The Silver Bayonet: Bones of Albion is full of inspiration for kit bashing some minis. It introduces a whole range of new unread for your The Silver Bayonet games that are ripe for exercising the kit bash muscles.
There is a range of excellent miniatures made by Northstar Military Figures to go with the campaign book, which I’m going to pick up at some point but in the mean time I wanted to have a go at making some skeletal Roman Legionnaires as I had the right bits and pieces in my pile of possibilities. Here is how I put them together.
The Bodies
I started off with a skeleton body from the Oathmark Skeleton Infantry and a body from the Victrix Rome’s Legions of the Republic
Mixing and matching
I started by chopping off the arm and removing the legs of the legionnaire. Then I removed the pelvis and rib cage from the skeleton.
The skeleton legs were then glued in place on legionnaire after drilling a couple of holes to act as sockets.
Making the Head
Next I carved out the legionnaires head from the helmet (only cutting my finger once!)
Then I cut the top off a skeleton head. The skeleton head needed a little bit of trimming so it would fit .
I’ve started recently, to use poster tack to hold parts of miniatures when cutting them. I’ve lost count of the number of bits that have pinged off to be lost in the realm of the spiders, under the sofa.
After adding the skeleton head I used a bit of Green Stuff World Green Putty – Acrylic Modelling Filler to hide a gap and the head is done.
The Arms
There were some ready made skeleton arms holding spears so I used those with the tops of legionnaires pila.
Next I added the other skeleton arm to the legionnaire shield.
I made some cuts into the hem of the tunic to make them look old and worn, then cut space for the skeleton shoulders into the upper arms of the tunic. I also made some cuts into these to also look ragged. Then I glued the spear arm in place. The shield I left as I would add that later because it would get in the way of painting.
Rinse and repeat
Then it was just a case of building the other legionnaires, priming with grey paint and dry brushing on highlights with a lighter grey then white.
Painting
For the tunics I went with a mix of Army Painter Speed Paints 2.0 Bony Matter and Ochre Clay diluted with Speed Paint medium.
For the bones I used Bony Matter.
Next I used some Broadsword Silver for the pila and Hoplite Gold for the helmets, greaves, breast and back plates.
For the belts, scabbard and straps I used Ruddy Fur.
For the feathers I used some Bloodmoon Red from the Masterclass John Blanche Volume 1 set.
Adding The Shields
For the shields I forgot to make a note of which red I used, but I know I used more Hoplite Gold on the Metal Work.
The Grunging
Next I used some Dirty Down Verdigris over the Hoplite Gold and Rust over the Broadsword Silver. Then I washed the whole mini with Greenstuff World Dipping Inks Zombie Dip and a wash of Kromlech Weathering Powder – Light Mud mixed with some Monument Hobbies Pro Acryl Newsh Weathering Medium
The End Result
I’m Really pleased with the result. Its a fairly simple kit bash but it’s effective and they don’t look bad. I think I’ve said in other posts I really like painting up zombies and skeletons, the grunging step covers up a lot of mistakes!
