"Napoleonic" Warband

 In my continuing search for wild thrills, I bought a copy of The Silver Bayonet, the latest offering from Osprey and Joseph McCullough, the people behind the excellent Frostgrave and related games. It's basically a skirmish game set in a supernatural version of the Napoleonic Wars, and looks like a mash-up of Sharpe, Hammer films, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and various bits of folklore. If you ever wanted to wargame Jane Austen's lost novel Night and Nightmarish Spawn Of The Crypt, there you go.

Anyhow, I wasn't blown away with the models released for the game. They're fine, but I don't find them terribly inspiring. However, I did find some fantasy-Napoleonic miniatures made by an Italian company called Durgin Paint Forge, and they're great. They've got a slightly cartoony, caricatured quality, like the people in the old computer game Fable 3.

I ended up buying a load of them. They're very much 32mm scale, so really big and slightly spindly. I painted a standard bearer, who has a vaguely British look. His banner got a rather goofy-looking freehand lion (it dates back to the Medieval times, you see, before anyone had seen a lion). I added an "Albion" as a nod to Fable. For some reason there is a piglet on his shoulder.

I also painted a scout from the same range. According to Durgin Paint Forge's website, she's supposed to have a blue coat, but I wanted them to look coherent, so that got changed. Again, I think she's an excellent model: slightly cartoony, but full of good details.

Once again, my camera has let me down here. You're just going to have to take my word that they look good!