Intro

Burrows and Badgers (BnB) is a wargame with strong role-playing elements baked in. Your heroes are anthropomorphic animals in a pseudo medieval Yorkshire. It may look fluffy but don't be misled, this game has an level of depth that will likely surprise you.

Miniatures

Arguably the first draw of this game isn't the game itself (though more on that later) but the miniatures. Full of charm and a breath of fresh air from the elves, space robots, ww2 fatigues or whatever else is on your production line. Nothing like researching the colouration of a long eared owl to then apply that to your own mini. It feels wholesome and challenging for the budding painter.

The range of minis available is ever growing,  at the time of this review there are over 200 available! The animals to choose from are diverse; from rangers to witch hunters, from town guard to peaky blinders esquee gang animals, each model is full of charm and personality and are all memorable in their own way. I've had conversations with friends where we discuss the range with joy and enthusiasm far beyond the "normal" conversation about other wargames (is this op? I wish they'd make that better in the game, what about this rule? Etc), it's nice to have conversations of "oh yeah I love the hare with the eyepatch" instead.

Getting started

You only need 5-10 miniatures and one book and dice to play the game so if you just want to try it, it's a shallow starting point before the potential fall down the rabbit hole.

The book is beautifully illustrated with colour art to break up the pages as well as photographs of existing miniatures to inspire you but what miniatures do you get? Well... any. Almost all warbands (with a couple of exceptions) can take any model from the range. If you want a rabbit with a box next to a newt mage, behind a heavily armed badger then go for it! Buy what you think is cool, mix them together and you got yourself a crew. If you prefer a more organised way in there are 2 starter warbands to choose from, one with a more armoured royalist feel, the other a more unarmoured rebels feel. To create a band is time consuming, if you enjoy building a band with seemingly endless choice (like DnD) this will be a joy for you. If you like to just throw down minis to play a game this may feel laborious. There is however a downloadable getting started document that has pre- made bands from the starter set of you wish to skip the list building and play.
<span;>The final thing of note you need is dice, and this is where I think the game stands out.

Gameplay

Core mechanics in this game include alternating activations and when you activate choosing two things to do. These two things include actions you'd expect in any wargame, move, shoot, cast, fight but the game goes deeper than that too, you can focus, go on guard, sneak, search and barge too.

So far so normal right? The element of the game which sets it apart from any old skirmish is that when you roll dice to carry out the above actions the type of dice you roll changes based on your animals skill. For example if they are poor at blocking attacks the animal might only be allowed to roll a d4 to defend themselves, however take an animal that is good at blocking and you might roll a d10 or d12 giving you a much higher chance to roll well. Obviously you can still roll below a 4 on a d12 but the odds are more with you. If you have a tiny mouse fighting a monstrous badger do not fear though, fate may well deal you a lucky roll and help you do something heroic. Roll the highest possible number and it counts as a "perfect roll" this adds 7 to your total which can make any little critter have at least a chance of punching above their weight.

The game is full of modifiers and special rules that add and subtract from your opportunity to succeed in actions in the game but these are too broad to explain in a short review. Just know this game is deep and complex if you want it to be, making it feel very replayable.

Conclusion

The pros
Miniature range is outstanding
It's a deep and characterful game
Unique dice mechanics

The cons
Rulebook can be hard to navigate especially if you're new to the game
Tracking all the modifiers can be time consuming.

Final note (one last pro)
The burrows and badgers community is the best wargame community I've seen, period. The Facebook group is incredibly positive in a world where complaints and negativity is rife, this is a breath of fresh air. The owners of the business (the Lovejoys) are both engaged and responsive to their community. If you have Facebook, it's a group well worth being a part.