Labelling of Blog Entries Is Completed

I have gone through over 900 blog posts going back to August 2007, when I started this blog, and entered topic labels for every single posting. YIKES! that was a lot of work.

I then posted the 26 most popular topics in the column on the left side of this page. So if, for example, you wanted to see everything on this blog about Prussian cavalry, you would click on the link for Prussian SYW Army and that would cause every related post to show up on your screen. Then you would scroll down through the posts until you found one with a Prussian Cavalry label, click "Prussian Cavalry", and then all of the posts related to Prussian cavalry would be at your fingertips.

I can add more topics to the list, because everything now has a label, I just didn't want the list of labels to get too long.

Followers Wanted
I was hoping that the increase in blogging output would attract a few more followers  to this blog. I actually lost one follower today (sigh). I am targeting 500 followers as my goal. If you are a regular visitor to this blog, then why not click on the Follow This Blog link on this page and become a follower .

Comments Are Appreciated Too
I can track statistics that tell me how many visitors I have each day, but the thing that I really enjoy is reading comments that visitors leave on the blog. I encourage everyone to leave a comment on a topic from time to time, even if it is just to say Hello. A lot of times I post information in the comment responses that does not appear on the main page, so you could be missing some good information.

What's Next?
I have been working on my 1:20 Minden Austrian and Prussian armies so that I can run a Kolin game at next year's SYWA convention in March 2016 in South Bend. I will be reporting more on this topic in the coming days and weeks.

In the near term, I want to set up a Chotositz scenario and play a solo game. Hohenfriedburg and Soor are also candidates for solo play treatment in 2015. In other words, I want to play more wargames in 2015, be it solo games or games with the Brown Deer group. Solo games give me the opportunity to try out scenario ideas or experiment with rules changes.

AWI Hessian Update
We should be seeing the greens for the Hessian infantry within a couple of weeks, which would be my best guess. I am looking forward to seeing what Richard will come up with this time. Stay tuned for more information.

Big Battalion Game "Label"
In going through all of the old posts these past few days, I found some awesome pictures from the Battle of Schaumburg in October 2009. Click on "Big Battalion Game" label on the left side of this page to relive some of these battles. It is worth the extra couple of clicks. We are starting plans to host another huge multiplayer Big Battalion Game, probably in May 2016.

Some Blog Changes To Make Things Easier

I have added a list of "labels" or thread topics on the left side of this page. It is titled Most Popular Labels.

I have gone through about 450 of the 960 blog posts today and added labels. This takes me back to October 9, 2011. I plan to finish the remaining blog threads later this week.

The labels are listed in order of the most frequent topics. You can click on any one of the labels, for example, the Battle of Kolin, and you will have every single thread that I have written on the Battle of Kolin right at your fingertips.

I think that I still have too many categories and may amalgamate topic such as Austrian Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery into one Austrian SYW Army label.

I am only listing the most popular threads. There are many other labels, but you will have to scroll through the archives to find them. When you do (Dogs for example), just click on the label and all the Dog topics will appear.

I hope that this will be helpful in navigating your way around and through the blog archives.

Half A Million Visitors Milestone Is Surpassed!

On March 31, 2014 the 500,000th visitor to the Der Alte Fritz Journal blog paid a visit.

When I started this blog on August 28, 2007, I had little idea of where this blog would go or the many paths that it would lead me, but I have to say that writing this blog is one of the most enjoyable activities that I do in my spare time.

Here is a link to my first blog posting:

http://altefritz.blogspot.com/2007/08/welcome-to-alte-fritz-journal.html

I am very appreciative of the support that everyone has given me and I especially enjoy reading all of the comments that readers post on the blog. The comments are probably my favorite aspect of this blog as it gives me some insight into what you are thinking.

Hint, hint: please feel free to leave comments on this blog. 8^)

Another interesting thing can be found by clicking on the tiny "Sitemeter" icon at the bottom of each page. Sitemeter tracks statistics on the number of visitors, the number of page views, where the visitors come from. Clicking on the little map in Sitemeter shows me where the last ten visitors have come from, in terms of their country location. It is fun to see how many different countries are represented in my blog readership. I have the feeling that I could visit almost any civilized country in the world and probably find a viewer of the Der Alte Fritz Journal.

There have obviously been a lot of changes for me since 2007, the most obvious ones being the start of the Fife & Drum range of AWI figures in 2010 and the subsequent acquisition of the Minden Miniatures range from Frank Hammond in 2013. I want to thank Frank and sculptor Richard Ansell for having the idea for creating a range of figures in 1/56 scale and I cannot think of a better historical period for this concept than the Seven Years War in the middle of the 18th Century. To me, Richard's sculpting style has been the perfect antidote to the trend of oversized, caricature figures with over sized heads and hands and, as one person put it, "strong faces".  

I think that the pendulum is swinging back the other way towards more realistic figure poses and body proportions. All figures, even the caricatures, are good for the hobby because they give us a lot of choices, but to have those choices and have realistic looking figures, well that is a combination that is hard to beat, as far as I'm concerned.

And finally, this blog is all about having fun with historical wargaming and having respect for your fellow gamers. In my minds eye, people such as Hal Thinglum, Bill Protz, Charles S. Grant and Dean West (among many others too numerous to mention on one page) set the tone for me, my blog and how I present myself at conventions and in public forums. I only hope that I have been able to live up to the standards embodied by these fine gentlemen.

At the end of the day, if a gamer comes up to me at the end of a convention game and tells me what a good time he had playing in my game, then that is all that I can ask for. It is what keeps me coming back to do it again.

Best regards,

Der Alte Fritz

Winter Arrives at Hesse Seewald

Winter has hit the Duchy  of Hesse Seewald with a vengeance, having dumped 18 inches of snow over the past several days, with 4-6 more inches supposed to hit us over night. This will be followed by an Arctic blast of cold air that will see subzero temperature arriving Sunday evening and staying with us for 48  -- that's two full days with high temperatures below zero. We will hit minus 18F on Monday morning and the high temperature for the day will be a balmy minus 10F.

I'm afraid that we are doomed.

So what is one to do to help make the Winter Blues go away? Why head to the basement and start painting Minden and Fife & Drum figures, of course. I find that the Winter months are some of my most productive ones when it comes to churning out the painted figures. At one time, I could knock out 120 28/30mm figures in a month, but now I have cut that figure in half to about 60 figures painted per month. That still represents two full 30-figure infantry or cavalry regiments in my Minden 1:20 ratio SYW armies.

Winter is a good time to plan out the projects and painting schedule for the coming year. The last two years were necessarily focused on painting American Revolution figures so that I could have two armies for my convention games. Nothing promotes a figure range more than seeing them painted and on the tabletop. Now that the Minden range is a part of Fife & Drum, I will want to beef up my Austrian and Prussian armies so that I can run convention games at the Seven Years War Association convention in March and at Historicon in July.

To that end, I need to add two more battalions of Austrian infantry and a dragoon regiment to complete my core Austrian army for the convention circuit. I would also like to add a hussar regiment to my Austrian forces.

My Prussian army is in fairly good shape with respect to the core force of 12 infantry battalions and 4 cavalry regiments. I would like to add a second cuirassier regiment as well as the Garde du Corps regiment. I have enough infantry, so perhaps a Garrison regiment or a Frei Battalion would be useful additions.

Once the first of the AWI dragoons go into production, I will probably switch over to painting a lot of these as several Kickstarter backers opted for the painted dragoons reward level. I am now waiting on our caster to make the production molds and spin the lead so that we have inventory to ship to our backers. Hopefully, we can start shipping by the end of this month or in early February . It all depends on the casters backlog of projects and my place in the queue.

A Format Change

I decided to really get wacky and add a picture that I scanned into the header of my blog page. Technical things like scanning pictures and uploading images into Blogger are not easy tasks for this old wargamer. So I am quite pleased with myself this evening for having accomplished the format change.

So every time you look at the page, there you will see the header picture of Frederick being greeted by the Bernberg Regiment after the Battle of Lignitz. The regiment had been disgraced in an earlier battle for its poor performance, but after its heroics at Lignitz, Frederick restored their colours and other honours and the regiment was back in his good graces. That did not happen very often, for if you got on the wrong side of Frederick, the consequences were usually dire for you.

The picture is a scan of a Richard Knotel drawing found in the book "Der Alte Fritz in 50 Bildern". I must say, aren't those Prussian uniforms magnificent?

All right then, I am going to retire to Fritz's Man Cave (how would you say Fritz's Cave in German?) and sort out some of my Minden Prussian and Austrian cuirassiers. Enough of this Napoleonic jazz, it is time to get down with the 18th Century again!

I think that I will top off the evening by reading a little bit of Charles S. Grant's "Wargaming In History, Volume 2" and see if I can figure out a way for the Good Guys to finally win the battle of Fontenoy in 1745.

Master of My Domain

Frederick the Great, on display at Fort Ligonier

You know what I really like about blogging? Aside from the fact that I have made friends in nearly every corner of the world and that I have fun posting pictures of historical wargame activities, etc. It is the fact that nobody can tell me to shut up on my own turf.

I have had nearly 445,000 visits to this blog since I began it back in 2005, and I think that I have had no more than two, maybe three impolite visitors to this site. I think that I issued the death penalty (i.e. deleting the offensive comment) in one instance while the other two comments were so silly that I left them on the board so that the commentator could display his ignorance for time ever after.

It is good to be king.

I plan to take leave of a certain public wargaming forum for awhile. Its 18th Century forums (fora?) used to be the epitome of politeness and friendliness, but it has become less so more recently. The majority of visitors to the Other Place are good people, but the minority have increasingly made it an unpleasant experience for me, hence my decision to stop visiting the site. There are other friendly places for me to visit such as Emperor vs. Elector or WD3 and a couple of other places where I can visit and know that what is said there stays there and that everyone will treat the others with courtesy and respect. Those are truly Better Places to visit.

What does that mean for the Der Alte Fritz Journal? It means that I will probably be posting things here more frequently. You may have noticed an uptick in the number of entries in 2013 compared to previoius years. I think that I have hit 90 posts so far - it took me nearly the whole year to reach that figure in previous years.

The first half of 2013 has been somewhat stressful with so many tight deadlines to meet for wargame conventions and other related activities. With the stress of Historicon and Kickstarter behind me, I intend to get back to using the hobby for enjoyment and relaxation. I feel like the weight of the world is now off my shoulders and I can once again enjoy this wonderful hobby.

It all starts the first weekend of August when I travel to General Pettygree's home and resume our Napoleonic campaign in Iberia. I look forward to that game very very much.

Looking for a few more Followers

Advance token on the Reading Railroad to the Fife & Drum Miniatures Blog and sign up as a "Follower" on the blog. Each month I will make a random drawing from the list of Followers and the winner will receive a $50.00 certificate good for the purchase of any Fife & Drum Miniatures.

British Brigade of Guards on the march for Fife & Drum Miniatures

Fife & Drum Miniatures Blog

So click on the link above, then click on the "Join  this Site" button on the left hand side of the page and then you are automatically entered into each month's drawing.

The elves are working on the moulds for the artillery equipment and crew, so it shouldn't be too long before they arrive across the pond from Old Blighty.

Next in the queue: Continental infantry in hunting shirts and tricorne hats (plus some head sprues so that you can make your own hat conversions).

The Case of the Mysterious No. 181

For the past several days, I've noticed something kind of funny going on with the "Followers" gadget that you see in the upper left corner of my blog. It seems that every other day, the number of Followers changes from 180 to 181 and then back to 180 and then up to 181...

So my message to Mysterious Follower Number 181, please feel free to drop in from time to time and see what is going on. I'll keep the back door open and the light on. :)

Last night, or actually early this morning, I stayed up to nearly 3AM working on my next regiment of Continentals (blue coated firing line). I put on a few Christmas CDs and nursed a Diet Lime Coke through the early morning hours while I painted. I nearly completed the unit, save for some black and flesh highlighting and a dab of gold paint on a couple of the officer figures, but then an ounce of common sense kicked in and I tumbled off to bed (probably around the same time that Stokes was waking up over at Stollen Central, according to his blog entry for today).

I completed the Continentals and just finished applying the spackle and fine grit to the bases. After the spackle dries, I will then apply a coat of dark ink, let the ink dry, and then dry brush some light flesh over the dark bases. Flesh color really looks good when used for ground effects. Try and see if you like it. I hope to have a picture of the Continental firing line up later this evening, around midnight Chicago time.

I'm off to the store to pick up a trunk full of fire wood. It is darn cold at 20F degrees and we will want to have a nice warm fire tonight.

Tomorrow, we visit a breeder to look at their current litter of Golden Retriever pups, just for fun. We still plan to get a pup or two in the Spring. Dave and I took a nice walk a little while ago. I just let him lead the way and gave him all the time he wanted for sniffing at scents and what have you. Mrs. Fritz is cooking him some chicken and veggies for dinner tonight.

30,000 Visits To Hesse Seewaldt

Minden Miniatures are so gorgeous that this picture is worth a second look. Unfortunately, they won't be engaged in the epic battle against Gallia tomorrow because I haven't painted the standard bearers yet. This is just half of a 60 figure battalion of IR34.

The Alte Fritz Journal reached a milestone of sorts when it topped 30,000 cumulative visitors to the site on March 4th, 2008. I am honored that so many of you take the time to pay regular visits to this site and want to thank everyone for helping to make this endeavor so much fun.

I spent a good part of the evening breaking Der Alte Fritz's Number One Rule of Wargaming: never, ever base or paint figures for a game the night before said game. I am traveling north to Brown Deer, Wisconsin to play in a BAR wargame on Saturday and it occurred to me that I had not terrained the bases of the third squadron of the Prussian Garde du Corps. Arrgghhh!!! Well, I just had to spackle the bases and add a bit of flock and sisal grass to make them presentable for the game. Besides, the prospect of an upcoming game concentrates one's mind wonderfully and I finished the basing in less than an hour. So the Garde du Corps, two Prussian command stands, and the Stadden AWI artillery crew are now based and ready to make life difficult for the Gallians.

I couldn't seem to stop myself at that point. I had a Foundry cuirassier officer in his galarock (coat) and I just had to have one of these fellows in the Garde du Corps. So I painted him and based him as well. Pictures tomorrow, I hope. I plugged in the digital camera so that the battery is recharged and I'm looking forward to a fun game and the taking of lots of pictures.

Welcome To The World of Alte Fritz

Welcome to The Alte Fritz Journal, a compendium of thoughts, opinions and information on all things germane to the mid-18th Century during the reign of King Frederick II of Prussia. While the focus of this blog will be on wargaming the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years War (1756-1763), I expect to touch on other related topics from time to time.

I am first and foremost a history buff. I probably get my interest in history from my father, who had a keen interest in the American Civil War (hereafter called simply, the Civil War). During the Civil War centennial in the 1960s, we would often go on battlefield tours in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi. My father would lead our family on a tour of a particular battlefield and he would impart some stories that he had read in one of the Bruce Catton books on the period. My father was able to make history come alive with his stories and this had an impressionable effect on his 10 year old son.

At the same time, I also developed an interest in toy soldiers, which seemed natural given my interest in history. It started with a couple of red boxes of 54mm William Britain's British Guards under the Christmas tree, followed by Swoppets Medievil Knights and a 30mm Elastolin castle and Prince Valiant set that I received on a subsequent Christmas morning. I was forever hooked on toy soldiers.

I drifted away from the hobby of toy soldiers during my college years and early twenties and gave the little fellows nary a thought. Then one day, in 1982, I was visiting London and happened to follow a little winding alley off of Oxford Street that led me to a magical toy soldier shop called Under Two Flags. There in the window was a square of British soldiers in the Sudan fighting off a swarm of Mahdists. I went into the store and bought the whole display, thereby reviving my interest in toy soldiers. I became a collector of 54mm toy soldiers again and this somehow led me to the Little Wars wargaming convention in 1986.

I had never seen a wargame before, nor was I aware that the hobby even existed. Everywhere I looked, there were tables and tables of miniature wargames covering every possible era of military history from Ancients to the World War II. The one game that really caught my eye though, was a demonstration put on by RSM Ltd, featuring the Seven Years War with 25mm figures. I was vaguely familiar with the Seven Years War, but didn't know very much about it. Yet there was something about those tricorn hats, the long tailed coats, the leg gaitors and the color uniforms and flags that told me that I had finally found "IT".

Over the succeeding 20 or so years, I collected hundreds of books about the Seven Years War, painted several thousand 25mm Prussians, Austrians, Russians, British and French soldiers and had the time of my life wargaming the battles of Frederick the Great. I did a short stint (seven years to be exact) as editor of the Seven Years War Association Journal and joined two tours of the Frederician battlefield sites with noted author and scholar Christopher Duffy in 1994 and 1998. The highlights of these two tours had to be walking the fields of Kolin, Rossbach and Leuthen.

As you might guess from the title of this blog, that I have a strong interest in Frederick the Great and the Prussian army of the 18th Century. I plan to post many more bits and pieces of information about this period and my latest wargaming projects and interests.