Horror, Harlequins, and a Vivandière - a Painting Update

  I have been painting... a little bit... 

The first two items are things I actually painted a couple months ago, but just didn't get around to posting. I was waiting for... something else...? to get finished to post along with them, but that just insn't happeneing and i want them off the workbench. 

Now that I look at them, they probably need some grass tufts to truly be finished... But that isn't done at the painting table, and I just want to get these OFF the painting table... 

Vivandière from Matchlock Miniatures

Horror from Reaper Miniatures. 

All the Harlequins and other Eldar on the workbench. I've got most of the first new troupe of Harlequins done and the other two that I have are well on the way (and the final troupe should be arriving soon!)

These three are pretty much done. 

These three... just about there... just needing a detail or highlight or two...

Ugh... Why did I think harlequins would be a good idea!? 

Oh, Those Russians...

 Some time ago, I picked up a box of miniatures and rules from Alternative Armies. I can't remember where...? I feel like it was in a bargain bin or a bring and buy. I'm pretty sure I didn't pay much for it. It was for Flintloque...? or maybe Deadloque...? One of their fantasy napoleonic skirmish games. 

The box contained a bunch of Russians - A Vampire, a Lich, five Zombie soldier and some undead peasants... and then a handful of Elves in an assortment of French-like uniforms, bundled in rags and bandages looking like French soldiers retreating from Moscow in with winter of 1812. 

I painted the Vampire and Lich a little over ten years ago(!),  followed by one of the zombie Russian soldiers, and finally two of the French Elves. Mostly just for funsies - I was painting a few things from the period, at the time, thinking I might do some War of 1812 games over the next few years on the bicentenials of assorted battles (that didn't end up happening...). I never really did anything with the fantasy Naploeonics. 

Flash-Forward One Decade.

Looking around for monsters and other miniatures that could pass off for late 18th/early 19th century miniatures that I already own that could be pressed into service in The Silver Bayonet, I was reminded of these... Though they are RATHER LARGE, I still started to daydream and even imagine scenarios or full campaigns - where the Lich and Vampire are the Ultimate bad-guy to face and bring down at the end of a campaign. I've rebased the lot of them, following the new scheme of putting heroes or leaders on larger 32mm bases and the rest on 25mm bases. 

The Russians

(I do have three more undead Russian peasants to paint up... and considering picking up a few more... maybe in the new year, if we DO get playing this a LOT!) 

Evil Boss Duo - Igor and Grigory  (Igor Chernobogovich Koshei, the Lich and Grigory Verdilakovich Putin, the Vampire). I'm not sure who is THE Big Bad Boss... Is it the Vampire...? Is it the Lich...? Are they uneasy partners who loathe each other, but recognize they are stronger working together (but will betray the other in the back, the moment they think they can consolidate power on their own)? Still have to figure that out... 

Zombie Russian Soldiers. One was just rebased (and touched up, so the colours match the others a bit better), the other four are all newly painted. 

Revenants (Zombies) in The Silver Bayonet don't normally have firearms. I thought these, being minions of a Lich/Vampire, could have the smallest sort of sentience. I think I may give them a musket that can be fired - but give them a Shoot Value of -2 and say it cannot be reloaded. I imagine they would be the personal guard Lich and Vampire. Neither Lich nor Vampire would expect them to actually hit anything (unless they got very, very lucky) but the discharging of a musket would alert the others of the presence/approach of intruders! 

Undead Russian Peasants

Well... Two of them are peasants... One seems to be in some sort of partial uniform...? 

One broke off from his feet/base at the ankles, years ago, and I have subsequently lost said base with feet attached. I had throught I'd drill the legs and make new feet... but the tiney little stick legs were so skinny this seemed unlikely to work... So I just stuck him in a wad of green stuff and after painting burried the lower feet in static grass to make it look like it's walking through tall grass. 

These minis are HUGE for "28mm"! Here they are with a few others from the period that I might also make use of... From Left to Right: Old 25mm Minifig Rifleman, Alternative Armies Zombie Russian, Renedage Miniatures British Soldier, Alternative Armies Lich, Wargames Foundry Highlander, Alternative Armies Vampire, Perry Miniatures Rifleman, Hät French Chasseurs Pioneer. 

I probalby should have thrown one of the zombie peasants in... they're a little more reasonably proportioned. 

If the Perry Miniatures rifleman was standing up straight, he might not be too far off, Height-wise... but the Alternative Armies stuff is so CHUNKY - equipment, accoutrements, hands are all so gigantic!? 

All that being said, I'll probably use these on the tabletop together... I'm not THAT fussy. I woudn't mix them in the same units, but as opposing forces I find it less noticeable (at least until they get into melee!) 

Not sure what will be rolling off the workbench next. Could be rest of the French Elves from this same set (aside from the occasional pointy ear poking out on one or two of them, they can easily pass for French soldiers that could be in Russia facing these guys... and there's probably just enough to make a Unit for Silver Bayonet! I do also have a few old Citadel Goblins that I stripped ages ago to repaint - they are needed for the third solo scenario - along with a troll. I also have more Napoleonic soldiers... Like, a half-dozen special units worth cobbled together.... AND a few Frostgrave warbands!? (So much for keeping the workbench free of distraction!) 

I watched/listened to an interview with Mr. McCullough the other evening and was QUITE disappointed to learn that this WAS intended as a stand-alone book with no plans for expansions... wow... It kind of made the lack of content in this book a little more bitter of a pill to swallow... But I'm still enjoying the game and... well... I'll just make shit up on my own - an not have to BUY anything more for it! Huzzah! 

Regency Monster Hunters

When I got excited about The Silver Bayonet a couple weeks ago I went digging through all the minis I have and tried to cobble together a couple of Special Units with stuff I had - preferably already painted... and, despite HAVING lots of painted Napoleonic soldiers, ended up painting new stuff for most of what I used in the Units!? At least the MONSTERS were all suff that had been previously painted! (though, even THEY ended up being rebased!?) 

In the process I found a BUNCH of regency era Monster Hunters. Most of these are from Westwind Productions Vampire Wars line. I picked up a LOT of these... oh... over 15 years ago!? (I was playing Savage Worlds Pulp Adveture games when I started this block 15 years ago... and the Pulp gaming was AFTER all the Victorian Horror gaming!?) I used them with Rippers: The Horror Wars - a Savage Worlds setting. Most of the figures in the Vampire Wars line are later victorian in dress, but there were a few I picked up (from the Headless Horseman series. I think...?) that were more Georgian/Regency in the cut of their clothes and never really got painted... UNTIL NOW! 

Regency Monster Hunters. 

I haven't named or developed characters for these, or even organized these into special units, just yet... but they are available when I do. 

I'm not even sure what I'd even classify these as... While there are a few non-military options, the game really assumes the nucleus of your force is a Military Special Unit of some sort - perhaps with a few civilian specialist. 

The model with the lowest recruitment cost is a bog-standard Infantryman - at 10 points (or the Artillerist, which is also 10). Then there are Grenadiers, Guards, Heavy Cavalrymen, Highlanders, Junior Officers, Light Cavalry, Marines, Riflemen, Sailors, Sappers, Swordsmen, Tactician, and Veteran Hunters... There are a few civilian-types; Champion of Faith, Doctor, Irregular, Native Scout, Occultist, Supernatural Investigator... Though some of these could also be in uniform...?

There is no armed Civilian... There are irregulars... but they're actually 15 points and are basically armed the same and have the same stats as infantrymen... but ALSO have the Nimble and Master of Cover traits - suggesting they are hardened guerrillas or some such.  

I suppose a lot of those armed with only a Musket could simply be fielded as an Infantryman. Part of me feels like an Infantryman would be better trained in the ways of war than a civilian... but then, most of that training would be marching drill and staying in formation and following orders... little of which would come into play in a small skirmish... And any civilian that privately owns a musket could very easily be believed to be just as accurate with it and if they're motivated enough to operate with such a unit, they're clearly made of sterner stuff than your average shop-keeper or accountant...? 

These two are actually from Casting Room Miniatures/Wargames Foundry. 

The fellow on the right could be a Champion of Faith...? 

The rest are from Westwind Productions. The guy with the Torch is only armed with the sword - perhaps he could be a civillian duelist and count as a swordsman? Or possibly a Supernatural Investigator (if we assume he has a pair of pistols concealed on his person...? 

The fellow with the axe could be an Occultist? 

Probably just call these Infantryman... but have a clever backstory as for why they are with the Special Unit.

I also have a few more military-types on the workbench. I reorganized some units and released some more Riflemen from service in Rebels and Patriots units to so I could paint them up to complete (or, at least, add a few more to Dulles' Rifles). Also trying to put together a French unit (or two... or THREE!? Really, it's getting a little out of hand....). 

I also broke down and ORDERED a few more - Minifigs/Matchlock Miniatures has a line of "Regency Zombie Hunters" - inspired by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and I ordered a bunch of those. Not zombies, just the characters - to have a few more civilian-ish characters. 

I have been doing some more stocktaking... but it got unfun real fast, so... I may or may not finish any of those posts... I'd hoped it might help me get MORE FOCUSED, but it kind of did the opposite by reminding myself of ALL THE THINGS that I want to PAINT ALL OF.... RIGHT NOW!!!

The Silver Bayonet - Wolf Pack

Thursday afternoon, Finnegan and I tried out The Silver Bayonet - a new skirmish wargame of gothic horror set during the Napoleonic Wars, by Joseph McCullough. I pre-ordered the book AGES ago and had almost forgotten about it until I'd gotten a notice it had shipped and then arrived on my doorstep last week some time!? 

I left it for a day or two as I was busy with other stuff but over the weekend had a look and got very excited and started trying to find stuff I could make use of. It ended up with me needing to rebase a pile of Wolves - that were originally based on large, mulit-figure, square bases for Hordes of the Things... and... since I was rebasing those and brining them up to current basing standards I pretty much HAD to rebase a few of the others I found that I figured might be useful... 

Despite my initial plan of just trying to find some miniatures I already had painted to use... I ended up painting most of the two special units I put together!? 

The game includes rules for Solo and Co-op Play and four solo scenarios. This is what we decided to try out - the first solo scenario played with the co-op rules. I took members of Dulles' Rifles (Lt. Dicky Dulles, Sergeant Grabbe, and Private Coyle) and Finnegan took part of Mister Collins' Crew (Mister Collins, and the two highlanders; Private Ripley and Private Graham). 

Background

Another Special Unit was sent off into a deep dark wood to find recover some special artifact from a ruined chapel. They have not been heard of for some time and a new team has been assembled to locate them, and, if necessary, complete their mission. 

It took some days of tracking to locate the party, but locate them they did. The group had apparently gotten lost in the woods for a spell and then had clearly been attacked. The scene they encountered was one of total carnage! A chill ran down Lieutenant Dulles' spine as the scene of slaughter was all too reminiscent of what had happened to his old company! 

As they entered the campsite in the middle of a small clearing a series of wolf cries emanated from the woods all around them! 

Scenario

There are 6 clue markers spread around the battlefield that should be investigated. Ideally they should try to find the previous unit's orders, so they can carry them out - or any other things they might have that are handy. 

There really isn't "victory points" per se... but there were certain things the group would gain experience points for - which are distributed afterwards. It really is designed for Campaign Play! 

The Game

You will have to excuse the rather sad and sparse looking woods... I have a lot more, better looking trees... SOMEWHERE, but they were shoved in a box before all the renovations began... like two years ago... and i have yet to locate them... 

The brown areas on the board were treated as woods and Difficult Ground and anyone withing them was considered to have cover. If we'd thought about it a bit more, I might have further suggested that anyone with more than 6" or 8" distance through woods could not even be seen.  

All set up and ready to go! 

Our intrepid Heroes arrive at the capsite. 

Slaughter and carnage is all around. Wolves cry out! 

ROUND ONE

Finnegan got the initiative, so his group got to go first, followed by the monsters, followed by all of mine! 

Mister Collins started things off by running (Move+Sprint action) to get to one of the fallen. 

Private Ripley and Private Graham both moved up in support and fired off their Muskets at the flanking wolves in the woods... but both missed! 

Then it was the monsters turn! 

One Wolf charged Private Ripley! 

So... interesting feature of this game... Attacking it not an action, but merely a thing that happens after moving into contact with an enemy. One thing that WASN'T 100% clear was if you could do a SPRINT action into combat... there wasn't anything that specifically said you could NOT... But it also says that combat takes place after a Move to Attack action (a Move action that brings you into contact with an enemy model)... and Sprinting specifically mentions is is a "special" action that takes place AFTER a Move action...? We decided though it is a "special" move, it is still a Move and so a Sprint could be a Move to Attack... 

The wolves furiously snapping jaws could not find purchase on the highlander! (If the target of a melee attack survives, they have the option of Striking Back or Backing Off... well... Obviously PRivate Ripley wasn't about to just run off!) 

Private Ripley stabbed the wolf with his bayonet and deal four damage! The Wolf was then obliged to back off 2"...

Another Wolf attacked Mister Collins and bit him quite nastily! (Dealing 9 Damage! YIKES!) 

Mister Collins was not one to back down from a fight, however, and struck the wolf back, dealing 6 damage! 

The Wolves (and Werewolf) spread around the table also sprinted towards the Riflemen in the middle of the clearing... 

Lieutenant Dulles fired one of his pistols at the Werewolf, missing, and then ran off in the opposite direction, charging one of the wolves.  

The other two Riflemen discharged their muskets and ran to aid the others. Rifleman Coyle killed one of the wolves bearing down on Private Ripely - much to Ripley's relief! 

Somebody seriously injured one of the wolves... I can't remember if that was Dulles Charge or the Sergeant's shooting...? 

At the end of the turn we rolled on the Wolf Pack Event Table - so see if more arrived. Luckily, no other wolves (or WEREWOLVES!) arrived! 

ROUND TWO

this time I won the initiative, so Dulles' Rifles went first. 

 The Sergeant Reloaded his musket with his action and then Moved to Attack the injured wolf. It's true that injured animals are very dangerous! The sergeant failed to finish off the wolf and the wolf bit back dealing 5 damage! Ouch! 

Lieutenant Dulles moved into contact with one of the Clue Markers and Investigated the Clue! He found a silver blade which made all of his melee attacks for the rest of the game "silver"... which didn't help much as he already had a silver inlaid fencing sword... 

Riflemen Coyle also reloaded his musket and then charged... he missed, but the wolf did not! 

It seems an odd thing to do... reload a musket, only to charge.... ehhhh... I tried to think of it all as a blended action from the previous turn - they fired their muskets at wolves coming from one direction and then ran off 

The injured wolf that had been attacking Private Ripley rounded and charged again (remember what I said about injured animals being dangerous?) This time it savaged  Private Ripley, dealing TEN DAMAGE - Luckily, Highlanders are made of sterner stuff and have 11 Health, and so Private Ripley kept on fighting... Though he failed to deal the wolf any further damage when he struck back.  

Another Wolf charged Rifleman Coyle and scored a critical hit (10 on both d10 dice) and that that took him out of the fight - blood gushing from an open wound, he was obliged to crawl off into the woods and staunch the wound as best he could... 

Another wolf attacked Lt. Dulles and dealt him ten damage! 

The Wolf that the Sergeant had fought earlier in the round attacked back and this time the SErgeant finished him off. 

Unfortunately another followed on his heals and finished him off.. 

Poor Private Ripley was just not having a great day... the WErewolf charged him... and that was the end of Private Ripley... 

This turn... Not going well for our heroes! 

Finally, what was left of Collins' Crew could activate. Mister Collins spent his action investigating the Clue... Drawing a card it turned out to be... 

ANOTHER WEREWOLF! 

Now the card reulsts state, "Replace the clue marker with a Werewolf"... so we weren't entirely sure what to do then... Melee attacks are clearly stated to take place after a Move to Attack... There is nothing that states that this counts as a Move to Attack - it just suddenly appears, in contact, with whoever was in contact with the clue token... We decided it DOES "count as" a Move to Attack, and that the Active Character (Mister Collins) was the attacker and went first. He injured it severely - dealing ten damage! Teh werewolf missed and Mr Collins Backed off. 

Private Graham reloaded his musket and... charged the closest wolf - killing it! 

For a second turn in a row, NO MORE WOLVES SHOWED UP! 

ROUND THREE

Collins' Crew went first, starting with Mr. Collins - who charged the Weerewolf, neither did any damage and Mr. Collins was obliged to retire. 

Private Graham went next and also charged the Werewolf! despite not having any silver weapons, he managed to finish the big beastie off! 

Then the monsters went...

A Wolf charged Mister Collins and dragged him down to the grown, mauling him with tooth and claw. 

Another wolf charged Private Graham and failed to land a bite. Graham was so busy parrying the ferocious attack, he was not able to land any blows either. 

The White Wolf charged Dulles, who deftly turned it away. 

A second wolf charged Dulles. This one Dulles killed, taking it's entire head off with his sword. 

The Werewolf charged Graham dealing 9 damage! 

Dulles was the last to activate and his pulled his second pistol and shot down the still reeling White Wolf! 

Dulles ran for it - sprinting around some woods, hoping to get to one more clue marker and possibly finding the orders and making it off the table before any more wolves fell upon him! 

Finally two more wolves showed up. Fortunately, they arrived in the opposite corner to where Lt. Dulles was! 

ROUND FOUR

Dulles went first and sprinted again to try and get to one of the fallen members of the slaughtered team. 

Wolves surrounded Private Graham... one wolf charged, and he stuck it through with his bayonet, killing the beast.  

Then a second wolf charged in, which he was able to turn away... but this relentless assault was tiring him quickly. When the werewolf finally attacked, Private Graham was done... 

Another Wolf arrived, from the same corner... 

ROUND FIVE

Dulles moved into the Clue Marker and investigated... but only found a bag of silver shot... again... something he already had! 

The Wolves all moved and got a little too close for comfort! 

ANOTHER wolf arrived on the table. Once again from the same corner! 

ROUND SIX

Dulles decided to call it a day, he ran off the table, making as much noise as he could to try and draw the wolves away and hopefully giving his wounded comrades a chance to crawl away to safety... 

Post Game

After killing a few more of the wolves chasing him, the rest broke off their assault and Dulles made his way back to the clearing. Mister Collins, Sergeant Grabbe, and Rifleman Coyles wounds, it turned out, were relatively minor and they would be able to fight on... Private Grahams wounds were a bit more severe (he will start next game with -3 Health) and Private Ripley died of his wounds... They removed his head - to prevent him from returning as a werewolf or revenant or some such, and buried him in a shallow grave in the clearing, along with the rest of the fallen soldiers. 

All of the survivors received one Experience Point, just for showing up and not dying.. Three more experience points were gained - one for investigating at least three Clue Tokens, one for killing at least five Dark Wolves, and one more for killing a Werewolf! These were distributed to Lt. Dulles, Mr Collins, and Private Graham. 

Initial Thoughts

I DO LIKE IT! 

I could totally see running a campaign. Either a co-op campaign with Finnegan. I could possibly even drag Amanda into it... If I could find some appropriate female figures (she does like her ass-kicking women-folk in any game!). 

I've even had ideas for on-going campaigns or a weekend campaign with multiple warbands... It could start off competitive - historical belligerents bumping into each other while on the same mission, assuming the enemy is up to no good and in league with the supernatural evil... but over time maybe realize they're after the same thing and start co-operating - if begrudgingly... 

Or I could see running it as a convention game... Either as a multi-player co-op with four players each playing and Officer/Character with one or two soldiers... or possibly semi co-op/teams maybe... British and French Teams - two players each - each player gets an officer and 40 Requisition Points... They are competing for points... but there are a PILE of monsters to deal with... 

Yeah, this seems like there is a lot of potential for a lot of fun. 

There are a few bits in the rules that could have been a touch tighter - mostly stuff I mentioned in the report - Can a Move to Attack be a Sprint action? Can you really Reload as an action, then Move to Attack? Do Monsters sprint? Maybe these things ARE obvious to everyone else and I'm just a blockhead...? Nothing seems utterly broken, though. 

Rereading the A.I. flowchart/conditions that control monsters... I'm not sure if they CAN even sprint... it says "It will move it's full speed stat..." doesn't say anything about sprinting...? Maybe that's why things went quite so poorly for us... We were having them sprint. 

Also, I SUPER appreciate the rules for solo/co-op play... I just wish that had been considered when devising attributes. One I can think of that I came across was the Monster Expert attribute that the Supernatural Investigator has - it adds an additional Monster die to the Fate Pool... except that Monster dice aren't used at all in solo/co-op play, so this attribute kind of useless, and the soldier that gets it (which otherwise seems like a really cool character) a little overpriced...

I do hope that, like Frostgrave and Stargrave and Dracula's America, Osprey follows this up with expansions - adding new monsters and scenarios and artifacts and soldiers with new attributes and weapons... I think the game has a lot of potential! 

Looking forward to playing again! There are four Solo Scenarios that form a bit of a narrative arc. I do hope we can find time to play it again next week! 

Hallowe'en 2016

After posting pictures of the 3rd Battalion we got on with some regular halloweeniness. The kids got bugging me about getting out my new "costume" so I actually got out and tried on this uniform I picked up in Calgary during our summer vacation. It's a long story... (more about that later sometime).



It's actually a replica Canadian Great War uniform that was used in the film Passchendaele - or at least parts of it was... The tunic and trousers were, maybe the cap... the puttees and webbing are new replica items. I have some insignia to add to the uniform at some point, but just haven't gotten to it. Not sure if I got that webbing set up right - but I'm pretty happy with the puttees - the first one took a few tries to get it right.

What the uniform really needs is a rifle... and maybe an entrenching tool... and a leather jerkin...



Messing around trying to make it look like a "period photograph"



(Not actually a Great War Brodie - the helmet is ww2 vintage - but close enough for my purpose)



The Girl also had a costume and wanted a picture with me in mine.



Out of focus because The Boy - who was taking the pics on this rather drab October late afternoon - was giggling too much.



Afterwards we made some halloween-y cookies. Well... okay... they were kind of just regular chocolate chip cookies with yellow, orange and brown Sun Drops instead of chocolate chips... which are sort of halloween-y coloured - or at least autumn coloured.

We didn't get around to carving a pumpkin this year. I don't know where the day went. I'd meant to get one carved AND play some horror themed games in the afternoon... but all we really got done was the cookies...?



After supper when Amanda got home we DID get to play at least one Horror-ish themed game - Forever Young: A Vampire Game from Twilight Creations - they make that Zombies!!! game (which we don't have, but I played once... we do however have Cthulhu: Hastur La Vista, Baby and Innsmouth Escape...). I picked up Forever Young out of Dragon's Den Games bargain bin for maybe $20 a couple of years ago - intending to play it as a Halloween game - but never got to it. (Last year on halloween we played a  Fear & Faith - Flashing Steel mash up horror skirmish game set during the English Civil War).

Forever Young says 45-60 minutes to play... so we'd hoped to play a few more games or maybe go watch a movie after....



But instead the game dragged on for almost FOUR HOURS!? I can't imagine trying to play a 6-player game!? Although once the draw decks got close to running out - it came to a pretty abrupt end in I was knocked out first - The Boy managed to kill my Vampire leader and The Girl discovered my nest... Within another turn The Girl was knocked out of the game and it was just down to Amanda and The Boy - I don't think it took more than another two or three turns - which went a LOT faster.

In the end The Boy won - but it was super close!

(I should have gotten a picture mid-game when there was a PILE of human and vampire pawns and lost of tiles stacked up all over...)

I might play it again (it would be interesting to TRY it with 6  players - just to see how it plays different...). But if I don't, it was only $20 - which is pretty cheap for an evening's entertainment (cheaper than us all going out to a movie!).

What did the rest of you get up to this halloween? Anyone else out there do some horror themed gaming - whether miniatures or board/card games? (I'll bet Terry did!)