Burrows & Badgers – Painting & Gaming

So it was great to get stuck into a few games of Burrows & Badgers. I really don’t get to play miniatures games anymore so this is a nice annual outing for possibly my favourite game.

The day was broken down into four games and I took just a few pictures of how it played out.

The first game was with Ian who had never played the game before. So, predictably I lost! A lot of the fault came down to me really not positioning my archers and melee folk in the best places…and not using my items and spells to the best of my ability.

I wasted a lot of arrows and such and spread damage, and also potentially picked the wrong target to try and assassinate in his warband. It was still a really fun game with lots of ups and downs but I didn’t kill a single fellow!

Game Two was against a chap called Byron and it was one where we had to get our characters off the opposite end of the board. It was a pretty bloody affair with a few deadly shots here and there plus a deadly fight with a hulking badger!

I did come out with a win in the end which was a nice springboard back into the rankings and it was also great to talk about skirmish games and RPGs with Byron afterwards.

Next, I played against Jo, the other half of the Oathsworn Miniatures team and her warband of feisty female animals. We had to pilfer jewels from the other side of the board and run off with them.

Whilst the game started out well with Robyn, my Otter Archer taking out a poor Mole in one shot, the Badger leader of Jo’s warband then charged forward and took control of the treasure.

The other side of the board featured a very lengthy showdown between Marian, my Hare and Tom the Kingfisher and I’m fairly sure Jo and I scripted an entire short kids TV show during the scenario, making up reasons as to why the fighting was unfurling as it was…it was great fun!

I will still remember the awesome clash between Granny and Much, my Mouse Thief and Scarlet the Otter hunting down Jon my frenzied Ferret as he tried to chase down a pesky Mole!

The final game was against Peter who I’d played first time around when I went to the event last year. This time around I came out the better after two very gruelling games where the first went very differently from the second.

Whilst in the first I was more or less locked down away from the objective, in the second I was able to roll more perfect dice than I think I’ve ever done before and shoot down his warband from range.

My MVP for the game went to Jon (pictured above) because he was able to charge off the objective and hunt down Peter’s Otter, keeping him in combat and slowly chopping him down. Also, Scarlet, my Mouse was able to pick off his spellcaster too.

I also have to give props to Robyn, my Otter Archer who was the leader of the warband and was able to kill two characters with one perfect shot. The second time he did it was against a very fearsome looking dog who was charging towards the point only to catch an arrow between the eyes!

It was a really fun day playing a game that I adore with wonderfully friendly people. I can’t wait to start painting up more from the collection and then diving into the Kickstarter which is hopefully coming up at the end of August.

A few more images because I met the single entry limit!

So I snapped some of the cool warbands that people had put together from the Northymbra At War Tournament held in Rushden this year by Phoenix Gaming. Lots of folks were in attendance and it was great fun playing against my four opponents.

So, I got stuck in and painted up two more characters for Burrows & Badgers. The first of these is the Fox Mage who I was terrified to paint as the orange/ginger fur is such a different colour to the purple of the robes!

I really liked how she turned out. She might require a little bit more work on the robes and cloak, highlighting etc, but otherwise I think that she is very much a finished piece now.

I really enjoyed painting a creature which didn’t just have brownish fur as well and she really stands out on the tabletop!

I also took some time to paint up the miniature I picked up from Salute this year, the Mouse Nun who I’m using as Maid Marian in my Robin Hood-themed warband.

A Mousemaiden’s Tail anyone? I thought she came out really nicely and whilst I know that the eyes should be black on a lot of these creatures I just can’t bring myself to do it…I might try it though as they look a little blind unfortunately sometimes.

It will certainly be something I go back and do later on once I’ve painted more miniatures I think.

Now the warband pieces are complete, even if the Kickstarter bundle isn’t, so I’m slowly working towards having a warband worthy of a tournament in July.

So I put more work into finishing the Badger Mage. He’s turned out pretty well and needs come clean-up but otherwise he’s pretty awesome I think.

I tried doing some highlighting on the robe but it didn’t go very well. Going to tidy it up a bit more and see what it looks like by the end. I thought the old fur works really well though.

Happy with the (almost) end result and looking forward to moving onto the rest of the miniatures from the Kickstarter soon.

So the next project for me is the old grumpy Badger Mage that Oathsworn worked on for their last Kickstarter. I have so far worked on the first bit of fur work…

I went for a proper greying old Badger who has been around the block (or wood) a few times.

I think it has come out very well indeed and I just need to decide on what colour to do the robes. I am thinking that I might go with a purple scarf at the very least.

So finally got round to finishing another miniature for Burrows & Badgers, the Otter Mage!

Wanted to get some nice contrast in the miniature with some bright blues and greens to match up against her woodland/riverside home which is then given a proper kick with that glowing fireball she’s conjuring in her hands.

Had real fun with this miniature and enjoyed painting her a lot. There’s still quite a few to make my way through in the set from the last Kickstarter but now I’ve got back into the groove of it a bit more I’m going to push on and do the Badger Mage and the Mouse Nun who will act as the Marien in my Robin Hood-themed warband that I want to make.

Really tempted to pick up the Crusader-esque miniatures they did for a previous campaign too soon to give me something very different to work on with all that armour.

Finally found some time to paint something again and so sat down to go through my Burrows & Badgers collection from the recent Kickstarter and realised I had started work on this Otter Pirate but never finished him!

He isn’t finished yet with work needing to go into the blue coat, developing the shading and highlighting there as well as of course finishing off the base too.

I really enjoyed painting him though and can’t wait to get stuck back into more of the models. I will say that I think the base coats went down for this dude in about 30 minutes and post-wash I think it’ll take me maybe around 30 mins to finish him.

As you can see I still need to do a lot of clean up on the model but otherwise, I think he’s looking nice and poppy! Can’t wait to get stick in on the bandana…

These miniatures are so simple and easy to paint. Got the Badger Mage next who I’m just considering colours for currently.

Purple robes with a green scarf? I think so!