Disclaimer: Osprey Games were kind enough to send me a review copy of The Silver Bayonet: Britain – Bones of Albion with no 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!
