After a recent vote, my club has settled on increasing the amount we play Chain of Command and adding in an additional game to our rotation: The Silver Bayonet.

The Silver Bayonet is “a game of Napoleonic gothic horror.” It’s a small skirmish game of 8 models per side where you do the classic PvPvE of games like Frostgrave and Mordheim, and the NPC enemies come in the form of classic monsters emerging from the dark due to the world being at war. The ruleset is written by the same author as Frostgrave, Stargrave, etc. He updates his game system here to use 2D10 and strips out the competitive roll offs, making for a faster playing, less random system of battle. He also does a better job of encouraging you to make your own darn missions, which I think is great for a campaign focused game.

Your hero is a more down-to-Earth character with less dramatic abilities. Magic is fairly toned down. We’re at the level of Rangers of Shadow Deep, where your characters are more dependent on their ability to shoot and melee than their ability to fling fireballs.

Faith is a bigger issue here, with each faction being more faithful or more occult oriented. Neat ideas, honestly. The setting says “Napoleonic,” but with expansions also includes North America and soon Egypt.

For my starting force, I’ve decided to go with Russians, purely because their official minis are fantastic, and I want to field a werebear. Really, offer me were-anything and I want to put it in my force. There’s the focus here: who are my soldiers and why are they here?

The Silver Bears

My force is led, ostensibly, by Lev Serebro. He’s a faithful soul and a great shot, but his faith means he’s very dedicated to following Father Piotr’s instructions. Father Piotr, a miracle worker (he gets buff spells), is seeking an ancient artifact of Christ he believes he saw in a dream—the same dream that led our party to discover a portal in Spain that connects both continents.

Rounding out the party we have Lev’s grandmother Yelena Vyshinksky, a babushka in her own right, who has spent her life hunting the creatures of the night. She brings with her Ivan Vyshinsky, Lev’s uncle—the werebear. Silent, intimidating, and always willing to give anyone a wordless hug, Ivan is a fierce combatant before he even starts growing fur.

Finally, we have Dr. Ludov Novikov and his two infantrymen assistants, Ossip and Dimitry. The two men were injured in war and healed by the doctor, who they’ve sworn an oath to protect and follow on his journey. The good doctor was taken with Yelena, so when Lev offered him a chance to follow them to glory, he saw an opportunity to get closer to Yelena. Time and fangs will tell if that was truly a wise decision.

The Campaign Setting

I’m not 100% settled on this. Due to our available terrain (my collection, primarily) we have terrain for both Europe and North America. I’d like to allow players to play any faction and maximize the tables I can supply, so I’ve settled on the idea that there are portals connecting both continents, allowing parties to travel between and come to conflict anywhere from Portugal to Quebec.

I’ll probably stage the central crux as visions of ancient artifacts found somewhere beyond the portals, with the campaign building to one party finding the artifact in question and perhaps dealing with a large King of the Hill style match to fully “win.” Whoever gets away with the McGuffin wins the campaign.

I’ll… work on it. This is meant to be a loosey-goosey campaign where we play every two months on a dedicated date and if you miss a session, you get leveled up anyway. I’ll massively accelerate leveling, to boot. With so few games, I’d like players to see more of the system.

The Logistics

I usually avoid linked campaigns. They’re hard to run and maintain interest in. People tend to disconnect and once they do, they fully leave the campaign and game itself. I struggle with this. My alternative is to run game days where you play it like a tournament day: three games in one day, linked together with massively accelerated leveling. This is harder from the “Get people in a room for 8 hours” sense, but easier to allow people to feel like they completed an event. I may try to walk the middle ground here and do something like two linked days within a month where you get 4-6 total games in and we actually get a more satisfying “Conclusion” to the campaign. I feel the best campaigns are only 5-6 games long anyway. Tell a chapter of your story, not the whole novella.

This is a new challenge for us as a group. It’s one thing to come together to play 1v1 or 4v4 Chain of Command once every few months—it’s another thing entirely to try and link games together and track progression.

We’ll see how it goes, but just getting the chance to paint my silly miniatures and put them on a table for a few games will make the investment worthwhile to me. If it only lasts half a year before petering out, I’ll take that as a reasonable win and move onto whatever the next side-piece to Chain of Command is.

But for my money, I really look forward to hobbying out some The Silver Bayonet. It’s a great opportunity to do more “Fun” painting, rather than the serious paint jobs of historicals or the level of effort I put into Infinity. 2024 will, ideally, be the year of small projects. The Silver Bayonet is a perfect fit.

Plus, I love the freaking artwork. Can’t wait to get painting!