Cat's Silver Bayonet (Huzzah 2025)

[Cat]

Some West Wind Gothic horrors.  Not much fancy modelling on these, just some slight re-positioning of arms, and one werewolf who will be a character in a Bavarian unit got an officer's sash added.
 
Otherwise, the werewolves' origins are identified simply by the trousers of their former units: one of the French Horse Artillery, one of the Italian Legion or Horse Artillery, and one Austrian or other white-trewed type.
 
I will expend my one exclamation of "Why wasn't this included in the game?!?" for Frankenstein's monster — young Shelly visited the ruins of Burg Frankenstein in 1815, then wrote the ground-breaking story in 1818.  You can't get more Napoleonic Gothic Horror than that!

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Always liked the Gothic Horror figure range from West Wind/Old Glory.  Cheap, fun to paint and full of character.  The Vampire Wars etc game system didn't impress me quite as much, but it wasn't bad as such.

Doesn't seem like adding Adam to Bestiary would be very difficult.

[Bearwoodman]

They look great Cat!

And I agree in relation to Mr F's monster. I have a few Reaper Bones Gothic horror figures that Silver Bayonet is giving me an excuse to paint and they include one clearly inspired by the monster in that story. I intend to paint him anyway, despite him not fitting neatly into the existing bestiary. it may be wishful thinking, but perhaps there will be a Frankenstein inspired supplement one day?

[Cat]

Yes, all the West Wind Gothicky figures paint up very nicely.  I played the Vampire Wars or Chaos in Carpathia at a convention — it was entertaining enough with someone else running the game, but I wasn't inspired enough to buy the rules.

I figure at the very least, the monster can play the part of a troll, or even a hobgoblin in a pinch.  There is a convenient monster creation section; although I'm still waiting for the FLGS to get the book so I can buy mine.

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Yes, all the West Wind Gothicky figures paint up very nicely.  I played the Vampire Wars or Chaos in Carpathia at a convention — it was entertaining enough with someone else running the game, but I wasn't inspired enough to buy the rules.

I've enjoyed both in years past, although I think Chaos was the better of the two.

I figure at the very least, the monster can play the part of a troll, or even a hobgoblin in a pinch.  There is a convenient monster creation section; although I'm still waiting for the FLGS to get the book so I can buy mine.

Ditto.  Still trying to stick to shopping locally, although it gets harder and harder as the distributors narrow their focus and reduce their order numbers.

[Cat]

From out of the mists comes the unmistakeable beat of the Pas de charge, but not from the deep sound of the massed drums for a large assault, nor even the reverberations from a single drum — it is the thin tapping of sticks on metal.  The good news is that the Eagle of the Ninth wasn't lost years ago when their first battalion was.  The bad news is that they still have it.

All plastic figures are Undead just waiting to happen, take these Victrix French for instance.
: 3
 
My box of infantry are the shakoed heads; so to make the earlier troops for this, so I used a dozen metal heads from Steve Barber to back date them.  On all the heads, I carved down the cheeks for a bit more of a sunken look.

[Bearwoodman]

Superb! I hadn't thought the solution would be ordinary plastics, some skillful knife-work and some additional blood effects. These look nicely creepy, and I can imagine from a distance look like a regular French unit, and it is only as they get closer that you start to get a nagging feeling that something is not quite right about them...

[Sunjester]

A lovely (if that's the right term) unit of undead French!

[Grumpy Gnome]

Excellent concept and execution!

[Cat]

Thanks for the kind comments folks — working in plastic is always a joy, as is painting undeads!

[joe5mc]

Nicely done on those revenants!

[Bloggard]

really well done. excellent.

[Cat]

Here's a pair of ghosts that I had painted earlier for Sleepy Hollow that will work perfectly in Europe too.

Duncan Campbell of Inverary, late of the 42nd Highlanders, met his fated doom at Ticonderoga (d.1758).  A ghost in Government Tartan will do just fine in Napoleonics too of course.

A slightly modified Reaper figure.  If you want to go really cross-eyed, try painting plaid with transparent acrylic paints on a transparent plastic figure!  Holding it to the light while painting, you can see the paint on the other side too.
O_o

I'm happy to paint regiments of Highlanders, but I have resolved to limit the number of Highland ghosts I will paint.
: 3

The Lady In White of the Raven Rock in Sleepy Hollow was so much easier to paint.  Painting clear figures is much much easier when they're not wearing plaid!  Ladies in White are also a standard ghost type across Europe.

[vodkafan]

From out of the mists comes the unmistakeable beat of the Pas de charge, but not from the deep sound of the massed drums for a large assault, nor even the reverberations from a single drum — it is the thin tapping of sticks on metal.  The good news is that the Eagle of the Ninth wasn't lost years ago when their first battalion was.  The bad news is that they still have it.

All plastic figures are Undead just waiting to happen, take these Victrix French for instance.
: 3
 
My box of infantry are the shakoed heads; so to make the earlier troops for this, so I used a dozen metal heads from Steve Barber to back date them.  On all the heads, I carved down the cheeks for a bit more of a sunken look.

Excellent idea and imagination!

[Cat]

A friend who will be joining the games has been printing out the terrain, and I've been painting the pieces; starting with some ruins.  I did my usual stone work by spray painting with an armload of different colours from a distance to get speckles.
 
These are from WOW Buildings, A World in Ruins WW2 set.  These are from the ruins of the town of Cassino, and work great for ruined castles.  They look much more like the ruins of Frankenstein or Ehrenberg than any 'castle ruins' I've seen that all tend to Fantasy High-Gothic.  Fortunately, he got this set at the Kickstarter Prices; the shop price now is quite exorbitant, especially for the quality of the files which have some issues.

The ghouls are Mantic with just a little re-working.  Some arm swaps and bits of putty for variety, and applying some gravity to the odd bits of sleeves and whatnot that were jutting out at improbable angles. 

I slathered the jutting bits with a generous coating of PlasticWeld cement.  When the plastic softened, I bent it downwards, and then it hardened again in place.

The game mat is Dark Island by Lukas Schimdt.  I've had my eye on this for several years and this game was finally a good excuse to buy it during Noble Knight's holiday sale (I've never seen this company anyplace else).