The Very Sharpe Silver Bayonet

It is 1810, Lieutenant Richard Sharpe of the 95th Rifles, having distinguished himself in battle and in some other admittedly odd situations, is assigned with a small group of his men to Major Michael Hogan, on the understanding that “Major Hogan's coat buttons up tight over a number of other duties”. 

On the plus side it comes with a promotion to Captain, the downside is that he and his men can never breath a word about the missions they are going on … not that anyone would ever believe them!

So, The Silver Bayonet then.  Gothic Horror and Napoleonics?  Sounds like fun!  I’ve wanted an excuse to paint up the Chosen Men ever since first spotting this Wargames Atlantic kit:

32 figures is way more than I need, a TSB unit is maximum 8 figures.  However I rationalised it like this.  Firstly, I’m playing solo, so I don’t need a tournament standard unit, I can have a little fun with them all being Riflemen but not all being TSB Rifleman.  Secondly, I like posting photos of my games so if I made different poses of the same character I could mix things up a bit for the game reports.  Makes sense to me ;-)

The box set and the rules went on my Christmas list, and Santa was kind enough to deliver, so away we go!  Three days later all 32 figures were constructed (have I mentioned how much I enjoy the plastic multi-part kits?) and I’m really pleased how I managed to get not just the 8 characters looking different, but a pretty characterful mix of 32 poses.

As to the mix, here’s the team:

Yes, I took some liberties with the rules.  I was willing to ‘downgrade’ the characters who were not Chosen Men to Infantryman, but gave them a rifle even if though they should have a musket.  I also handed out a few attributes right from the start. 

I added a post on my process (https://horrendousgaming.blogspot.com/2025/01/why-i-enjoy-plastic-kits.html) so I won’t go into it here, but here are the results, every character has four poses - kneeling, on the march, in action, and ‘character’.

Captain Sharpe with Rifle and Cold Steel Sword:

Sergeant Pat Harper, with Veteran Hunter stats, his Volley Gun for close work, and Rifle for longer shots:

Chosen Man and Investigator Randell Harris, with his makeshift holy symbol:

Chosen Man Daniel Hagman, crack-shot Rifleman:

Chosen Man Francis Cooper, a bit handy with a picklock, and always on the lookout:

Infantryman Isiah Tongue, who has enough experience patching his mates up to be a field medic, with his Cold Iron bayonet:

Young Infantryman Ben Perkins:

Last is Infantryman Tobias Moore with his mutton chops:

Next up were the figures needed for the first solo game in the book:

These wolves are actually from the North Star Oathmark Goblin Wolf Riders kit, but I didn’t have enough wolves (12 apparently) and I got this box set for Christmas, so I did all 15.