The Lore:
Burrows & Badgers is a skirmish game from Osprey Games about anthropomorphic animals (as the book cover states) takes place in the Kingdom of Northymbra. Recent times have become unstable, the King is no where to be found, with the Prince now acting in his stead and rumors are circulating as to the Kings fate. The weather has cause a number of problems as of late, forcing more citizens into the cities, where poverty and hunger has increased. Further south the Foxes are taking advantage of the situation to gain influence and possibly pushing the citizens into rebellion. Slavery grows and various groups raid the local areas to grow in strength.
Obviously there is a bit more to that and there is a downloadable paper to add more to the Lore, but it is still rather short (only a few pages in the book), but gets across a basic idea so that you can put together enough story for your Warbands to start adventuring.
Game Rules:
Obviously you'll need terrain, models and measuring tools, but this game also requires a number of different types of dice (d4, d6,d8 etc.) and these will come into play due to character stats. There are nine stats being: Movement, Strike, Block, Ranged, Nimbleness, Concealment, Awareness, Fortitude and Presence. There's rules for Turns, Movement and Actions, including attacking, shooting and casting spells as well as searching and hiding. Games are won by achieving the scenarios main objective, though most will tend to end with routing the enemy Warband.
Warband Rules:
Building a Warband is broken down into several parts. You get 350p (Pennies) to spend on your Warband and this includes the hiring of models and the purchasing of their gear. A Warband has a maximum total of 10 Models, with no more then a max of 6 Large models and 3 Massive available in a Warband. Obviously the Large and Massive beasts will be more costly compared to the Small and Medium beasts, so it tends to be a bit more balanced that way too.
There are four types of beasts as mentioned above: Small, Medium, Large and Massive. Each chart has a number of different animals each with their own stats and some even have a few rules to go with them (such as birds having the flight rule). Once you have selected your crew and armed them, you will pick one to be the Leader and one to be their second in command, both get a bonus to show their stature in the Warband. There are even bonuses to having single species Warbands (like Mice or Rabbits for example) as this is meant to help compensate for the lack of variety in the group, plus you are limited to who you can hire in the future as a result of this too.
After that, you select your Allegiance. There are four to choose from: Royalists, Rogues, Freebeasts and Wildbeasts. Each one grants your Warband a bonus and limit what starting Den you can pick from, though you are granted a bonus Den upgrade to start off with and will also limit what Magic Lore's you have access to. While each one of these allegiances have some story behind them, you are free to come up with your own style, just so long as your opponent is aware what Allegiance you have selected (so there is no confusion when playing).
There is also a spell listing for each of the six Magic Lore's: Natural, Light, Dark, Wild, Unbound and Noble. Depending on which one you pick will also determine which of the two stats (Fortitude or Presence) is needed to cast them. Each one also has six spells you can pick from or roll-off on. Better yet, if you purchased a Mage's Pouch for your caster and got certain ingredients, you can use those ingredients to buff those spells.
Finally there are the rules for equipment (so you know how to use the stuff your models are equipped with) along with a section for skills. Skills can be earned through a model reaching a certain level while some are natural to certain animals. Skills consist of Fighting Skills, Shooting Skills, Cunning Skills, Strength Skills, Movement Skills and Innate Skills (with Innate Skills being something an animal starts with and cannot be learned). By looking through these, you can plan out possible path options for your models to follow as they level up. This brings us to...
Campaign Rules:
While you can play one-off games, Campaigns are where this game really shines. Though a campaign, you can raise even a lowly Mouse into a real hero. The campaign section has rules for playing through one, including an injury chart for wounded characters, post-game things surviving models can do to help benefit your Warband, upgrades for the Den, rolling for Skills when a model reaches a certain level up mark, Warband upkeep, Hiring and of course Shopping..er, I mean trading.
There is also a Warband Rating section, with the lower rated one getting 'Balance Points' which it can use to help get extra re-rolls and can even earn bonus experience if the gap in ratings is large enough, so even when things look bad, there is always something to help push you forward in a campaign.
Scenarios:
There are a total of eight scenarios to roll for (if you get the Book from their website is does have a bonus scenario card), though you'll probably find you roll the first one (Open War) the most.
Each scenarios has:
+ A quick story bit to give you an idea on how to use the scenario story wise
+ A section for what terrain you might need, including important scenario pieces for some scenarios
+ Rules for deployment zones and setting up models
+ Special rules for the scenario
+ Secondary Objectives if any (there is a Secondary Objectives table to roll on)
+ Starting and Ending game rules
+ Experience and Rewards for completing the scenario
As such, these scenarios will help shape the story of your Warband as it battles against other Warbands and grows in strength. Some of these will also most likely test just how well your Warband can do, given that even a Warband of strong massive beasts might suddenly find they have entered a scenario where strength over numbers is a disadvantage.
Overall Thoughts:
This game looks amazing and the rules and options for customizing and leveling a Warband is deeper then I first thought. As far as Skirmish games go, this really does feel kind of like the Mordheim of old and I like it. It also has a large list of animals to choose from and the option of using ingredients for spell casting to improve the spell is something I just love. I found myself going through the Warband creation process again and again, creating new Warbands with different animals, gear and options (I must admit, I'm kinda addicted to it).
Honestly, it really does hype me up to play a full on campaign of this game, to create new characters and tell new stories in exciting games. Even the rules for gameplay look rather interesting and I hope that if and when I can start playing it I can do a review on the gameplay itself. If you are looking for a good Skirmish game, then I can recommend this one, though if you liked cartoons like Redwall or even Disney's animated Robin Hood, then you should really look into this one too.
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