Burrows and Badgers and battles

Back in May, my Burrows & Badgers warband had its best outing of the campaign. The scenario was Witch Hunt, and a combination of luck and profligate use of Fate Points made my creatures into killing machines.

I knocked six of eight opposing figures out of action in that battle, winning the fight and achieving my secondary objective, which was to take out at least four enemies. It was the first time I won a game by routing my opponent.

It was also the last. The next game was Defend the Camp, with me as the defender. By this point in the campaign, everyone's critters have all sorts of equipment and special abilities to make them deadlier. My leader hit my opponent's leader with a masterwork pistol, and various skills added up to 17 points damage, taking the commander out of action.

The other player's critters had all sorts of perks as well, meaning he one-shotted my guys a couple of times. Unfortunately, I only managed to eliminate one other figure of his, while he took out six of my creatures to win the game--a complete reversal from last week. Still enjoyable, though.

But that was the last B&B game we will be playing for some time, as we're going back to the game that got all of us together, Frostgrave sometime soon. I'm looking forward to it.

Burrowing and badgering

Burrows & Badgers is a fun little skirmish game, and I'm enjoying using my friend John's figures to play. Over the course of our campaign, I acquired a new member of the warband, Linda Lou Shrew.

I got a lot of mileage with my spellcaster, Tommy Tu Toad, who served as the warband's second-in-command. He even learned a new spell!

My warband leader, Roger Rabbit, had trouble going against John's shrew knight mounted on a stag beetle (which uses the stats for a wildcat).

And after one game in which he was taken out of action, my poor toad failed his survival roll and ended up permanently dead! Luckily, I had enough treasure saved up to purchase a replacement: Tommy Tu Toad II.

Anyone else playing this game now?

Ambush among the animals

Our recent game of Burrows & Badgers saw us playing the second scenario in the rulebook, Ambush the Camp.I played the defenders, set up in the middle of the board.

My opponent quickly moved his figures to the center of the table and started wailing on my guys. He had some heavy hitters like a wildcat. Still, I was able to get multiple characters over to his figures, including a sparrow.

While I damaged his guys, he took out a couple of mine as well, including a new character that my warband had picked up: Linda Lou Shrew.

And it's hard in this game to get a hit on a figure with the Ferocious trait, like the wildcat. That animal was able to hold off--and take out--the rabbit leader of my warband.

With my top figure out of the way, he was able to raid my group's equipment pile in the middle of the camp, one of his objectives for the game.

Thankfully, my warband all recovered, although not intact. Rolling on the injuries table after the battle, the shrew rolled up "horrendous scars"--which gave her the Ferocious trait. Now I get to see how that works.

Trying out Burrows & Badgers

Burrows & Badgers is a miniatures skirmish game of anthropomorphic animal combat. Think Frostgrave crossed with Redwall. You have teams of mice, rabbits, frogs, weasels, hounds, badgers, etc. fighting each other for treasure and scenario objectives. Most actions are determined by contested rolls, with the dice you use based on your model's stat versus another models stat. For example, one figure has a Strike of d8, and rolls that die against the opponent's block stat of d6. Add in modifiers, and the highest number wins. If it's the active model, then you do damage.

The neat twist to this game is the concept of the "perfect roll"--a result of the maximum for your die roll adds seven to the total. So if you roll a 4 on a d4, you then add 7 to your total (along with any other modifiers). This means that every now and then, even one of the weaker figures has a chance to hurt a much stronger opponent. Add in weapons, actions like hiding, and magic, and you have an interesting set of rules.

Our gaming group has started using these rules, and I was able to play last week. I took five models: A rabbit leader, his second, a toad magician, and three mice warriors. Since we didn't have figures for the leader and the second, we proxied with some human minis. My in-game rationale was that the rabbit and toad were cursed by a witch and turned into humans.

The opposed rolls with their propensity for big bonuses kept the game swinging back and forth, meaning neither side could overpower the other at first. In the end, my opponent did overwhelm me, taking my leader and then one of my rank-and-file out of action. At least in this game, most of the time your figures will come back for the next scenario. And rolling for secondary objectives as part of the scenario we played gave a nice fog of war effect, as neither of us knew what the other was up to (besides trying to kill each other). In fact, in our game, both of us were able to accomplish a secondary objective--meaning both sides got experience and treasure to apply to the next game.

And that's another great thing about the rules: the campaign system. You have a chance after the battle to roll for injuries for figures that were knocked out of action and then see what kind of side adventures each of your figures gets into before the next fight. There's a chance to buy new equipment and magic, and for characters to gain additional skills or stat increases. It was a fun time, and we're playing it again.