Bob Finally does Silver Bayonet

This will be in a few parts as the British was may main focus, particularly as It was likely to have a theme. Therefore The British may take up multiple entries.

My meat of any British Silver Bayonet force was going to be of Rifles , particularly with Wargame Atlantics single figure a boxe dRifle sets.

I already had Sharpe and Hagman, so Made a couple more riflemaen from the Wargames Atlantic Rifles Box and a single 2 figure sprue form the Perry’s range that I picked up of Ebay.

As with the Line units the don’t paint the white method was used even if in these cases there wasn’t much. I had a good idea on the Their uniform details, but did catch up with bits form show and various Napoleonic Ospreys I have in my Library.

The central figure with the Bandana was o of the head options from the base Wargames Atlantic Rifleman’s box and allowed me to do an Isiah Tongue form Sharpes 1st Series. The Rifleman on his left is a Foundry Perrys figue whoh I have Silver Bayoneted with extra bools and scrolls from the Frostgrave Wizards Box.

With these as I base I added Northstars British 2 set .

I did split the painting with these, Redcoats and not , The Grenedier represent 1st Foot or Grenadier Guards as they are now, The officer I did as a Royal Marine officer as the old one I had from Redoubt miniatures was a bit naff.

Strangely enough the line units shown are some of the later painted units which have so far been done for the this project. As I said I was originally waitin for my order from Lost Heresy to arrive , so I started on what which was the Northstar Spanish, Rescued form the final sale of Asgards stock otherwise they probably wouldn’t have bee on my list of units , but they are a nice set of figures not only for Silver Bayonet but as characters in more historical based Napoleonic Skirmish’s.

Spanish Uniforms very much tended vary greatly during peninsula war through reforms and local recruitment needs. Add to that the changes made to kit whn hiding out as guerrilla units etc, so I basically just generally followed the schemes shown on the painted figures on back of ox, though I did dcheck the sapper below.

The next set was a unit of French, particularly as I wanted them as a unit for the game in the lets play at beginning of project. A had some ides of  their uniforms , but did a little bit of googling to confirm particularly with the Currasier  and Grenadier .

all above were painted using th avoid the white style previously mentioned with the line units even if there wasn’t much white.

The technique described works very well with Both British and French line units in the Peninsula campaign as  their dress uniforms do have a lot of white , which lacing, belts, trousers etc. Though as will be shown later if does work as a guide when doing units like Rifle, Prussian etc who have less colourful uniforms .

As can be seen above it woks well for British here the prev mention light company, 38th Foot.

As said it also  works well with French, if anything better as they take less time to do.

Here is ostensibly my Votligeur unit from the 100th Line Regiment, Though as the French Infantry was more universally dressed it could be one of many regiments.

One thing I noticed when taking photo is, I nee to amend the rear of some of the bases, as the colour code for my Volitgeurs is Red/light Green , some are showing White Green. This colour coding is to help players recognise their figure types in Silver Bayonet for players who don’t have knowledge of Napoleonic units or the various characters used in the game.

Now its time to tidy up  bits and do eyes if your me. Do  bit of extra shading on face, and finally put on Zealot yellow on previously silver painted metal work.

For me tbe above  stage is combined with painting the Regimental Facing Colours, luckily for me My local Regiment of the time was tbe 38th foot (South Staffs) who had the same facing colours Cornwalls fictional South Essex,

Finally the top of base is painted Speed paint Pallid bone., with the rim in Zandri, Dust  other than the back which is left for colour coding.

With the base sjadi g on the White it is now just a case of block painting the various colours on. Here I show it on some British Flank Company by Victix.

Starting with Speedpaint Pallid bone, on Forage bags and odd figures overalls.

Then its the Scarlet Jackets, using GW gryph hound Orange, you will be supriseed how little there is when you avoid the lace and cross belts.

Then its the bed roll on the pack, usi g speedpaints Gravelord grey and Skakos, backpacks, ammo pouchs, bayonet scabbard in Speedpaint Grim Black

Here is were the initial grey shading really helps in defininig the white crossbelts.

Next its the stocks of Muskets, and the strap on the Water bottle in Speedpaint Satchel Brown. Quickly followed by Speed Paint Forest Sprite for the plums as Im doing them as Lt.Company. then Speedpaint Carrabean , the later is lighter tban tbe the satchel broen so it doesnt mattef if you go over it.

Now its time for metal work, Speedpaints enchanted Steel for the Musket Barrels , and Army Painter Shinning Silver for Shako/chest plate,  the cbain for the musjet cleaner, buttins and metak work on musket . Much will get a coat of Zealot Yellow at end.

The Final bit of block painting is to do the faces and hands in Army Painter Peachy flesh. This combined with the earlier grey wash should mean for general tabke top stsndard , these areas will be nicely shaded .I of course make it difficult and paint eyes!

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.