Silver Bayonet

Halfords Grey primer to start with. Then a good coat of Athonian Camoshade. Moss / Mold in Caliban Green. weathering and edge highlighting with Grey Seer. Dots and lines of Nulin Oil to give the impression of worn writing.

Need 6 for a solo mission, but making 8 just in case they come in handy for my own scenarios down the line.

I didn’t like this metal Stargrave mini for the mystic first mate or captain I think it was meant to be. But the longer I considered selling him on fleabay the more I thought I would find a use for him. He almost became a demon for Reign in Hell, but I decided to tie him into the Napoleonic era by having him rip apart a French musician. The head in his clasped hand and the arm on the base are from Victrix. The metal wings are from a NorthStar Demon’s upgrade blister. I painted up the cloak in the same style as the cultists. This potentially makes him look like a “Possessed” cultist, but the absence of a heavy weapon and the wings set him out as a demon. I have postulated that the cultists chose their cult colours because they have seen demon’s wearing robes like theirs and they want to emulate them.

More of my fun Madame et Monsieur naming for my two dragoons.

Aubin DIDON (Read “Oh ben dis donc“—Meaning “What the heck?!”)

Alex CRAIMANT (Read “À l’excrément“— Meaning “With excrement.” I know, eww.)

Backstory

Alex Craiment was always in the… Up to his neck… To the point where no one wanted to go on patrol with him, becoming a Jonah figure in his unit. He was brave and honest but seemed to live under a cloud.

On the other hand Aubin Didon lived a charmed life but was a nervous wreck. Perhaps it’s the measure of a man that feels fear and soldiers through it. Aubin hasn’t caused anyone to doubt his courage in combat, but ever since being conscripted has had the standing heart rate of a Hamster being chased by a hawk and his anxiousness was obvious, stark and unsettling for his fellow dragoons.

This unlikely pairing from different scouting units ended up riding into an ambush set by a unit of British Silver Bayonet troops. The majority of their comrades rode through the disaster, but Alex and Aubin had their horses shot from beneath them and were left to their fate in the dusk and the powder smoke. They managed to hide in the cover of a rocky outcrop and were surprised that the British failed to follow. Then it became apparent why they hadn’t. A Troll errupted from a cave entrance nearby and the pair had no choice but to work together as a pair, fire, reload and move as only practiced skirmishers know how. Avoiding being shot by the watchful British and avoiding the bellowing troll were no small task but they were successful. Finally hitting the troll often enough to scare him off the pair survived their ordeal. The British must have had more pressing orders because before long they could be heard faintly retiring from the area.

In the morning their respective units came back looking for survivors in the small valley and neither of their officers believed their story of trolls in the dark. It was only when they rejoined the army that an officer appeared and demanded that Craiment and Didon come to his tent for a debriefing. It was in this tent that Captain Thierry Ibanez signed the two young men into his supernatural elite unit and the pair of dragoons have  been inseparable ever since.

The bestiary says a demon should be able to fly, has the ‘strong’ keyword and should be unarmed. I think that this kitbash does the job neatly enough. If he’s ripping heads off I assume that’s strong enough and the wings are fun. I didn’t really tie him into the era very well, but I think demons don’t worry about fashion and are fairly timeless.

The zenith of Halfords red primer over the black primer base really helped. The Fleshtearer Red Contrast and some washed down Leadbelcher and Vallejo Air Chrome has come out the grimdark way I intended. I hope people accept the foot on rock pose when it is actually conveying that he’s just coming into land with some trophy heads he’s recently ripped off. I think I can probably use him in crossover games of Reign in Hell.

Found a blog post where a game called Madame et Monsieur asks players to come up with a name that when pronounced slightly differently comes up with a silly phrase or switches meaning. So Alain D’ISSOIR (Read “À lundi soir“—“See you Monday night”)

Seeing as pre Covid Monday night was my gaming night this suited just fine.

Backstory….

Alain is pretty laid back for a grenadier. A typical grenadier has pushed himself to be the best in his regiment and assigned to the grenadier company. The trouble with Alain is that he is such a natural good shot, taking barely any practice, and so strong and brutally effective in a fight because he’s naturally big and strong that he winds up people around him. Some people through jealousy, some just by the condescending look on Alain’s face when he sees someone struggling with something that he finds easy to do. The only reason he finds himself in this occult fighting special unit is because he heard the pay was better after a chance meeting with a vampire. His encounter with the vampire and despatching of it was just a fluke. He was on picket duty and saw a shadowy figure standing over the body of a fellow picket in a farmyard they were billeted in. He should have just raised the alarm, he could have just shot the stranger, but maybe just to see if he had the strength to do it or maybe just to tick off one of a macabre list of ways to kill a British soldier he had conjured in his twisted head over time… He snapped a broom handle over his knee and smashed the makeshift stake through the vampire’s heart from the back and from the chest. The vampire collapsed and his face contorted into an inhuman grimace and Alain was horrified that it wasn’t just a murdering rostbif British scout. He hid his shock and fear when he raised the alarm and his superiors notified the supernatural recruiters that they had another candidate for their new elite unit.

Ensign Brock Godolming is too old to be at as low of a rank as Ensign. His stare frightened people and his shock of unkempt ginger hair made him look wild.  If any of his men knew his life before the war they would be shocked, but the increased frequency of missions and the danger almost every evening has them too distracted to think of such things. Brock Godolming was fighting the occult before the spike in activity and the emergence of the Harvestmen.

His father had been a good god-fearing veteran soldier scratching a living on a farm with his doting wife, Brock and Brock’s 4 sisters. He taught his son to fight with his fists and shoot a pistol and taught his son to read. One horrific evening Brock’s entire family was killed by a werewolf. No one believed him and put it down to wild animals and he was sent to live with his drunken brickmaker uncle who resented his presence and drain on his pocket. Brock refused to deny his own eyes and memories and began to look into the occult. This dragged him on a path of revenge and investigation, barely staying solvent in a variety of clerk and bailiff jobs. This lack of stability in his life, the strain of the mental trauma of losing his family, investigating mysterious murders and studying unsettling supernatural goings on ruined him financially and eventually put him in debtors court. The senior figures behind the Silver Bayonet units had set a small band of recruiters and researchers to find “civilians” with occult fighting prowess that previously may have been considered cranks and madmen. His conviction in debtors court was quashed with the understanding that he would join the army. It became apparent that this man was skilled, too vengeful to be lead and dictated to, but too valuable not to have amongst their ranks. They chose to throw him through a crash course in Sandringham Officer training college and make him a leader of men and try to instill an understanding of chain of command and discipline. Thankfully some of it stuck. The army had become a surrogate family; a family that not only believed in werewolves and vampires, but encouraged him to find these monsters and kill them. He is soldier enough for his men to not even note that he was anything other than a career soldier (but perhaps not a very lucky or rich one).

Supernatural Investigator Hercules L’Arbre Sacré found some ectoplasm. That or an horrendous cow pat. Will it pass the sniff test?

Kitbashed from a Victrix kneeling mini and head with arms from a NorthStar Wizard sprue. Mantic Games warhammer and a resin pistol, from a NorthStar Ghost Archipelago crew upgrade kit, on the base. UHU glue as my slime.

Hercules Sherlock or Sherlock Poirot were too obvious, so I looked up Holmes and what a French equivalent might be. Nothing jumped out as a proper equivalent sadly, so apparently Holmes comes from a word meaning or relating to holly. Holly in French is L’Arbre Sacre. Sounds cool enough to me.