now, Blogger has not allowed me to type comments into the pop-up comment window on others' blogs.  Might anyone out there have any suggestions to fix the issue, please?  A cursory web search on Sunday did not yield information pertinent to this particular situation.  Grrrrr. . .  -- Stokes 

  B ingo chips are a highly suitable play aid for those of us who don't mind our tabletop (historical) wargames being a bit more on the gamey side of things.  They add color and provide a useful reminder of the morale and/or status of our units.  Plus they are cheap and can be purchased in bulk through a retailer like Amazon. Long time visitors to The Grand Duchy of Stollen will know already that my painting, collecting, and occasional gaming continues to be informed by The Greats of the hobby, among them Gilder, the Grants, Featherstone, and Asquith.  Large shiny units, stylized scenery, and fairly simple rules based on those of my predecessors and using the venerable D6.   Or, for those times when I am living out there on the bloody edge of life, 2D6! In any case, my outlook continues to have a decidedly late 1970s to early 1980s feel about it.  Not surprising since this is when I entered the hobby via Dungeons and Dragons before finding my sea legs a couple of years later with 1

  My late maternal grandfather, David Lewis Stokes.  I idolized him as a small boy.  Still do.  A tall, quiet, southern gentleman of the old school, he was drafted pretty quickly after Pearl Harbor like so many others.   He began his military career as an anti-aircraft gunner in a Pennsylvania National Guard unit where many of the men still spoke Pennsylvania-Dutch (a German-English patois).  After time guarding Dutch oil fields on Curacao in the Caribbean, he later volunteered to become a paratrooper, jumping out of the old DC-3.  He also trained as glider infantry.   Miraculously, however, he, his two brothers, and three brothers-in-law all managed to make it home from corners of various theaters of war.  Many others did not.    At some point in all of this, my grandfather witnessed a friend's death nearby, something that I suspect troubled him for the rest of his life now that I look back on it.  I asked about it as a small boy one time after perusing his division's memory

  Familiar Mollo illustrations of period specific Russian troops.  The plates from this particular book just have a certain something about them that I actually prefer to more recent book and online sources.    G eneral Paul von Stollen and staff were received well by our son on his 12th birthday last week, so I have started on the next phase for his planned Christmas gift: a two-gun battery of Russian artillery.  Six Minden crew each and a mounted officer for good measure.  Fairly simple, easy uniforms to paint although I have taken my time applying washes of scarlet over some very dark red to a pleasing blend of highlights and lowlights. The black hats and gaiters are done as are the black facings and turnbacks on seven of the figures.  Once I finish that, then I'll take care of the fleshtone (doing things a bit out of order this time).  And then the smaller details.  Years ago, I painted some Revell Austrian SYW horse artillery as Russians -- Some of you old timers might rem