Some thoughts on the delight that is Silver Bayonet

 My Freeblade is coming along nicely I'm just down to the arms to do now:

 

I'm *REALLY* enjoying painting this model and I can't wait to see how it comes out once it's transferred as well. I've got a little bit of trim-based trauma from painting too many titans but at least these are big and chunky. 

 

Beaucoup de Bayonetistes? 

 

Somehow, these have all been painted for a while and I haven't posted them.

 

 

On the left, Grenadier Bartholemy Saint-Yves, Fusilier Joachim de Rosario of the Legion Portugaise and Frere Bastien Auberjonois of the Academie Occulte Imperiale who is proving his value in casting weak curses that do nothing! Honestly, in a game yesterday he cursed the Spanish captain TWICE and was resisted both times!

Thoughts on Silver Bayonet

 

It occurred to me that I've played three or four games of Silver Bayonet now and singularly failed to take any photos. This tells me a lot about how much I'm enjoying it. I think Scotty summed up how it's going best yesterday when we decided to start enjoying the 2 / 20 rules on ANY 2 / 20 not just rolling for initiative:

You can imagine the Guard taking aim down his musket as the Priest poked his head around the corner of the building. There's a musket crack, and then a lightning crack as the priest is shot in the head, and it starts to pour with rain.

It's a game that really wants you to describe those cinematic moments.  We learned that if Tank shouts the name of his Highlander ("ROBBIE DUNCAN") before he charges into combat, his Highlander does better. Which is good given he's the third incarnation of said Highlander.

Things I like

Aside from the narratives and getting invested in name creation and thus the character of my troops, this game might be the pinnacle of author Joseph McCullough's mechanical design so far and I say that having really enjoyed all of his previous games. He's also used it on a setting that, for someone like me who has never been interested in full scale Napoleonics, has given me cause to dive in.

Mechanically, the 2D10 power / skill die split smooths out the bell curve of the previous d20 Frostgrave / Stargrave games (where one-shot kills hurt a lot) but also combines with the Power Die / Skill Die pool to really allow for you to make the best of that curve with a bit of careful forecasting. We've already discussed what it would take to port the mechanic into Frostgrave and Stargrave because we're really enjoying it.

The core of common soldiers in this game is also neat, allowing for unique flavour choices for each army by nationality. I'm enjoying the idea that it's not really possible to build a force without generic troopers and that basic infantry are perfectly effective. The Dhampir, Werebear, Vivandiere, Highlander and Champion of the Faith all offer their respective forces a bunch of character too.

There are a bunch of scenarios, which provide a variety of games and an imaginative core of monsters with a collection of rules that make them challenging opponents. The Black Dog in scenario six is absolutely terrifying and very very hard to hurt, let alone kill. The monster mechanics, alongside a monster die pool, also mean that the monsters generally play a very active part in the game and the longer the game goes, balancing where and how you spend those is super fun.

Anything not to like? 

The experience mechanic is very slow to make serious changes to your soldiers but that's more an inducement to play more games so it's definitely not all bad. We discussed yesterday that once your soldiers get on the experience track, you get real invested real fast. Super Soldier Georg Bitterlich, Slayer of Highlanders, now needs to live because he's AWESOME. 

The only other thing I find moderately vexing is that I want to get more. I'm thinking on how to create a different French list using Perry's Egyptian campaign Camelry and I'd love to run down a decent range for the British in India, a period I have always wanted to do just because it offers some really unique looking models. That sounds like saying "I'm a perfectionist" in a job interview to describe a weakness right? This game is so good I want to buy more models. Oh no. The tragedy.

Next Time

I've finally finished building my third Imperial Guard Leman Russ so I'll get into painting that this week along with finishing up the arms of the Knight and starting on the transferring. I've come up with a plan for that so will be interesting to see if it lands. Also I need to start the June Platoon-a-Month.