Initial camel

 I promised a camel and a camel ye shall receive! A bunch of us have taken the opportunity to run up new Silver Bayonet units in light of the Egypt book drop. I have dived in to do the 'other' option I was going to do when we started this game and am doing some French camelry!

To begin with, the leader of my unit, his local scout and a medic from the Knights Hospitaller (serving under some protest...) have gotten painted over this weekend: 

On the left is Mubarak el-Zakaria, the Native Scout and on the right is Frater Annibale Tollossenti. In the centre strides their fearless leader - Jean-François Champollion, Conservateur des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Louvre. I decided that if France were to launch another expedition to Egypt to fight the Harvestmen then they'd obviously employ their foremost Egyptologist and thus Champollion has been summoned from his post at the Louvre to lead it.

The Champollion figure was a 50/50 pick with another one from Perry's 'Savants' pack - the other is in the box waiting for paint as a Occultist. The Native Scout and Hospitaller came from North Star's pack designed for Silver Bayonet and both are lovely models, if it a touch 'posey' for my taste. I invested far too much time thinking about painting the Hospitaller and finally settled on a hybrid of their uniforms over the existence of the Order.

I've started on the base coats for the rest of the unit: 

 

This is the core of the unit, a Vivandiere, a Sapper and a pair of Grenadiers. ‘Amira Shaheeda Abdul-Aziz is a local with plenty of supernatural hunting experience. The model is a Reaper one I picked up as a possible DnD character but she's perfect for this. I really like the movement in the sculpt and this model was a chance to veer a little bit away from the relatively consistent palette I'm using for the whole unit.

Caporal-fourrier Jean-Baptiste Thévenet is my Sapper and is a conversion of the foot musician from the Camelry command pack - I just chopped off the trumpet and slotted in a woodsman's axe. I had hoped to find a shovel (a vastly more useful tool in the desert) but finding one that was scaled correctly defeated my, Pooch's and McBeth's bits boxes.

 The two Grenadiers, Marc-Antoine Longchambord and Théophile Beaudelaire round out the foot contingent of the unit. I've decided that the French Camel Corps are clearly elite (I've ridden camels and frankly, managing them as mounts must make you special!) so I'm running them as Grenadiers to make them a little more robust than normal Infantrymen. 

Finally, and arguably the reason for this whole little project, is this:

The Camelty Command Pack, both on foot and camelback, had this matched pair of models and I could hardly not do it. So Brigadier Guy Beaudouin will be riding into battle on his trusty camel Bâtard (that's a nod to the Terry Pratchett fans out there) and wreaking havoc. Or, if previous experience is anything to go by, having his mount shot out from under him!

Perr's release of the 'Savants' pack was just the thing I was looking for - it gave me the chance to have a bunch of civilian scientist-types with some local support and a matched unit of soldiers for doing the heavy lifting. It has resulted in a unit with a more close combat focus that I was intending as only the Grenadiers and the Sapper can provide covering fire but it should be fun to run regardless.

I've still got a couple more models to do - another soldier and two savants (an Artillerist and Occultist) in the first instance but figured I'd focus on getting the core unit done first so I can get them on the table! The remaining question will be how I'll cope without the finest soldier in the French Army, Georg Bitterlich of the Wurttemburg Battalion to do most of my heavy lifting....

Next Time

Tank and I are teaming up for our usual Panzerschreck shenanigans. What could possibly go wrong...?