Category: The Silver Bayonet

I think it was in one of Peachy’s videos that I first heard about the Brunswickers. A little  tasty morsel of the Napoleonic wars history that I hadn’t previously heard about. And on looking them up on the internet was then determined to have a special unit based on them for The Silver Bayonet. As someone who habitually wears black clothing the appeal was obvious. 

The “Black Brunswickers” was the nickname of the military unit raised by Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the Brunswick Ducal Field-Corps, as a response to Napoleon’s taking of German territory.

Looking around there were a few miniature manufacturers making suitable minis including Perry Miniatures and Gripping Beast. In the end I went for the Gripping Beast miniatures and bought a couple of packs to give me a large choice of figures.  My plan was to try a little bit of minor kit bashing to make them look more like a Silver Bayonet Special Unit. 

In terms of The Silver Bayonet nationality choice you could use the Austrian list or possibly the British as later in the Napoleonic campaigns they were attached to the British army, if I’ve read things correctly! There is also the optional rule ‘Go outside the list’ where you build your unit from any of the soldiers regardless of nationality. For solo play you are the final adjudicator and the game is very much a ‘do what is fun for you’ so I built the unit around what I thought I could kit bash.

I originally photographed the miniatures some time ago and typically for me, got side tracked by other projects then misplaced the photos, the found them and decided that they were not good enough and re did them.

So here they are. Apologies for the not so brilliant photos, they are marginally better than the first attempt, my camera is one without a viewfinder and the display screen looks like it is on the blink, added to that I’ve reached that age where I need two sets of glasses, neither of which helps getting things in perfect focus.

Capitaine Edgar Mandarinetraum & Baal Brecht Veteran Hunter

I went with the addition of a rather large pistol from a Reaper Miniatures, Razig Weapons Pack and stakes made from cocktail sticks, which in hindsight are a little too large, in a green stuff belt. Maybe the stakes are for extra large vampires? The hammer is also made from green stuff.

The veteran hunter also has a hammer and a stake plus a rifle from my bits box with a green stuff strap. I also added a green stuff cross, which you can just about see in the photo.

Otto Kehrtwendung – Sapper & Ausgang Gruppe Regiments-Feldscheer (Doctor)

The Otto miniature started out as a drummer so needed a bit of modification to turn the drum into a powder keg, carving the drum to make it look like a barrel with green stuff for the hoops, fuse and rope handle. The sword came from my bits box. Ausgang had a green stuff apron, doctor’s bag and spectacles added and the shako was cut down to make a cap as I found a reference suggesting that Brunswicker surgeons wore caps. Typically I can’t find the reference again at the time of writing. Not to worry, it was on the internet so must be true.

Whenever I attempt making the smaller scale stuff with green stuff my admiration for those who sculpt minis grows. The spectacles were particularly troublesome and I had many many attempts before I got them to not look like the mini was wearing a couple of dinner plates on their face.

Gemeine Wilhelm Grimm & Gemeine Jacob Grimm Infantrymen

I left these two un-modified but may add some extras in the future. This photo should possibly have the caption ‘My Brother did it honest Corporal’!

Gemeine Karl Unnütz – Infantryman & Christa Päffgen – Occultist

A very basic green stuff torch for the infantryman and the occultist is from the North Star Military Figures, First French unit.

Overall they’ll do for table ready. I think I probably rushed them a little and might look see if I can improve the paint work in the future.

Have you a non standard unit for The Silver Bayonet or is their one you would like to paint? Let me know in the comments.

The original plan was to have just one unit for The Silver Bayonet. But as often happens with miniature based games, the ‘I’ll just buy the minis for one warband/gang/army’ promise to oneself rarely lasts.

You’ll be reading through a rulebook or supplement, or innocently looking at some miniatures online to see how people are painting them and a hitherto unseen seed of inspiration doesn’t just begin to germinate, but explodes in to a humongous great forest complete with a thriving ecosystem of tiny furry creatures! So it was with this unit. I was just looking online and the North Star Military figures – The French Unit popped up and two of the minis jumped out at me shouting ‘paint me, paint me! I’d be really good as…’ – insert character idea. So I ordered the box and got painting.

Major Armand d’Hubert – Officer

The mini is a French Heavy Cavalryman from the North Star set but I wanted it as my officer and went off script, as it were, and added some hussar’s braids, or cadenettes as they were called at the time, to what is more of a Dragoon mini. Greenstuff to the rescue for some very basic kit bashing. This was to represent the protagonist from the film The Duellists which is Ridley Scott’s first film, and an absolute masterpiece to my mind. Beautifully shot and oozing with atmosphere. Based on a short story by Joseph Conrad titled ‘The Duel’ or in some cases ‘A Point of honor’ , that follows two officers of the French Hussars through Napoleon’s campaigns. One of whom repeatedly calls the protagonist out to duel.

I gave the officer the cavalryman trait as it seemed appropriate and so needed a mounted version.

This one required both the beard and braids added. The miniature is a Perry Miniatures Napoleonic Line Dragoon.

Captaine Didier de Malherbe (Veteran Hunter) and Jaque ‘oncle’ Tati (guard)

Both mini’s are from the North Star box where they are the Veteran Hunter and the Grenadier. I have a suspicion that the veteran hunter has a bit of inspiration from the film ‘Le Pact Des Loups’/’Brotherhood of the Wolf‘, which was one of the things that made me want the box set. I’m quite pleased with the distressed/aged leather look of this one. The names are from the French jazz musician of the same name and the French actor and film maker, Jacque Tati.

Sgt Sylvain Faison – Sapper and Cardinal Jean de Plesis – Champion of Faith

Both of these minis are from Warlord Games. Warlord Games Napoleonic French Peninsular Veteran: Philippe Berthet and WarlordGames Cardinal Richelieu, The Red Eminence. Back story for Faison is that he always goes into battle with his lucky pheasant, to the chagrin of his fellows. The runic apron was inspired by artwork in the rule book. There is a sapper in the Northstar box but I really liked the addition of the pheasant and tatty uniform of this Warlord Games mini.

For a French Champion of Faith it had to be the cardinal and he doesn’t look too out of place despite being from a couple of hundred years before The Silver Bayonet’s setting.

Pvt Jean-Jaques La Cible and Pvt Aimant de Balle – Infantrymen

The privates are a Warlord games Late French Line Infantry (1812-1815) and a Victrix French Napoleonic Infantry 1807 – 1812 with names picked from a french dictionary, except Jean-Jaques, which is from Mr Brunel of the band The Stranglers.

I really enjoyed painting these minis and now have the bug for The Silver Bayonet Units. I have another already painted which I will blog about in the near future (he says while thinking about the number of posts that are in the ‘preparation’ stage).

Do you play The Silver Bayonet? And if you do how many Units do you have? Have you just stuck to one or are you building a collection? Let me know in the comments. Au revoir for now!

While looking at Frostgrave supplements on the Osprey Publishing site I began looking at another game by Joseph McCullough, ‘The Silver Bayonet‘. I’d seen it mentioned here and there but never really looked at what it was about. After reading the description, and realising that this was a great excuse to paint some military miniatures from the Napoleonic period, I grabbed a copy as soon as I was able.

I’ve always liked the idea of having a big army of miniatures from the Napoleonic era but have always held off because it would require spending a lot of money that is already earmarked for fantasy and sci-fi gaming and I probably would never get round to actually having any battles. So, The Silver Bayonet is perfect for going someway to scratching an itch. You don’t need a large amount of miniatures, the rulebooks and supplements are very reasonably priced and, the rules are fairly straightforward.

The rule book is very well presented and has been styled to look like an old hardback book with stains and damage. This is carried through the whole book with the ‘marbled’ style end papers and there are odd stains on some pages like the bloody finger print pictured below.

Napoleonic Gothic Horror

The Silver Bayonet is a skirmish wargame set in an alternative history where during the Napoleonic wars, fuelled by the deaths on the battle field, entities known as the Harvestmen began to cast their influence on the world, using their powers to release a horde of supernatural creatures previously thought of as myth or legend.

Britain is the first nation to respond to the threat forming units of special troops to hunt down and destroy these supernatural foes, awarding success with The Silver Bayonet. Other nations soon form their own special units.

The game oozes a swashbuckling vibe sort of like a ‘boys own‘ story produced by Hammer Horror. It can be ‘Sharpe’s Vampire’ or ‘Hornblower and the island of zombies’ or anything your imagination can conjure up for the Napoleonic era.

Specialist Units

The focus of play are the specialist units. These are formed by first choosing a country, Britain, France, Prussia, Spain, Russia and Austria, in the core rule book but there are options for other countries in the source books. Different soldiers are only available to some countries – the Highlander, for example being only available to Britain, but there is an optional rule to make up your unit with whatever soldiers you like.

The book also suggests that if you want to play a nation not on the list there is no reason not to. Simply grab some minis and choose one of the countries that fits. As with all optional rules, its good manners to make sure your opponents are happy with your choice.

What you need to Play

You will need up to 8 miniatures to represent your unit, one officer and up to seven soldiers. Plus some terrain, miniatures to represent the monsters, pencil and paper, a unit sheet – photo copied from the rule book or downloaded from the Osprey site and some d10s ideally in three different colours. The game is miniatures agnostic so you can use any miniatures you like. There is a great range of ‘official’ Silver Bayonet figures by North Star Military Figures. I have to confess I got badly bitten by the miniatures for The Silver Bayonet bug and now have three units (which will feature in future blog posts) and also have my eye on the North Star Russian Unit but am holding off for a bit as my pile of shame/possibilities needs reducing (and I just got my hands on a copy of Kill Team Hive Storm).

First you create a commanding officer who will lead the unit. There are some choices of increases to various starting stats so you can customise your officer a little. Further customisation involves the choosing two attributes. Attributes is a catch all term for skills, innate talents and special abilities in the game.

Next the officer needs to be equipped with a number of equipment slots to fill from two lists of equipment, a general list for standard weaponry with some items taking up more than one equipment slot, and a special list, items like silvered weapons and holy symbols, useful for fighting supernatural entities. A maximum of two items are allowed from this list though some of them are modifications to weapons and so don’t take up an actual equipment slot. Both are kept fairly small to keep things simple. A one handed sword or axe or club are all covered by the Hand Weapon, for example.

Next a company of up to 7 soldiers is chosen from a list of various specialists in keeping with the troop types during the Napoleonic era and. As well as military persons the lists there are also civilians whose skills make them useful to a Silver Bayonet unit. There is also the option of disregarding the country restriction and just choosing your soldiers as you wish. As is the case with much of Joseph’s game design the rules of fun and cool override those in the rulebook. Although it would be polite to check your opponent is okay with this in a competitive game.

The Game

The rules are similar to the Frostgrave rules, a point I am in agreement with Mr Peachy about, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it, but there are some differences, the main one being is Silver Bayonet uses d10s rather than d20’s as mentioned earlier. These come in three varieties, and is why it helps to have three different colours, some of which you keep in a pool to be used to affect rolls.

Turns are split into phases each of which is either your minis or your opponents (in the two player competitive version) and a phase for any monsters. Solo and co-operative play have slightly different phases but are essentially the same. A figure generally has two actions in their phase one of which can be move and the other shooting, melee attack, investigating, or other actions. A lot of the game depends on the scenario that you are playing and there are both competitive and solo/co-operative scenarios included in the book as wells a guidelines for creating your own.

Campaign Play

You can play the game as just a one off scenario or skirmish but I think where it shines is with campaign play. Campaign rules are included and guide you through the advancement of your unit as it gains experience.

Another Review

This is a fairly short review and doesn’t cover everything but Peachy over on Peachy Tips has done a nice The Silver Bayonet review and an excellent kitbash idea for making some zombies (round about the 23:49 mark) which is well worth watching. I also had a go at kitbashing a zombie for the game.

The Silver Bayonet Supplemental Rules and Settings

At the time of writing there are four supplements available for The Silver Bayonet, The Carpathians – Castle Fier, Canada, Egypt and Italy. Each adds new monsters and troop types as well as scenarios to play. It has also just been announced that the next supplement will be ‘Britain: Bones of Albion’.

Minature Battles Score

My one very small criticism of the rule book is the lack of photos of miniatures on the table. However, I can see that this may have been a design decision, photos possibly not fitting with the design aesthetic of the book, which is very well done – I particularly like the cover being styled to look like an old, stained book. So it is a really really small criticism. I would have liked to have seen some photos of miniatures, possibly in a gallery as an appendix after the main content, there is after-all a photo on the last page.

It is a very small criticism though. This game, like Frostgrave, has been a breath of fresh air and gets my imagination sparking away like a, well, a very sparky thing!

I’m giving it a d12, only because of the lack of inspirational photos. I’m trying to be fairly strict with my reviews otherwise the majority will score d20s!

Have you played The Silver Bayonet or are you intending to? What nation did you choose? Let me know if the comments!