A walk in the woods - Burrows & Badgers AAR
Six years since buying my first figures I finally played a game of Burrows & Badgers.
Setup
The two warbands pitted against each other were the Royalists led by the Hare Werdna Thunderfoot and the Wildbeasts led by the Fox Mellifluous Malachi.
I played the Open Battle scenario from the rule book. The Royalists' Secondary Objectives were Deliver and Conserve. The Wildbeasts' Secondary Objectives were Capture and Showdown.
The Royalists (R) win the Fortitude Roll-Off and are the Attackers. The Wildbeasts (W) have the largest number of models and go first. Each character is deployed in turn at their respective table edge.
Turn One
Every character moves their maximum distance to close the distance on their adversaries.
Turn Two – The initiative roll off is a draw so initiative switches to the Royalists.
Werdna the Hare Moves. Malachi the Fox Moves and Hides. Apodemus the Mouse Ranger (R) makes a Move through difficult terrain. Salien the Toad Mage (W) Sprints. Briar Far-sting the Rabbit Archer (R) has LOS on Salien so attempts a Ranged attack and hits scoring 3 wounds on him. McGranite the Wildbeasts Ferret Moves. Lutralus the Otter (R) Moves and Hides. Putor the Ferret (W) Moves and Hides. Beriys the Adder Mage (R) Moves and Hides. Both Bitter Sydney the Shrew and Shakey Bart the Weasel of the Wildbeasts stay Hidden. End of Turn.
Turn Three – The Royalists win the Initiative roll off.
Lutralus the Otter (R) charges in and Attacks Salien (W) causing a whopping 15 damage, the Toad keels over and goes Out Of Action (OOA). Malachi fires his pistol into the combat but misses. Apodemus the Mouse (R) Sprints up the battlefield to try and fulfil his messenger objective. McGranite (W) charges Lutralus and the fury of his charge causes 5 damage. Werdna (R) Moves and Putir the Ferret (W) attempts an ambush, which fails, he tries to press home his attack but Werdna blocks the attack. Shakey (W) fires into the combat caring little for his comrade, but the crossbow’s power is largely negated by Werdna's armour for only a point of damage. Bitter Sydney (W) successfully Ambushes Apodemus but only scores 1 damage. End of Turn.
Turn Four – Wildbeasts win the Initiative roll off.
It's a light weight contest with Bitter Sydney the Shrew (W) Attacking but failing to damage Apodemus the Mouse (R), who uses his action to Sprint and disengage from combat; this allows the Shrew a free additional Attack, he scores a Perfect roll and Apodemus takes 12 damage. The brave Mouse almost reaches the edge of the table but is now badly injured.
McGranite (W) Attacks Lutralus (R) causing 2 damage. Lutralus responds and with a mighty swipe of his zweihander causes 17 damage, McGranite is OOA. Seeing the deadly Otter cutting a swathe through his warband, Malachi the Fox shoots at Lutralus and causes 10 damage. Werdna the Hare (R) Attacks Putor the Ferret (W) but fails to hit and Putor responds in kind also missing. Beriys the Adder Mage (R) slithers forward behind Malachi and casts a Lightning spell which fails. Shakey the Weasel (W) shoots at Werdna, narrowly missing his own comrade and nicks the Hare with 3 damage. Briar the Royalist Rabbit Archer moves forward to support Lutralus and fires at Malachi causing only 1 point of damage.
Turn Five – Due to his wounds Werdna is at -1 for all roll offs but he still wins the Initiative roll off for the Royalists.
Beriys (R) attempts to cast Lightning at Malchi again and fails again. Malachi (W) shoots at Lutralus (R) and misses but being an Expert shot rerolls. However, the Otter rolls a perfect roll and dodges the shot even though he is sorely injured. Briar (R) fires at Malachi nicking him for another 1 point of damage. Bitter Sydney (W) charges Lutralus but causes no damage. The Otter responds but in his weakened state his attack is avoided by the nimble Shrew. Werdna the Royalist leader Attacks Putor the Ferret, his attack is perfect and he puts the poor mustelid OOA with a colossal 16 damage. Shakey Bart (W) fires his crossbow at Werdna inflicting 4 damage. In the final action of the turn the valiant mouse Apodemus, makes it to the table edge.
50% of the Wildbeasts warband is now out of action . They need to take a Rout test. Malachi's Fortitude is d6 against Werdna's Presence of d8 -2 for his wounds. The roll is 2 vs 5-2=the Hare wins by a point. The Wildbeasts Rout and slip away from the battlefield promising vengeance on the Royalists. The Royalists win the day.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed this game. The mechanics are clever and it flows well. It's a very good mix of tabletop and role playing and took me right back to those carefree days of playing D & D, RuneQuest, Stormbringer and Tunnels and Trolls amongst others. It works without any modification as a solo game. I deliberately didn't make one side a favourite, there was no goodies or baddies so I didn't have any unconscious bias towards one side or another. The alternate activation of each model and letting the dice decide on intiative each turn helped when playing solo. Having specific objectives also helps to drive the game. They'll be more adventures of Werdna and Malachi to follow for sure.
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