Ghoulhammer Historicals: The Silver Bayonet Egypt – Shadow of the Sphinx Review

We’ve visited quite a few places already in The Silver Bayonet cinematic universe – Europe, the Carpathians, Canada, and now Egypt. There are more on the way, but today we’re going to review Egypt – Shadow of the Sphinx. If you haven’t read them already, please check out our initial review of the game and the Getting Started articles. Thank you to Osprey Publishing for sending us the Campaign book for review.

If you’re totally unfamiliar, TSB is a warband-sized (eight or fewer models) game where you paint up Napoleonic soldiers from a specific country who fight other Napoleonic soldiers and gothic horror monsters such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc. The massive conflagration of suffering caused by the Napoleonic Wars has drawn out an evil faction called The Harvestmen who are using said suffering to push lots of cryptids and monsters into the world. Your warband is a hand-picked group of elite warriors ready to fight to find artifacts, secrets, and treasure that will help fight the war.

New List: Egypt

Since this book is mostly about France invading Egypt, then other European powers sending their Silver Bayonet units there to find important secrets, the only new list here is for Egypt. Factions in TSB are differentiated by which soldiers they can bring in their unit – there aren’t army special rules for each country, just a few different soldiers. Egypt is a little different, as it’s not a European power and is part of the Ottoman Empire at the time – so the soldiers there are a bit more unique than what we’ve seen so far.

Egypt has access to the following soldiers:

• Artillerist
• Bedouin Raider
• Champion of Faith
• Doctor
• Egyptian Conscript
• Follower of the Old Gods
• Infantryman
• Irregular
• Janissary
• Junior Officer
• Light Cavalryman
• Mameluke
• Native Scout
• Occultist
• Sailor
• Sapper
• Supernatural Investigator
• Swordsman
• Veteran Hunter

That’s a pretty huge list – I really can’t think of anything missing there, in terms of soldiers you’d really want to bring. They don’t get a supernatural guy like a Dhampir or Werebear or anything, and they don’t have a Grenadier – so they might be lacking a little bit of tough dudes to hold onto objective pieces – but they make up for it in other ways.

New Soldiers

Egypt has five unique soldiers ready to fight the forces of the Harvestmen and invaders coming to plunder their treasure. The Bedouin Raider is a top pick as a bedrock infantryman for your force – they have a Musket and Hand Weapon, so they’re versatile in ranged or close combat (and have +1 to hit in both). At 18 points with Defence 13 and only 10 health, you might consider just a regular infantryman instead (for 10 points) – however the Bedouin also comes with Experience in the Desert that allows them to ignore Egypt’s environmental rules.

Where the Bedouin is a bit pricier, the Egyptian Conscript comes in at only four points. They only have hand weapons and Defence 11, so they’re really not going to be doing much in the way of damage or holding the line, but they can be used as cheap ways of investigating – since they’re not as threatening, your opponent may just let them move up and look around. Sometimes when you take a 25 or 30 point model you’re left with very few to fill the list to eight minis – I think the Conscript is a good choice there.

As long as you’re not enlisting a Champion of Faith, you can call up a Follower of the Old Gods to your Silver Bayonet. While they have very average stats (do not rush them into a melee), they’re a Supernatural Veteran and also have access to Ancient Spells. This is a regular Courage Check (TN10) where the figure suffers one point of damage, but can then choose from the following: add one Monster Die to the Fate Pool if they don’t have any, give a figure within 8″ +1 damage and Fire on their melee attacks for the rest of the game, or summon a Viper within 3″. Summoning a monster is very interesting – you could summon it, then move away from it, leaving it closer to an enemy with or near an objective.

At 12 points, the Janissary will likely be a mainstay for your Egyptian units. They’re the same as a regular infantryman but for two points gain a Fencing Weapon, which is a regular weapon but does damage with the Skill die. Many melee weapons and also muskets use Power die – so it’s a good thing to spread some damage onto Skill die because you can use your Fate Pool to boost it easier.

Not all the units in this book are Egyptian only – the Knight Hospitaller is available to France, Spain, and Russia and comes in at 15 points. They have +2 health, +2 courage, +1 melee, and the Medic skill when compared to a regular Infantryman at 10 points. They don’t have a musket, but they do tote a Holy Symbol. I could definitely see including this guy in your European units as Medic can be invaluable and +2 melee is nothing to scoff at.

Not to be outdone by their European opponents riding horses and ponies, the Egyptian unit brings Mamelukes riding camels. I personally don’t have a ton of experience yet with mounted units, but I could definitely see these figures being a must-have for your Egyptian unit – especially because they’re both +2 melee and +2 accuracy. At 30 points this might be your one big purchase – but I think it’s worth it. They have one Officer Attribute and bring a Musket, Pistol, and Hand Weapon or Fencing Weapon, so they’re armed to the teeth.

World Building

There is less actual history of Napoleon, his troops, and his opposition in Egypt in this book than I’d like. I understand there are constraints on Osprey wargame books but some more information would be great!

The author provides great suggestions for acquiring terrain and constructing a themed board. More importantly, there are Egypt-specific special rules that really push the theme forward. Extreme Temperatures causes non-desert trained warriors to take damage if they Sprint and roll poorly, while Loose Sand makes it harder to Sprint anywhere and much harder to Sprint up dunes.

The Mummy’s Curse is a lot more detailed than either of the previous rules – if a figure gets damaged by a Mummy or starts grave robbing, there’s a chance they get cursed. If the figure fails the check, they take -1 to their Survival stat and can be cursed further in later games. There is no way to lift the curse provided – a savvy GM might think one up but otherwise that dude is just SOL.

Any desert environment campaign would be lackluster without a Thirst rule, so I’m glad to see it here. When playing a campaign set in the desert, if your side finishes a game without figures on the tabletop that contains a water source, your start the next scenario with -1 Health. Each scenario should be designed with or without a water source so that you can keep track of this.

Scenarios

There are two campaigns in this book, like we are used to with previous Silver Bayonet books – one is a solo campaign, the other is a competitive campaign.

Without spoiling each mission, the competitive campaign takes you through a journey to find a tomb that is called ‘The Chamber of Wisdom’ that was said to have changed Napoleon’s life and set him on his path to glory. The players are tasked with finding the tomb and figuring out what it was that gave Nappy his luck. Players will fight Zombie Camels, Giant Scorpions, Crocodiles, Skeletons, Beetles, Revenants, Werejackals, Mummies, and others along the way. The hardest part about the campaign, I think, is that three of the scenarios actually take place indoors – inside a big tomb – so you’d need to get a mat and terrain that would work for that. The five scenarios seem great, overall, beyond that.

The solo campaign includes three scenarios that are more complicated than the usual scenarios – the clue tables are huge and there are Event tables as well that drive how each scenario plays. Out of the three, only one takes place indoors, and you will likely be able to find or make the columns you need to set up these scenarios.

Monsters

There are 11 new monsters in this supplement – more than the Canada book but fewer than the Carpathians book. They’re all what you’d expect from an Egypt supplement – a lot of the adversaries we’ve seen in movies.

• The Crocodile loves being near water, is tough, and can Deathroll. You do not want to fight it in melee.
• The Giant Scorpion is super tough, venomous, and hits hard. Venom will poison a figure and make it harder for that figure to move and make checks.
• The Mummy is tough, but doesn’t hit as hard as previous monsters, can’t see more than 10″ due to poor senses, and is allergic to fire and enchanted weapons. In addition, it has the new rule Combustion, which makes a living torch if it gets hit particularly hard by Fire.
• The Pharaonic Mummy is much harder than the regular one – having 18 Health, 14 Defense, and Melee +3. While it’s also flammable, it can put out the fire if it rolls well when it activates. Firearms and the like can’t be used within 6″ of this dude, so bring a strong enchanted or flaming weapon (looking at you Follower of the Old Gods!).
• The Serpopard is new to me – a creature with a big cat-like body but the head of a snake. They have 16 Health and Damage Reduction (7) along with Hypnotic so they’re going to be very very difficult to kill. Silver weapons will do well against it but you’d better bring a few of them because this thing is a beast, likely one of the meanest enemies in the game.
• Skeletons are bog-standard – I’m surprised they actually weren’t in the main book. They have Damage Reduction (8) vs Ranged, which reflects that it’s hard to hit Mr. Bones with a bullet when he’s got no flesh. You have to get close and hit them with a strong melee weapon.
• Swarms are really funny, as they usually are in most games that include them. They’re not particularly threatening, having a maximum damage output of 5, but they have all kinds of damage reduction and can even fly, if they’re Locusts. Bring some salt.
• The Uraeus is a giant cobra that is more average than some of the previous monsters. While it has Damage Reduction (5), it only has 12 Health and is Allergic to Silver, meaning you want to close on it and hit it with a silver weapon.
• Vipers are more like a regular run-of-the-mill danger noodle, having only one Health and Maximum Damage (3), meaning they can only do three damage in one hit. They’re also slow.
• One of the speedier monsters in the game, Werejackals are Anubis-headed werewolves without all the fur. They’re Speed 7 with Defense 14, meaning they’re going to move up fast and be hard to hit. They can also be pushed to Leap with a Monster Die, making them much nastier in close combat.
• Zombie Camels are not very intimidating in close combat, but cause a Terror Check when they leap out of the sand and are resistant to shooting attacks.

Final Thoughts

The Silver Bayonet: Egypt does a great job of putting you in Egypt during the Napoleonic Wars. The monsters the author came up with for this supplement are themey and also a lot of fun to source and paint. While I’m more leery about playing mostly because I don’t have a lot of desert terrain, I think this would make a great club campaign with access to one or two tables of terrain (most TSB tables are 2.5 x 2.5 feet or 3×3, so you don’t need a huge table of terrain).

The troops that are involved are also more interesting and way different from Napoleonic Europe, making a great new opportunity for some new minis. If you like TSB this is an excellent supplement to check out.

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