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.
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.
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.
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!
Disclaimer: Osprey Games were kind enough to send me a review copy of The Silver Bayonet: Britain – Bones of Albion withno obligation to post about the book. What follows then, is my review of the book and is my own opinion. #ad
The Silver Bayonet is coming home!
‘As the specter of invasion looms from across the Channel, the ghosts of Britain’s ancient past return to haunt the living.’ – Britain – Bones of Albion – Joseph McCullough.
The latest campaign book for The Silver Bayonet, brings the action back home to Britain. It takes Silver Bayonet units around Britain to discover the cause of the increased encounters with undead across the country.
A Look At The Book
The Silver Bayonet: Britain – Bones of Albion by Joseph McCullough and will be published by Osprey Games on the 25th September 2025, continues the theme seen in previous books in the series with a cover styled to look like an old book with gold-ish lettering on a dark red cover, showing signs of wear. ‘Slightly foxed, but still desirable’ in book collecting terms, I believe. So, it will look great next to other books from the series on your book shelf.
Inside, the pages continue the style aesthetic and look like the well read pages, of an old book, occasionally stained with blood splashes, bloody finger prints or showing damage to the edges.
The book is liberally sprinkled with excellent illustrations by Brainbug Design that carry on the great work they have contributed to other books in the series.
The book opens with an introduction from Joseph giving us an insight into some of the inspiration for the campaign and how the idea came to him while out cycling one day.
Chapter One
Here Joseph details the background for the campaign, weaving in threads from many parts of Britain’s history of invasions. The campaign has its roots in the island’s distant past when druids performed a ritual to curse the invading Romans, but were unsuccessful. Centuries later an ancient magical black stone has been uncovered that has belatedly finished that ritual. Now the undead of the island’s many invaders from the centuries since the original ritual are rising to plague the country. Thus, Silver Bayonet Units are making their way to Britain to investigate and deal with the risen dead.
Chapter Two
A short chapter but sweet nonetheless detailing a new soldier type available for British units or any unit if you use the ‘Go outside the list’ optional rule from the main rulebook, the Bow Street Runner.
These were possibly London’s first professional police force and were attached to the Bow Street magistrates office, giving them the nickname of the Bow Street Runners. The previous link is to the website of The Bow Street Museum of Crime and Justice. It’s well worth a look, full of little bits of historical gems. Don’t have a suitable mini for officer? Look no further than Northstar Military Figures who are producing a Bow Street Runners set of two metal miniatures for the very reasonable price of £6.00 at the time of writing.
Chapter Three
This is where you will find the campaign itself. There are eight linked scenarios intended to be played by two players competitively, but the book also offers advice on increasing the player count to three or four players.
The campaign sees the special units visiting eight ancient sites across the British mainland in search for the titular Bones of Albion. The bones are relics left over from the magical ritual of the druids in Roman times and are the targets of the first seven scenarios.
Joseph offers an option to make the campaign more fantastical by using a ‘Bones of Albion Deck’ separate from the clue marker decks found in the first seven scenarios. He also advises a method of assembling the Clue Marker Deck for each scenario to make investigating clue markers more incentivised.
Unexpected Events and Encounters are triggered as detailed in the main rule book, but there is a table of events and encounters specific to the campaign.
I won’t detail each of the eight scenarios as that would be a spoiler and nobody likes spoilers. Suffice to say that each scenario takes place at a different ancient site, so it is an excellent excuse to make some awesome scenery. Of course you can use whatever you have handy to be proxies, nothing wrong with that!
As mentioned earlier the first seven scenarios have their own clue marker decks and many of the scenarios have special rules and or a specific events tables that further add to the flavour of each one.
The Bestiary
Chapter four details all the new creatures and new attributes that feature in the scenarios and they are great. There are undead representing many of the peoples that have invaded Britain over the centuries. Apart from making these scenarios great you could also obviously use them in your own scenarios. An idea I’ve been playing with is having a sort of random undead deck. Should be interesting, might go horribly wrong!
The varieties of undead are just itching for kit bashing but if that is not your for you Northstar Military Figures have got you covered with their ‘The Silver Bayonet. – Wave 9 Miniatures: Britain’
Further Campaign Ideas
The one thing I’ve found with Joseph’s games that I currently play, Frostgrave, Stargrave and The Silver Bayonet, is the books just make ideas pop and fizzle in my head, hugely inspiring. ‘Britain – Bones of Albion’ is no exception. Joseph states in the beginning of chapter three that this is your campaign and you can make any changes you want. He suggests that you could make scenarios based on any interesting locations in your own area. Living in Devon I am close to so many such locations, what horrors could emerge from the many ancient sites of Dartmoor? There could be a Silver bayonet unit hastily recruited from French POWs from Dartmoor Prison!
The inspiration link of The Silver Bayonet to the Sharpe’s books by Bernard Cornwell could easily be extended to another of his book series The Arthurian saga. Maybe events that took place in those books have echoes in the times of The Silver Bayonet? There was one ritual in particular that Merlin started that could be the basis of a similar quest. Or what if an ancient evil could only be slain by Excalibur? The special units could then search for the ancient blade. Or may be the special Units travel to Ireland in search of the four treasures of the Tuatha De Dannan? The Fomor of Irish myth make excellent bad guys and Balor of the Evil Eye would be a fantastic end ‘boss’.
Another scenario idea I had, inspired by the themes of the Bones of Albion is something loosely based on the classic (and one of my favourites) horror film ‘The Wicker Man’ – Silver Bayonet units are sent to a mysterious island of the coast of Scotland to investigate the disappearance of a Bow Street Runner who was investigating the island. Possibly having Lord Summer Isle as a sort of vampiric creature that feeds on the deaths of innocents, ‘Summer is a coming in…’
The Miniature Battles Rating
I can’t find anything in the book that I don’t like. I think even if you never play the campaign the book is just stuffed full of inspiration for creating your own scenarios, and that to me is the sign of a ‘must buy’ supplement. The Silver Bayonet: Britain – Bones of Albion gets a D20 in my scoring system!
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
Major blunt eyed the patch of forest ahead with not a little trepidation. It just seemed to ooze malevolence. No airy bluebell wood in the spring here. This area promised pain and terror. And somewhere in there was the lost unit.
He looked back and was surprised to see the two privates of his unit standing behind him obviously wanting to get his attention but also not wanting to disturb his reverie.
“Yes?” he asked and Tobias Function stood to attention before speaking.
“Mmffffl flofffm dibl mmmffm fee!”
The problem with Private Function was that what came out of his mouth only sounded like English. You could half grasp that there were words being spoken, but not what they actually were. A brave and reliable soldier nonetheless.
Blunt looked over to Function’s best mate, “Translation Parts?”
“Yes sir, Major sir!”
“He was saying sir, that he has a bad feeling about the woods sir.”
Blunt suppressed a shudder. Private Function’s bad feelings were usually right.
“Nothing to worry about. Just a stroll in the woods. But if it makes you feel safer, load your muskets before we go in.” Blunt replied without much feeling.
If you go down to the Woods today.
In this first solo scenario from the rule book, the unit are tasked with entering a woodland to find orders lost by a unit that had previously entered the woods and perished. The unit starts off in the forest after finding the remains of the missing unit and the sound of wolf howls coming from around them.
The Dark Wolf runs at Clarsha who dodges a bite and hits back with the butt of the volley gun smashing its skull and killing it.
A Dark Wolf attacks Mc Feegle, sinking its teeth into the highlanders arm. Mc Feegle tries to hit back but only succeeds in driving the wolf back.
Pvt Tobias Function takes a shot and hits, killing the Dark Wolf. Cpt William Sweet shoots at and misses a Werewolf. Dr Pestremus Sussorous seeing Mc Feegle’s bloody arm moves towards him readying a bandage and fires his pistol at a Dark Wolf but misses
At the end of the turn Maj Richard Blunt shoots his rifle at a Dark Wolf but misses and another wolf arrives at the edge of the woods.
Turn 2
Mc Feegle, Pvt Parts and Sgt Maj Clarsha all reload (though for Clarsha this was a bit pointless as the Volley Gun can only be used once per scenario – which represents that reloading 7 barrels would be time consuming).
The Werewolf closes with Cpt Sweet rending him with its claws, sweet stabs back with his bayonet plunging into the Werewolf’s chest but sees that the bayonet hardly scratches the Werewolf’s hide. But he does push it back.
A Dark Wolf attacks Maj Richard Blunt who manages to sidestep.
A Dark Wolf attacks Mc Feegle who burns a fate dice to reduce the damage helping him to survive the attack. Mc Feegle now decides to move back rather than counter attack, leaving the Doctor on his own with a lot more wolf eyes staring at him than he would like.
Cpt Sweet burns the last fate dice to quick reload and manoeuvres putting some distance between him and the Werewolf, shoots his rifle, and luckily Cpt Sweet is one of the unit who has loaded silver shot and does some permanent damage which is enough to kill the beast.
Pvt Function reloads and sees something interesting (a clue marker) and moves towards it.
Maj Blunt reloads and ducks behind a tree. And Dr Sussorous reloads.
At the end of the turn 2 more wolves arrive at the edge of woods.
Turn 3
Function checks the clue marker and finds an ornate silver ramrod (this find adds another power dice to the fate pool) then moves to support Blunt.
Parts also sees something and investigates a thicket. This clue marker is not as useful and reveals another Werewolf!
A Dark Wolf attacks Maj Blunt drawing blood, Blunt thumps it with his rifle butt causing it to back off.
A Dark Wolf attacks sweet who is overcome by his wounds.
Maj Richard Blunt shoots at a Dark wolf misses.
Mc Feegle shoots at a wolf, hits and kills it then moves back putting some distance from the wolves that were approaching him.
Dr Pestremus Sussorous shoots his pistol but misses.
Clarsha attacks a Werewolf with his heavy cavalry sword but doesn’t even scratch the lycanthrope.
At the end of the turn another wolf turns up.
Turn 4
This turn continues with the unit trading blows with the Dark Wolves and mostly missing.
Near the end of the turn the units luck changes as Pvt Parts, who has loaded silver shot, fires at the Werewolf and hits leaving the werewolf looking badly hurt.
And at the end of the turn another Dark Wolf arrives.
Turn 5
A Dark Wolf attacks Pvt Function doing damage. Function then retaliates with his bayonet, killing the wolf!
Following on from this a Dark Wolf attacks Mc Feegle reducing the highlander to 0 health and putting him out of the fight.
A Dark Wolf attacks Clarsha and takes the Sgt Major out of the fight.
A Dark Wolf attacks Dr Sussorous but misses. The Doctor stikes back with his sword stick killing the Dark Wolf.
At the end of the turn the roll to determine whether another Dark wolf turns up brings a bit of luck as the result is that nothing happens.
Turn 6
Maj Richard Blunt shoots at a Darkwolf but completely missies. Dr Pestremus Sussorous moves towards a clue marker as does Pvt Parts, who also reloads.
A Dark wolf moves in to attack Maj Blunt but misses. The Major retaliates doing a small amount of damage and the wolf moves back.
Now a wolf moves in to attack Pvt Function but misses. Tobias retaliates slashing with his bayonet. And the Dark Wolf backs off.
A Dark wolf attacks Parts but misses. Parts strikes back but does no damage. The Dark Wolf backs off.
Just before the end of the turn Function reloads.
At the end of the turn another Dark Wolf arrives.
Turn 7
Major Blunt sees something in the leaf litter and investigates and finds the missing orders! Now the unit can leave the woods. With the orders found Blunt draws his pistol and shoots at a Dark wolf and kills it. And shouts to the unit that it is time to leave.
Function begins legging it towards the edge of the woodland.
Dr Pestremus Sussorous also notices something in the leaf litter and finds a bag of silver shot. Grabbing it he starts moving to the edge of the woods.
The wolves are not going to make it easy though, and a Dark Wolf attacks Maj Richard Blunt, but misses. Maj Blunt then hacks at the Wolf with his sword killing it.
The Werewolf attacks Pvt Parts rending him with its claws putting him out of the fight.
Turn 8
Pvt Function. Major Blunt and Dr Pestremus Sussorous all move off the table ending the game.
Post Scenario Stuff
After the battle, in campaign play, you roll on an injury and death table for each of your unit who were reduced to 0 health. For once the dice were with me and all my downed figures survived.
Thoughts and musings
I know I missed a few odds and ends, like reloads and strike backs but that’s fine and noted for next time.
I tried something different for this battle report and used a voice recorder as I went along rather than making notes with pencil and paper.
The plan was to then run the audio files through a text to speech app and edit that for the battle report. Well, it sort of worked, mostly. Some of the audio got garbled and some of it just failed to be transcribed.
Another thing I need to remember to do is to make a note of when I take a photo and set my camera to number the photos for the battle report, so when I note ‘photo 1’ then the filename of the image will tally with that.
My plan is to make the battle reports a little more ‘narrative’ but its only my second ever so still a learning experience.
Overall, I really enjoyed playing The Silver Bayonet and am looking forwards to another game. I can’t decide whether to continue the British Unit campaign or re-run the scenario with another unit.
If you’ve played this scenario let me know in the comments how your unit fared.
My brain wires are often sparking on the obsessive side when it comes to games. I get hung up on how a game looks on the table and as I was playing a solo game of The Silver Bayonet, I was using those glass beads that you can get as fatigue tokens for the game. But, wasn’t happy with them. They were fine but, just, in my mind at least, didn’t fit. Another alternative I considered was using tokens from Kill Team Or Necromunda, both of which I have just sat there in a box, but neither of those would look quite right either. I wanted something different.
So I did a search looking for iconography to represent fatigue and looked at the images that were thrown up and started sketching. My idea was to have an image depicting a fatigued infantryman, wearily trudging along on a march.
I am not a brilliant artist. But, I occasionally draw stuff that I am not too embarrassed of and I thought that as I was going to go for a silhouette sort of thing, I should be able to achieve something useable.
Starting with a very basic sketch I got down on paper the general idea of what the fatigued soldier would look like.
Expanding on the initial sketch I added more details to depict a footsore infantry man bowed by his pack and barely putting one foot in front of the other.
I then added some ink to get crisper lines.
This is one was just trying out some ideas, refining them.
This is the image scanned, tidied up on the computer and with colour added. I chose grey for the uniform to be fairly neutral.
I then added a border and a background colour.
After copying the image I added numbers so that the token represents 1 or 2 fatigue tokens on opposite sides. Not entirely sure why the images are blurry.
And here are the tokens (stuck on some 1400 micron mount board, untidily cut out ( it’s a design feature, honest!) and sealed with a coat of satin varnish. All right they won’t win any design awards but I am fairly happy with the result and they are more interesting than the little glass beads I was using.
If you like them please feel free to download the PDFs below.
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 Duellistswhich 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.
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
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!
It wasn’t a difficult choice to make, and like many The Silver Bayonet Players I chose a unit that takes inspiration from the “Sharpe” TV series based on the novels by Bernard Cornwell. Though in the end I chose three of the characters from the TV series and made up the remaining members of the unit using other minis.
I had so much fun finding miniatures to represent the members of my unit and painting them. I found that reading through the rules had ideas popping in my head for all sorts of characters.
Major Richard Blunt and Sgt Major Podraig Clarsha
With a little wordplay I decided that Richard Blunt was a suitable name for the unit’s officer and Podraig Clarsha would take the role of Veteran Hunter and Blunt’s right had man. Both minis are from The Wargames Atlantic British Riflemen box of plastic miniatures. You get a good amount of minis and options and could easily have all your unit in rifleman green.
Private Wullie Mc Feegle – Highlander and Captain William Sweet – Rifleman
I wanted to also have a highlander in my unit so got some Victrix British Napoleonic Highlander Centre Companies. Again a great box of minis with more than enough options available to get some great figures. The name is a wee nod to Sir Terry Pratchet’s Wee Free Men. The other mini another Wargames Atlantic rifleman is based on the character of Captain William Fredrickson, with minor kit bashy green stuff eye patch and hair. His sword is a little wonky because I am a little clumsy and am constantly breaking bits of my miniatures. This one didn’t repair very well and I keep meaning to re-do it, but inevitably get side tracked with new minis to paint.
Privates Ezikiel Parts and Tobias Function -Infantrymen
I get the feeling that these two might not be around for long.
Dr Pestremus Sussorous – Doctor
The company avoid getting wounded as much as possible as this keeps the Doctor away, no one is very comfortable around him.
I didn’t have a mini for the doctor until I remembered that I had some STL files for Plague Doctors by Black Scroll Games. They don’t look to out of place given the Gothic Horror setting. I need to reprint the mini at some point on the newer of my printers as this one was done on an older printer and lost a lot of detail. The pistol is from a Reaper Miniatures Razig weapons pack.
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!
