Playing multi-player Silver Bayonet: a guide and proposed rules

Silver Bayonet has become popular with our gaming group. For us, it represents a very refined version of the game mechanics started in Frostgrave, further developed in Stargrave and the second iteration of Frostgrave, before landing on something really special with Silver Bayonet.

While Joseph McCullough (the author) deserves all of the praise for the rules that have been written, like all wargamers, we are want to stretch them even further. Inevitably for any gaming group, there is often an odd number of players keen to play a game. And while it can be really beneficial to have one person rolling dice and running the monsters (especially in those scenarios with a lot of monsters, like the Changeling one), that's just not quite as much fun!

It's a troll. Fighting a Sapper. Next to a creepy tree.

Do we need to explain why we love this game any more than this one photo?

Our group has come up with some house rules for adapting the scenarios in the book to account for three or four players. We have been using them for a while now and feel that they are balanced enough to test with you, the wider public.

Playing multi-player games of Silver Bayonet

When playing multi-player games, we use the standard 3x3 table, and deploy either in the corners of the table or as a triangle of three players with two in the corners of one edge and the third in the centre of the opposite edge.

There are some changes that we make to the rules to help the game flow, which are split into two aspects:

1. Changes to Initiative order
2. Changes to Scenarios (Monsters, Clue Markers etc)

Changes to Initiative order

The core mechanic for Silver Bayonet operates on an initiative order. The split balances the 'I go, you go' as well as adding in the interactions with monsters. With more players the Initiative order needs a bit more balance to make sure everyone (including the monsters!) gets a fair shot. This is probably the piece we have put the most balance work into:

In a 1 vs 1 scenario, the Initiative order is:

• Half of Player 1's models
• Monster Phase
• All of Player 2's models
• Half of Player 1's models

This is the normal scenario, as per the rulebook.

For a 1 vs 1 vs 1 scenario, the Initiative order is:

• Half of Player 1's models
• Monster Phase
• Half of Player 2's models
• All of Player 3's models
• Half of Player 2's models
• Half of Player 1's models

So in this case, Player 1 gets the advantage of going first, and last. Player 2 gets a chance to react before one other player, before Player 3 gets the advantage of all going at the same time. The Monsters still go early - but it's only Player 1 who gets the ability to dodge before the Monster turn.

For a 1 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1 scenario, the Initiative order is:

• Half of Player 1's models
• Monster Phase (all monsters activate)
• Half of Player 2's models
• Half of Player 3's models
• Half of Player 4's models
• Monster Phase (all monsters activate)
• Half of Player 4's models
• Half of Player 3's models
• Half of Player 2's models
• Half of Player 1's models

The change here is that there is a second Monster Phase. This allows the Monsters to be a more active part of the game, rather than just having to sit there and take the abuse from four separate enemy units! All of the players have split activations.

Changes to Scenarios (Monsters, Clue Markers etc)

The second aspect that we have decided to change for playing multi-player scenarios is the number of monsters on the table. We don't do this in every scenario, mind you. Some of them like Scenario 3 (Troll Bridge), Scenario 5 (Sunken Treasure), Scenario 6 (The Haunted Ruins) actually work just fine as they are - and part of that is how powerful the monster is in each of those scenarios!

But for something like Scenario 1 (The Investigation), a single Hobgoblin isn't really up to too much! 

But what about clue markers then?

To increase the number of monsters, it often requires an increase in the number of clue markers on table. This can have a good result - it decreases the likelihood of the "important" thing being drawn while increasing the likelihood of something horrible turning up. However sometimes scarcer resources make for tougher fights so having fewer clue markers might make for a more brutal game where everyone is really on the clock to get the clue markers and find a win. 

 

Playing a multiplayer game might also mean you need to alter the location of some of the clue markers to make sure they are fairly distributed for each player but it will depend on the scenario. When working out where your deployment zones are, adjust the clue locations where you need to.

Our amendments for each of the scenarios (both clues and monsters) are: 

Scenario 1: The Investigation

A single Hobgoblin isn't good enough when you have multiple enemies. So, increase the number of clue markers by one for each additional player. For each additional clue marker you add, add another Ace to the card set, which will mean another Hobgoblin to place on table.

This means that the number of Hobgoblins in the scenario should increase by 1 for each additional player added.

Scenario 2: The Revenants

Increase the number of clue markers by one for each additional player. For each additional clue marker you add, add another King or Queen to the card set, which will mean both another Revenant starts on table (on the clue marker) and another Revenant potentially comes out from exploring clue markers.

This means that the number of Revenants in the scenario should increase by 2 for each additional player added.

Scenario 3: Troll Bridge

I mean, it's a single bridge, with a single troll. Why would you mess with natural perfection?

Scenario 4: Confirmed Kill

Increase the number of Goblins starting on table by one for each additional player, but don't adjust any of the other aspects of the scenario. We have found the Goblins more than troublesome enough, especially as the others come on from random board edges!

This means that the number of Goblins in the scenario should increase by 1 for each additional player added.

Scenario 5: Sunken Treasure

Oh gods the Black Dog.

Don't make it worse, it's already bad enough. And with that many Monster Dice on table, it is FOR SURE going to mess with everyone.

I mean, I said the Troll was natural perfection. So does that make the Black Dog supernatural perfection?

Scenario 6: The Haunted Ruins

Ghosts are terrifying. Both in a rules sense and in a Soul Shear has made everyone mad kind of sense.

The only adjustment to this scenario is to always have the Ghost revealed on the Ace, regardless of whether the Ghost had been revealed or not. This means that it's quite likely to have two ghosts floating through walls and terrifying everyone.

Yay?

Scenario 7: Last Stand

Increase the number of Bandits starting on table by two for each additional player and add two further cards to the "I'm totally not a changeling" card stack. This has the benefit of both increasing the amount of firepower that the Monsters have, making them a bit more resilient, but also making it less likely to find the Changeling, meaning that all of the players need to do a bunch more Bandit hunting.

This means that the number of Bandits in the scenario should increase by 2 for each additional player added.

Scenario 8: Loup Garou Suprise

Increase the number of Werewolves arriving on table by one for each additional player. For three players, the three werewolves will arrive directly opposite the players, so that they don't start immediately behind any of the players. For four players, the werewolves should start in the corners of the table, with the Dark Wolves instead starting in the middle of each table edge. 

This means that the number of Werewolves in the scenario should increase by 1 for each additional player added.

Scenario 9: Infested Monastery

This scenario is tied to the Towers, so increase the number of Towers by one per additional player. This increases the number of clue markers by 2 per additional tower, and the number of Bandits by 1 per additional tower. When adding additional cards to the card set, choose red cards - these have no effect. This increases the onus on the players to do more exploration as it increases the likelihood of them finding nothing of worth!

This means that the number of Bandits in the scenario should increase by 1 for each additional player added.

Scenario 10: Ship in the Fog

This is probably the least well suited to a multiplayer game. Our advice would be to keep this one for a 1 v 1 scenario or get a much much bigger boat!

So in short.....

So that's it, let us know if we have it right, wrong or any further suggestions for us to take!

Grenadiers, done!

 Finally! One photo, simply to prove that it's finished!

 So this is three 9-stand rifle platoons and the rest of the HQ done. I have enough bits lying around I could probably rustle up another platoon HQ and make up effectively a fourth seven stand platoon - mostly likely to be used as Volksgrenadier scouts, if I want them. 

On another exciting note, Blogger Pel picked up the mid-war para card decks and shipped me the Italian ones and Pooch the American ones. With that in mind, I dug out my European-uniformed Italian paras and had a poke around about whether or not I can make a list. The answer is yes! 

 This answers my ponderance of last week about what my platoon-a-month for August will be - I'll be reuniforming the crew on my Semovente 90s, repainting my Semovente 47s from yellow to the same camo as the 90s (ahistorical, but it looks awesome) and getting some flamethrowers into my Paracadutisti platoons. Assuming, of course, I can work out how the hell I did it the first time.  The whole army needs rebasing (becuase it's UGLY) but that'll come later.

More Renaissance?

I have done a bit more work on the ADLG-R. Finishing that first Tercio has definitely given me the motivation to get moving on it. So with that in mind, I did the three bases of caracoling carabiniers:

I kind of went to town and bent and reposed most of the pistol arms. I really like the change and the Khurasan sculpts lent themselves really well to this very simple improvement. I'll start on the mounted arquebuses next and actually base the generals and other bits and bobs I've painted.

Next Time

I'm booked in for our first club day in August to play blogger Scotty's mid-war Hungarians and I have to get the Semoventes redone so they're priority one. Then I might crack into some of the 28mm things in the pile.

One Tercio down, two to go

 A TERCIO!

 

 So this one still needs some flags (which I have found, I just need to print and resize for 15mm) but otherwise, I'm really happy with how it's come out. Now I've done one, I think the other two will be less dramatic - especially as I've worked through a palette now so I have a good idea of how to repeat this look across the other two Tercios. It's still a lot of work but it's exactly as cool as I'd hoped. I'm weirdly pleased by the completely hedgehoggy version for the pikes too.

And from the pile this week

An ORGE! 

DnD Party Member Canny (of his Gambit and his Miniatures) 3D printed this (and another Orge) for me to put into the collection of adversaries for our DnD games and while I didn't need it for where we were at the time, I'll definitely put this fella (and his Orge Mage mate that I've started on) to use at some point. They're great models and great prints! 

Next Time

Platoon-a-month - the last of the Grenadiers. At that point, I'm a little stuck for more platoons so I'll probably do a collection of FoW bits that are hanging around. Also, I figure now I've done one Tercio, I should be able to break and do some cavalry, and probably do the basing on the stuff I've painted! 

The Sliver Bayonet - Unit No. 2

I have been very guilty of magpieing this first half of the year and I am currently painting 5 armies. One KoW, three FoW and my Silver Bayonet Russians. Of course there are other continuing projects like VaS but the one I am really excited about are my Russian Silver Bayonet list. The first thing that struck me was the Werebear. What a fantastic option for the list. The next thing that attracted my attention away from my British list was the Champion of Faith, a figure that can doctor at range, that's cool. The last thing that finally got me hooked and the models ordered were the very sweet Perry Armed Peasants. There are some terrific figure in this box. So with all that considered an order to Northstar and Perry was dispatched. I am not the most patient guy - so waiting for the orders to arrive was a bit painful, but it did give me an opportunity to get two other projects underway. As luck would have it the orders arrived in the letterbox together and off I skipped to the (very overcrowded) hobby table. Delighted with the figures I got started.

The figures sorted - giving me lots of options - I based them first. I do prefer to base the figures for painting, I find it easier. The next job is to choose the colours. As my guide I am going to use the Perry painting examples. I like the grey, earthy tones for this list and as they are mostly in winter garb I want to get that cold Russian winter feel going. You should know that in Silver Bayonet the units are under 8 figures strong and I am painting 16 figures. Again this is to give me options as I haven't created a list yet and I am not sure how much a werebear will be a ball and chain at a whopping 30 points. With a Champion of Faith at 20 points that is half my list already. The Peasants will make amazing Irregulars, and as blogger Scotty has shown me, his Spanish Irregulars are amazing. The Infantry will allow me to get some cheap bodies in there but as to how they will play on the tabletop I'll need options.

Progress started well and even the weather played its part by giving me a couple of rainy days. The whole unit came together well and I made a decision on a list to try first, and so these models were prioritised. My Officer Pavel Andreyavich Kolsky is backed up by his Champion of Faith Father Trotsky and his faithful servant Pietr, who also happens to be a Werebear. Pietr's brother Vasily is a hunter extraordinaire Irregular. The last 4 are Jaegers of varied experience, Ivan, Dmitri, Boris and Aleksey. So with the list in hand, the models painted, I'm off to the club to enjoy this brilliant game.

0-2-3 is a tournament record I have...

First off, the pile is not greatly reduced this week but I did start on the first Tercio and here we are:

 

That's what half a Tercio looks like. I'm actually really happy and will press on as I like how it's coming out. The complete lack of uniformity is making it a slow process but the end result should be very cool indeed. 

 

Panzerschreck 2022

 

Once again, Tank and I took a silly army north and once again, we over estimated how well we'd do with it (didn't win a game!) but we still had a good time!  

I didn't manage to get all the forces but here goes something:

Gav and Greg's Germans

Tank's Finns (I co-piloted)

Jon and Chris' Russians

Mark and Derek's Italo-German Recce

Pooch's DAK(Scotty co-piloted)

Andrew's Americans

Andre's Brits that didn't get to play

Steve and McB Jnr's Germans

BB & Richard's army with Borgwards

Pel and McBeth's Brits

 I missed Soph and Russell's winning Russians and Team Ham and Honey's best painted Paras and Stewarts which was a shame as they were both lovely.

Cat on a Hot Finn Roof

 This pic kind of sums up the weekend:

Tank prepares the heroic defence of our right hand objective in our last round as our piss poor dice once again get us alarmingly close to doing okay only to fall annoyingly and irritatingly short. That was kind of our weekend - hot or cold dice all weekend that made every game a crap shoot as to how well we'd do.

The army itself wasn't bad, but had some flaws we'd rectify if we played it again. It wasn't bad, but going up against armoured car hordes was too much. 

Next Time

A finished Tercio, a few other projects from the pile and maybe a foray into mid-war Italian Paratroopers again. 

Pile. Games. Stuff.

More off the pile

I've cleared a couple more outstanding tasks in a week where I didn't really feel like painting a lot. I started finishing up some tiny Knight Moiraxes for Adeptus Titanicus. I bought these for a lol and they're so cute. They'll go super well with my other House Hyboras knights. 

Teeny Moiraxes!

I also carried on with the grind of painting my ADLG-R Spanish with the third General base.

General Numero Tres

 I've also started on the Pistoliers (having painted all their horses) and have AMAZINGLY started on the first Tercio. They're gonna take me ages since keeping them classy but un-uniform is very hard.

I'm also thinking I should photograph the entire pile at some stage. This desk needs to be heaps cleaner than it is!

Club Day

Flames of War

I had a couple of great games at the club yesterday. First, a game of Late War Flames with Blogger Scotty trying out a new Hungarian list and we tried out the new Valley of Death mission from the new Flames Mission Pack (quick aside, it's a vast improvement on it's predecessor and much more playable for the defender.)

Admire Scotty's lovely Tigers

 This is about turn five where I still had no reserves and had one hilarious turn bailing out Tigers frontally with StuGs but missing the all important kills. I had a couple of very poor rounds of MG shooting at all that infantry too and they eventually shoved my infantry and all my StuGs off both objectives. It's a good list and while I keep trying with StuGs, I just can't make a list I don't hate.

Silver Bayonet

We settled down after lunch to a four player game of Silver Bayonet as Scotty, Tank and I introduced a new player to the stupidity that is this game. 

We played Loup-Garou Surprise which worked out really well for four players with really only adding another Werewolf to really get the scenario to sing. 

It was a pretty cagey start by all four of us:

That's turn 2 when we were taking long range pot-shots across the centre with a few firing sideways at our respective neighbours. It's also about when my opponents worked out that my historical ploy of trying to pick them off one at a time (it was very French of me) and my old standby of "fight me you coward" didn't work as well as I had previously found!

By turn 3, I had taken out the neighbouring British Highlander, again, after he had a nasty run in with my Heavy Cavalryman before a Vivandiere snuck up behind him and absolutely middled him in the back of the head. She was rudely gunned down by a British doctor (I know medicine in the 19th century was ropey but WtF?!) and didn't survive the battle.

This last pic is where the game ended up:

You can see all the death, especially the remnant on the melee in the centre that is in the previous photo. Two of us limped off with half our warbands intact, the other two not so much as their last two models got into a firefight and it was a question of who hit first! (Spoiler - the Spanish Irregular hiding in a forest had the upper hand.)

I'm mostly just stoked that Georg Bitterlich, Wurtemburger and now Highlander AND Doctor Slayer (after he ran down Tank's Doctor Theopolous) is still going. Scotty and Tank have both put a target on his back now, just to upset me. 

Next Time

I'm playing in a mid-war doubles event next weekend so my post will be a day late but should be a run down on how Tank and I get on plus whatever exciting I get done this week. 

Pooch's June update

Alright, so a much more timely blog this month, and once again, some good progress made. Will this continue? Well, hopefully the good progress continues, I make no promises for the more timely updates!

The light was particularly poor for photos, but I have persevered in the interest of getting the blog done. So here we are, more than half of the year gone. How am I getting on?

Well....

1. Paint a platoon of DAK each month

The DAK army continues to grow, this time with another 5 early Panzer III tanks. The mighty(?) Panzer III form the core of our army for an upcoming 140 point doubles tournament, Panzershrek.

More Panzers!

The last unit I need to paint for this army is some 221 and 222 armoured cars, so they are up next!

2. Add something to armies I have already painted

I've decided to set myself a bit of a goal for this one (goal within a goal? goal-ception?), mainly so that I actually do work through the reasonably significant backlog of 40k miniatures I have for my Adeptus Sororitas army. 

Visually, I really do like the army, but I have fallen out of routine in getting things painted for it, and it hasn't helped that I haven't been playing 40k either.

This ends now!

So this month I finished up Morvenn Vahl, the leader of all of the Adeptus Sororitas, and for the meta-gamer, a totally crutch unit for Sisters. Will I use her? Probably not. Is she a ridiculously cool model? Yes. Am I really happy with how my old gold recipie looks on her? Also yes.

She also has the benefit of having her photo taken in the light box earlier in the week too!

And I also finished up four Repentia, which are terribly difficult to get a good photo of- they are all dynamic poses and avoiding the camera....

Aaaaand back to potato photos too.

The next unit for them is already built and undercoated- forced progress awaits!

3. Finish up a table of terrain

And we are back to the regularly scheduled 3d prints from Corvus Games! This time, we have trucks and a bus!

I used the airbrush for some of the major paint colours, then using brush work to finish it off, before using the oil washes to finish it off. I'm particularly happy with how the stencil on the cargo truck worked out- it's something that I will keep playing with.

Two trucks....

The front end

And a bus too!

The front of the bus too!

And some cars too!

And the most critical, most important thing I finished this month? Some traffic cones.

Next up, surprising no-one, it will be more from Corvus to keep adding on to the city table! 

4. Play a game a month, that was different to the last month

I'm going to be honest, I'm going to be stretching the definition of this goal this year, I can already promise that! 

This month's game was Late War Flames of War, where I ran the new Bulge US Airborne against Scotty's Bulge German Panzergrenadiers. 

To cut a long story short, the Germans were attacking in a No Retreat, and ran into some very determined Para defenders. Lessons were learned about 30cm Nebelwerfers (they hurt dug in infantry a lot), minefields (reluctant troops are not a fan of unpinning), and the M36 Jackson (because AT14 is very much a thing). All in all, it was an 8-1 to the Paras, but there were a couple of points where the game could have swung the other way.

Jackson ambush vs Aggressive Panthers.

Para platoon mobbing three Hornisse, who came close to sneaking the objective!

It was great practice for playing in the mid war doubles tournament next month!

5. Paint a new historical army

This month I finished up four M36 Jackson turrets, to put on top of M10 hulls that I had painted last year, specifically for the game vs Scotty. 

The Jackson Four...

Based on their performance, the Bulge Paras will be getting more than a few more outings!

A more timely progress update? Excellent....

Pooch

Delistificating

Apparently the making the big list was a good way to get into the second half of the 2022 productivity planning? I've already checked off a whack of things!

First, a random model or two

One was found in the drawer of shame and the other was in the pile of to-dos. The first is a classic GW Great Eagle that I think I've had kicking around since about the 4th edition of Warhammer which I *might* me able to use in Kings of War Vanguard (I haven't actually checked!) but it was easy enough to get it done and it's a nice model. I think I intended to have a rider on it at some point but no idea what that was going to be!

I also finished up re-doing a Deathwatch Terminator:

This guy used to wield an Assault Cannon but given Dark Angels Terminators can have plasma cannons, I figured I should swap that out, so I have!

Silver Bayonet

 The first thing was finishing the last four Silver Bayonet Models from Perry.

Marin de la Ligne Remi Lievremont and Chasseur Veteran Jean-Paul Clerisseau

Grenadier de la Ligne Maximilien Choquet and my last infantryman Fusilier Gerome Boissonade

There are a couple more in the box but I don't need them to clear all the options that I wanted in this first tranche so they're on the back burner now!

 

And then a couple of monsters - a Living Armour (I've gone Living Statue in this case) and a Changeling. The Changeling is a Nolzurs soft plastic and was a bit warped when I got it from Blogger Pooch. I decided to keep it as it does look very shambling zombie. I've also started working on the ghosts, but I need to get some more plastic putty to tidy up some seams before I can finish those. 

Next Time

Not adding something to the to-do pile, like the 15mm Tiger that arrived during the week, would be a good start. I'm staring at these sticks of Tercios and thinking that maybe it's time to get one of those going. It's also club day so planning on some kind of game of something.... :)