The Grand Duchy of Stollen

  The Stollenian Ministry of Cartography has managed fairly well at long last. F ollowing quite a few failed attempts by Claude to make the fixes I requested -- I t has been a very frustrating couple of days to say the least. --  I finally used my preferred online photograph editing application to make those edits manually and sharpen up the image overall.  So, I've finally got the map looking very close to what I've been after since the very first hand-sketched and colored map way back in September 2006.  And here we are.  Complete with a faint hex overlay and a scale of miles in the upper right corner.   Each hex is roughly equal to a day's march, assuming poor, ill-defined roads across the region and that armies of the era typically marched at the rate of their transport and pontoon train(s), which is to say a walk with occasional forced marches notwithstanding.  Anyway, I'm relatively pleased with the outcome.  There is one last very mino...

R eturning to my campaign area map revisions of almost a year ago, but this time using a combination of Chat GPT with substantial help from Claude to fix the former's mistakes.  Getting very close at long last, but there are a few small artifacts that will have to wait until another session to eradicate.  Can you spot them?  In the meantime, I've got to head outside for an hour to take care of a few small tasks before dark. -- Stokes  

  O k, we're almost home.  The weather gods have cooperated again today with gray skies and steady rain, so I've had every excuse needed to avoid yard work out of doors for one more day and steal away to Zum Stollenkeller after breakfast with the Grand Duchess late this morning.  An hour or so to c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y peel the figures from their temporary cardboard bases and line 'em up atop their permanent bases.   Just need to retouch the green base edges before cementing the 60 or so figures in place, but here they are in company column.  Not perfect by any stretch,  but they look pretty darn good en masse at arm's length.  Overall, I'm pleased although goodness knows it took long enough to finish this particular unit.  Almost nine months.  Jeeze Louise! But for right now, it's raining lightly, the house is still, and I'm off to have a Sunday afternoon lie-down with one or both cats, who, like many dogs, usually turn up sooner or later w...

Part of the Army of Zichenau during the October 2017 Grand Review after two months of rebasing. And part of the Stollenian Army across the field, during the same autumn maneuvers that year.  Both forces have grown considerably since, and there has been reflagging for many of the units at different points too.  Interested parties can scroll back through the various subsequent blog entries to inspect those claims more closely. T his last week, I've spent a bit of time here and there during the evenings -- while waiting for coats of gloss varnish to dry -- to inspect my stock of unpainted Minden and RSM95 figures residing in the infamous Drawer o' Lead to my left.  And, of course, to take a gander at the spillover in a nearby closet here in Zum Stollenkeller .  The resulting 'audit' is tentatively encouraging (he said), but my work is cut out for me.  After the planned monster-sized regiment of Austrian hussars, here's how I plan to complete the Grand Duchy of Stol...

  A rainy, cool Saturday here in the Grand Duchy was just the excuse necessary to push ahead with glossing the final third of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment (the fictitious 2nd Battalion).  And here they are.  The finished unit.  Tomorrow, I'll finally get 'em onto their permanent green 3mm Litko bases, just peeking out from behind the regiment in the upper right-hand corner of the photograph.  Then, after a couple of days off, it's time to get cracking with the fist 14 or so Austrian hussars. -- Stokes

  The first 2/3 of the fictitious second battalion of the Anhalt-Zerbst regiment all glossed and waiting on their final third (with flags) to turn up. W ell, glossing has gone a bit slower than expected during the last 10 days or so.  The Grand Duchess has been away on a work trip (Indonesia and Singapore), so it has been the Young Master and yours truly holding down the fort here at home with the cats.  Fairly calm and quiet all things considered.  Even the evening driving lessons around the quieter streets of our neighborhood.   Besides the usual outdoor things at this time of year, I've been scrambling to get a project finished out ahead of June 1st, so free time in the evenings has been scarce since classes finished at the end of April and grades were due on May 5th.  But, here is where we are at the moment with the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment.   Only two tiny errors noted that are so egregious I've got to correct it with a small dab of flesh ...

I n the midst of glossing this late Sunday morning.  The two rows at the back are more of less finished with 2.5 coats.  The two in the foreground have had acrylic gloss applied to their bases and muskets plus the drum and NCO's polearm.   I typically brush the stuff onto the figures since I discovered many years ago that spray cans are, shall we say, inconsistent and can lead to unexpected, frustrating outcomes that leave one close to the point tears after weeks of careful painting.  And if not that, then certainly clouds of quietly muttered blue language.  You know what I mean. But so far, so good yesterday (the first third of the regiment) and today (the middle third). For the moment, though, I'll have to stop there to make a quick run up the road to the supermarket and then mow the lawn since the sun is out and more rain is on the way if the forecast holds.  I'll get back to these this evening. As the late Dame Vera Lynn sang, we'll meet again. . ....

  My usual photographic placeholder until I have something more interesting to show and tell. W ell, Sir. . . Grading is all done, final grades were submitted last Tuesday the 5th, and I presented a poster at our internal teaching and learning conference on Wednesday.  The last department meeting for the year followed on Thursday, and yesterday (Friday) was a "No Day." It's finally time to begin applying acrylic gloss to those 60 or so Anhalt-Zerbst figures.  And at long last, glossing will get underway later today.   I'll start with the mounted colonel and the first 20 or so figures completed late last fall. Or maybe it was during the early winter?  In any event, I'll move onto the next 20 and so forth  if that goes quickly enough .  I usually opt for a couple of coats to make'em nice and shiny with a third application of the stuff to those raised areas where the figures are more likely to get touched in the handling.   You know.  ...