Shakos and Bayonets & Silver Bayonet Painting Update

It has been indeed been a while.

Between Holidays and just generally not feeling the painting, I seem to have finally got the itch back. First things first, I have just finished a battle report for Silver Bayonet that I will be posting this week. Just need to get all my notes and pictures together for that. 

I'll keep it short here is what I've been working on at least: 

Finished first block of 19th Jaegers for Shakos and Bayonets. I'm currently re-basing my Opolchenie I'd painted prior and working on a unit of Hussars/Carabiners.

I wanted to go for a more ragged "on campaign" look by mixing Greatcoats and full uniform with Forage Caps. Adding some loading and firing poses also helped the units look a bit more "alive" for skirmish games. 

Grenadier/Carabiners in a mixture of uniform wearing Forage Caps. Currently on my desk getting the base colours applied.

I'd taken inspiration from some Peter Hess paintings, specifically this: 

You can see the Jaegers in the bottom right with the drab brown Greatcoats that I've tried to replicate here. Overall very happy how these came out, much more so than my original Russians.

Next is some small bits and pieces for Silver Bayonet so I could finally get my 2nd solo game on the go:

Finally heres some pictures from our first Shakos and Bayonets game that we tested on our monthly meet ups at the games club.We were both really happy with how the rules played out and will likely be moving away from Sharp Practice after some years. The rule book is very clear, mechanics work well, and the scenario designs are well thought out. I thought I'd miss the shock mechanic from Sharp Practice, but the shaken mechanic from S&B works really well. Overall there is just a lot less faff than with Sharp Practice, movement is simpler, shooting is simpler, spotting is a cool addition and I like the way you can customize lists more. Finally, troop quality actually feels meaningful as well, Militia can run at a stiff breeze.

We will be testing this more soon, but my solo games will definitely be pursuing these rules.

 

May Project Updates

Been chipping away at a few things so far this month, progress has been a bit slow but I'm getting back into the painting rhythm. 

Mainly focusing on Silver Bayonet as previously mentioned, but some of my left-over Foundry Russians have been staring at me. Now with that said, the Sharp Practice Russian project is actually "done", but is any project ever really completed?

I always end up coming back to projects and adding more units, its just the nature of the hobby. I'm mainly focusing on getting some loading/firing poses into my Russians as they are for a Skirmish game after all. 

Something else I've been looking at considering is having a try of Studio Tomahawks "Shakos and Bayonets". I've still yet to form an opinion of it after watching some games on youtube but a few things stood out to me that I thought were positive and worth trying the rules out for.

• Movement is easier and less complicated. Now I do appreciate movement facing in Sharp Practice, but the rules as written are so open to interpretation. Me and my friends play them and use common sense most of the time, they are way too cumbersome with formation changes. Also lets be honest Drill is a useless stat, I would never chose to spend Command Cards to use a mechanic that is not going to affect a game.
• Spotting seems like a great mechanic. I plan to do a lot of skirmishes in overgrown areas and woodland so Light Infantry/Jaegers/Voltigeurs seem more interesting as a result
• More customizable unit size - Being able to add individual models to a unit, or have smaller units of Cavalry and Skirmishers. Sharp Practice groups of (10,8,6) based on unit quality respectively does get a tad boring when building lists.
• There is no shock mechanic but units can completely falter to getting volleyed at. One of my biggest issues with Sharp Practice is 1. Militia and units of (10) being too "sticky", as they can take an enormous amount of Shock sometimes and even win melees based on just how brutal combat is. Sometimes even against units with a far greater quality than them. Troop quality seems to matter a lot more in Shakos and Bayonets, and units can simply flee in the face of harder trained regulars.

So I'll be grabbing the rules soon and testing out some games with a friend which will perhaps end up on the blog, at least a few pictures anyway. Who knows it may become a favorite or a 2nd option depending on my mood. 

Heres what I've been working on:

Full dress Jaegers albeit the Forage caps after basecoats and some remaining Silver Bayonet monsters.

 

 

Fully painted ready for basing

 

The current completed Revenants for Silver Bayonet

 

 

Thanks for reading as always. 

The Silver Bayonet - Duo Campaign - Scenario 2: The Revenants

Getting another post up for early May, where did April go?

This was a continuation of me and a friends campaign where we are slowly introducing newly painted monsters and units to our games. The goal will likely be by the time we finish this first campaign, we have most of the Monster/unit options in the game painted.

This won't be a narrative report as honestly I've kind of forgotten what happened, except the main objective scores but hopefully the pictures are enjoyable.

Scenario 2 saw us searching for a missing party that was carrying a powerful artifact that was needed for the fight against the Harvestmen. Unfortunately this also entailed encountering lots of Revenants... 

 

I believe end Objective score/Experience gained was 7-5 with my friend coming out slightly on top by finding the artifact and extracting it. My Officer did manage to win a slightly one sided duel with his Officer, by stepping back from the melee and delivering some black powder to the face.

 

Next up will be Solo Scenario 2, which I am very close to finishing up the last Monsters needed. Thanks as always for reading. 

Salute 2026 and Hobby Updates

So I attended Salute this weekend with some friends instead of going on my own this year and had a fantastic time. Needless to say the spending was controlled but deadly. I've had a huge Ebay clear out of old projects that have been lying round un-gamed for years, and unpainted piles of shame, so I put a lot of that money towards reinvigorating my hobby focus.

As from my recent post my current focus is Silver Bayonet, and this year the goal was to play more games and not worry about painting less than 2025. After all less is more, certainly the games this year already have been fantastic. Lets hope it continues in this manner.

With that said some pictures from Salute.

Some really cool tables this year, but honestly I spent longer at the merch stands than anything else. There was just so much good stuff this year. Managed to grab some awesome terrain pieces for Silver Bayonet/generic Fantasy stuff that honestly I don't know how they make any money, as they were super well priced. Luckily got in the stand early as their stock disappeared quickly for good reason.

So this is what I came away with...

Mainly lots of Silver Bayonet, with plans as mentioned before for a start to a French Warband, and the generic monsters I will be needing for the next missions. Me and my friend also tried a Fallout tabletop game I knew a little about and was impressed with the mechanics and scope of the campaign system, so something for the future. All four of us couldn't resist Burrows and Badgers also. I had been wanting to try this for a while mainly due to the gorgeous miniatures. Lets just say you'll probably see some of this soon on the blog once we have digested the rules and got some warbands painted. The stand was constantly busy this year and last for good reason!

Naughtily I also grabbed some Bicorne ECW for later plans in the year to paint up a small Pikemens Lament project for both sides of Montrose Royalists and Covenanters. The Auldearn campaign is an incredibly fascinating part of the wars as a whole. This will be the next main historical project alongside a lot of the skirmish games I am tackling. The Nick Collier Bicorne and Bloody Miniatures sculpts are just gorgeous.

I also did some slight rebasing with new tufts and adding some static grass to tie the terrain pieces in with my existing Silver Bayonet collection, the result:

Perfect for the gothic horror element of Silver Bayonet, we certainly have our Ruined Chapel for Scenario 2 which I am expecting to play in a couple of weeks.

More updates to come soon, as I'll be back at the painting desk this week.