Bob Finally does Silver Bayonet

So having ordered my Lost Heresy figures I had to wait for them to be printed and posted from U.S. To while away the time, I decixed to practice paining Napoleonics starting with the Spanish. I worked on tbe whole using the schemes on the back of Box. I didnt do too much research on Spanish forces ( partly as Amazon cocked up my osprey book order by moving delivery till mid August).

One thing I quickly realised was there is an easy way of painting Napoleonics with Speed and Contrast Paints. Napoleonic troops specially Spanish, British and French have a lot of White in the Uniform, be it trousers, cross belts lace etc.

This generally makes them a pain to paint but here is a tip.

Base Spray the figure white, I use Colorfast rattle cans as they are nice paints, not overpriced and you get more paint for you buck.

Then coat the figure all over in GW apothcary white ( or speedoaint equivelent. This shades all the white bits but helps define the areas that you have to colour. It means rather than paint all the fiddly white bits, you just try to avoid them, only touching uo the white bits for the odd mistake.

Then depending on figure type a white dry  brush is applied for extra zenith effect usin Army Painter Matt Wbite. Though on some figurrs such as deserters bandits , goblins and Ghouls I missed this stage out as I wantex them to look grubbief than line troops.

This method works particularly well with the predominantly white Spanish Troops, in one swoop you have done 90% of their paint job.

Althkugh above photo doesnt show much of a difference, this stage allows you to re whiten areas were the grey has pooled particularly on the Trousers.

But as you can see you havd all the work on tbe shite bits dkne and gou now onmy have to concentrate on adding colour to the bits that need it.

And it does shade any white lace nicely.

I used the above technique to complete the 1st figures for this game.

1st if all I generic Ghost from Copplesyone Castings

And some spectral Soldiers from Nortstard Silver Bayonet range.

So how did we get to this epic?

Wavy lines and picture fades!

‘IT’S ALL GERRY’S FAULT!!’

Yup but in a inspitarational and expensive way. On the OTT sbow a couple of weeks back Gerry had done a feature on Lost Heresy figures on the Indy of the Week

Cult Of Games XLBS: Enjoying Wargaming…Even If You Suck At It!

And in one fell swoop had found what I had been looking for in Silver Bayonet.

Let me explain, ever since it came out I had  been diligently buying all the Supplements with an intention to play. I argued , that I had a collection of Skirmish Napoleonic Figures, originally painted many years ago ( Redoubt Figures mainly later supplemented by Front Rank before Gripping Beast aquired them) which I had done for  home grown set of rules we had done for a participation Game at WMMMS way back when it was still at the School

But I think the main problem was that altbough there are now 4 British boxes none of the figures totally grabbed my intention, all were not quite right. The Lost Heresy British set somehow hit the right itch. Not only tbat ,the 2x Sharpe Figures were amazing.

Thinking about it in hindsight, I know now what wasnt right, all the figures were specialists, no bog standard troop types particularly PBI. The Lost Heresy set gave me those, but with odd bits of extras such ad lucky horse shoes, garlic, crosses and wooden stakes. So I could use the Nortwind figures for specialists and both Lost Hersy and plastics for tbe muscle ( the specialists will provide plenty of NPC characters for narrsaive normal nap skirmishs)

So £90 lighter (£31 standard shipping from U.S.) I ordered before show had finished)

I then dug through my to do pile, and pulled out the Wargames Atlantic Sharpe and Harper figures plus the Northwind Spanish SB set that I had got from Asgard in final bit if stock clearance on wind up.

Now I could have left it there, but now with this terrible itch I had to scratch it, So 1 French, Prussian, American and 2 xBritish S.B plus various monster sets from Northwind boxes. Not to mention a pile of plastic figure sets from W.Atlantic, Perry’s and Victrix, I have the figures I need.

Ok I don’t need them all for Silver Bayonet,but I decided why not get a generic set of  figures for General Napoleonic Skirmishs.

I purchased a set of Ospreys Chosen Men for bigger games but S.B. should work fir most smaller games even if no Gothic Horror, as plan is to put on games were tbere maybe no gothic horror. But players wont know.

Now the race was on ,could the Spanish Hunter make his escape?

He made a run for it reaching the top of the hill with the French Veteran Hunter in hot pursuit. The Spanish Scout atempted to stop him wih a musket sbot, but he managed to wound her with one of his pistols, whilst any Frenchman with a long arm fired desparately to hit the Swordsman. Desparately loading his musket as quickly as possible the redoutable French Sapper managed to hit and disable the Spanish Swordsman, allowing the  French Vet Hunter to reach the body.

In his moment of success he was shot in tbe back by tbe Spanish Scout, who was  in turn brought down by French return fire. Despite tbis the Spanish Sapper who had been moving to support was a able charge in and retrieve tbe ring by taking down the wounded V.Hunter.

The Spanish Sapper had the luck of tbe devil and having rescued the ring raced of tbe table leaving 3 exhausted Frenchman in his wake, with a lot of unloaded muskets and Pistols.

In the meantime, both the Frenchwomen attempted to kill tbe Goblin, with 1st the Vinderlere , then Occultist falling to nasty wounds, It was left for the French Supernatural Investigator to deftly despatch tbe Goblin with his Fencing Sword

The Spanish Veteran Hunter watched it all befall whilst withdrawing with the Spanish Officer.

And it was over with the Spanish player winning with 5 exp to tbe French 3.

Only 3 Spanish were still on tbeir feet, to 5 French. All but tbe headless Priest survived to fight another day.

Heads uo to Joe who played the Spanish and his Girlfriend Gemma who ran the French for what was a fun and exciting game to watch and umpire. Both want to continue tbe adventure, giving Kevin and myself ti get our head round tbe basic game mechanics.

Yup I actually begin this topic , with a game played.

After  a mad flurry of painting last week, a force of Spanish fought a deadly duel with the French and even deadlier Goblins in a remote area of Spain.

A Spanish Agent has been ambushed by a French Cavalry patrol in a remote area of Spain. The patrol was forced to withdraw before tbey could  confirm his death as they were attacked by small creatures which unnerved their mounts.

Both sides have despatched a team a ‘experts’ to confirm the Agents death by returning with a ring he was known to be carrying. ( Scenario 4 in Silver Bayonet main rule book)

Unfortunately it won’t be a detailed battle report as I was umpiring my 1st game with these rules.

The two sides wete pretty much as in the Northwind  boxes , French 1, and Spanish. The Spanish box had female guerilla figure which didnt ( as far as I can tell) have a character class , so I used native scout)

The French won an initial initative, and cautiously advancedonto table using available cover.

The Spanish on other hand rushed fotward in a desparate bid to find their agent 1st.

I had the sudden brainwave to use the plastic treasure chests tbat I had from old Mage Knight Dungeons sets as clue markers

They spotted oneof the little creatures and tbe Veteran Hunter immediately opened fire, completely missing. The target ,a Goblin hearing the sound, rushed to investigate this savage ‘uman’.

Realising his musket no longer worked he drew his sword and moved to engage tbe Goblin only to realise they were slippy little. Buggers and missed, leaving himself open for s nasty wound in return.

The Spanish Sapper and the Holy Father charged in, with the latter screaming ‘By Gods hand I smite thee’ . Unfortinately God was using his hand for something else, the Sapper managed to wound the Goblin,  despite this and his growing fatige the Goblin.was able to return the favour was also wounded and despite tiring tbe Goblin Cut the head off the priest.

This debacle was only saved by the Spanish Gunner calmly shooting the little ##&@! With his pistol.

In the meantime hearing all the gunfire., the French carefully moved through the ruins to srch for the agent. The French Vinderlere and Cultist moving to intercept another Gobkin who had appeared. on their right.

With the Spanish Scout covering hom the Swordsman rushed to the outer clue marker only to be intercepted by another Goblin, which the Scout managed to slighly wound with a musket shot. Whilst the Spanish Infantryman moved in to cover taking a shot at the French Sapper , who  in reply promptly woundedded hin severly when he returned fire, taking him out of the action., Most of the French with Long arm also opened up but failed to hit anything..

The Spanish Swordsman charged and easily dispatched the Goblin with cold Steel despite numeous musket balls flying past his head, and continued on to find the body of the Agent , he must have shouted out loud ‘I have it’ as more musket balls flew past his head, it was now a race as he could see numerous French troops moving toward him, including tbe Fench Veteran Hinter who was closing rapidly..

In tbe meantime the Spanish V.Hunter took up postion in some broken ground, covering the fight between the Goblin and the two French woman to his front whilst the test of  his party moved across to support the outnumberrd swordsman.