Alarms & Excursions in Northymbra (Free Kernow) - Burrows and Badgers.

At the repeated insistence of our chairman**, I agreed to offer another game of Oathsworn’s Burrows and Badgers at club this month. The game is a small-scale (in model count, not size) skirmish game written by Michael Lovejoy (who also sculpts all the figures), that offers something like a cross between Mordheim and Redwall. 

** Editors Note - 'A slight exaggeration!'

Burrows & Badgers, Second Edition - Osprey

This was our first outing with the new second edition, and while some elements have been made more complicated (there are more possible Actions than before, every character has two Actions per Turn, Fate points play a bigger and more varied role, the post-game sequence has been extended, etc.), others have been streamlined (most notably Hiding/Searching/Ambush) and some of the synergies more prone to abuse have been tightened up (no more machine-gun crossbows with Haste and Fast Shot, for example, or extremely profitable equipment factories through the Smithy or Jeweller’s Workshop Den Upgrades - not that I imagine these were ever a massive problem: this is not a game for those who prefer competition over narrative). 

Overall, it retains the same intuitive structure of play and flavour of the quality dice; if the added complexities have raised the barrier of entry slightly, it nevertheless feels just as comfortable once you get going, and my role as umpire quickly receded into the background as the players got to grips with the mechanics. The whimsical, if quite violent, anthropomorphic animal setting of Northymbra (this month topically transferred to Free Kernow) is still quite special, and a substantial treat of the game is playing with Michael Lovejoy’s beautiful figures (which are also some of the most enjoyable to paint

that I’ve ever done).

Our first match was a straightforward meeting engagement between the Royalist Escanceastre Garrison, under its hare captain, Sir Erembald the Hardy, and and the Rogues of the Haldon Chancers, led by the otter outlaw Alfred Silvertail. 

The garrison deployed inside the walls of Escanceastre on one corner of the table, while the Chancers’ camp lay in the opposite corner. 

We played a simplified version, without the additional objectives or side quests. The addition of the support quests (taking opponents Out of Action in close combat for the Royalists, successfully Searching terrain for the Rogues), however, were very helpful in encouraging the different factions to behave as they ought. 

The Chancers won the Initiative for the first Turn, and started pushing toward the road leading to Escanceastre. The garrison scrambled, with some heading for the main gate, others through a gap in the wall. Galland de Pomeroy, crossbow-hare extraordinaire, bounded up the steps to the parapet, followed closely by Br Muslinus, the mouse monk. Etheldreda Chitterbeak, sparrow, and Pernelle the Flash, kingfisher, flew across the field to a quiet homestead and began ransacking the place for anything interesting (in accordance with the Rogues’ support quest), but to no real effect. 

A trumpet sounded from Escanceastre as Sares sans Peur, the shrew knight errant, rode out on his trusty stag beetle steed, Black Beauty. However, a worryingly accurate shot from the bow of Tekakwitha Powhatan, the visiting American raccoon, punched through Sares’ armour, and he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten something back in the city. Fearless, indeed. The hares edging round the west side of the city likewise thought better of their foray and went back through the gap in the wall.

The Chancers, pleased with the effects of their suppressive fire, gathered to the north of the city but remained wary of getting within range of Galland’s crossbow. Br Muslinus decided to break the stalemate by casting a transposing spell, placing Greta Broadstream, the otter mage, in the midst of the garrison, while replacing her with Erembald among the Chancers. 

The startled badger healer, Br Alun Brochod, ran to grapple with the Royalist captain, along with Gonff the mouse thief, while the unarmed Greta ran back out through the city gate as fast as she could. Erembald, for his part, found the sight of a badger bearing down on him more frightening than he had expected, though in the event he managed to hold off the angry teeth and claws with his broadsword.

While the birds continued to rummage through the bins (Etheldreda even managed to ‘liberate’ some coins from under a mattress), Sares found his courage and rode down the fleeing Greta. Another hare, Crockern, Guardian of the Two Bridges, ran after him to support, followed by Sr Clementina, the mouse nun. However, Alfred was waiting and plugged Crockern with two arrows that sent him limping back to the safety of the gate. Etheldreda, reminded that a battle was going on by the death rattle of Greta, flew toward Sares, only to disappear in a cloud of feathers before his countercharge.

Meanwhile, Alfred had strayed into Galland’s eyeline, and a crossbow bolt reminded him that he was not the only one with a ranged weapon. Erembald was ignoring the scary badger—who was anyway preoccupied with casting healing spells at Alfred—and instead raining down blows on the mouse thief.

Alfred, feeling better after Br Alun’s ministrations and now out of range from the wall, lined up another shot at Sares, which took the shrew knight from his saddle. Br Muslinus, who had been repeatedly muttering his transposing spell without result, cleared his throat and tried again, placing Galland in the vegetable allotment and bringing Pernelle onto the battlements, though not before she found a few carrots she thought worthy of resale. 

With Gonff now lying bloody on the ground and Br Alun wandering off, Erembald took the opportunity to charge Alfred, cutting down the Rogues’ leader with a swing of his broadsword. The Chancers thought better of their chances, and decided to quit the field.

After lunch, we had another engagement, but this time the two parties had a common enemy: a bear who was wandering toward Escanceastre, looking to set up camp for the night in a nearby abandoned mill. While the garrison held themselves in reserve in case the bear attacked the city, the Chancers’ bravely but foolishly rushed out to stick the bear full of arrows. 

He did not take kindly to this, and marched up to Alfred, grabbed him, and stuffed him in a sack at his side. As the Chancers panicked, they began running toward the mill, though Tekakwitha scattered behind the bear. Thinking that they ought to have whatever the bear was having, Greta cast a spell of

Bear’s Strength on Br Alun, causing the already strong but unarmed badger’s biceps and chest to swell. About this time, it began to dawn on the garrison that they had better work together with the Rogues, so they began to pour out of the gap in the city walls.

Noticing that Etheldreda had flown to the roof of the mill, Br Muslinus began muttering again, but not much happened. General pandemonium continued as everyone converged on the mill, before Br Muslinus finally transposed the sparrow with the bear. The mill was unable to support

the bear’s weight, and he crashed through the floor, taking enough Wounds to nearly enrage

him. 

Much discussion was now had about what to do next, and a consensus was to try to put in some more pain, despite the fact that he was at the limit of the hares’ charge range, for fear that the bear would recover by the next Turn. Unfortunately, the surprisingly brave kingfisher, Pernelle, was unable to land any damage before the bear swung his club twice, bashing her badly, killing Gonff, and wounding Erembald, who had trapped himself in the entrance hallway of the mill. Everyone retreated to a safe distance, as Br Alun and Sr Clementina worked to heal their companions. 

Greta began calling on Bear’s Strength, but now, in a spirit of co-operation, she gave it to Erembald, who was universally recognised as the strongest warrior in hand-to-hand combat. The bear, absorbing crossbow bolts from Galland on the ramparts without hurt, smashed his way out of the ruined mill and headed for Br Alun. 

A well-aimed crossbow bolt, however, made it through his thick skin, causing the bear to skip being enraged and go straight to being heavily wounded. Erembald, now thoroughly swole from his magical steroids, charged into the bear, along with the rest of the nearby beasts. The bear stomped on Pernelle, then picked her up and threw her at Alfred (who had fallen out of his pouch in the meantime), but she

managed to hang on, a mangled conglomeration of blood, bone, and feathers. Summoning all of the strength of his own inner hare-growth-hormone-bear, Erembald raised his mighty sword and thrust it into the monster, finally slaying it. 

Having put aside their differences and found unity in the face of a common enemy, the two bands decided to part amicably, rather than fight it out amongst themselves (to the mild disappointment of the umpire).

Many thanks to Mark, Mark, Mike, and Owen for two very entertaining games played in precisely the right spirit!

The Battle of Escanceastre - Burrows & Badgers

 

In a departure from normal club fare, we held a game of Burrows and Badgers, by Michael Lovejoy, with his beautiful Oathsworn miniatures. A skirmish game set in a fantasy world of anthropomorphic animals, it has an intuitive basic system with lots of depth for developing with skills and special actions, along with an enjoyable mix of whimsy and grimdark: think Redwall meets Mordheim.

In the early morning hours, shadowy figures move through the dawn mists outside the walls of north Escanceastre. Cold-blooded Wildlings emerged from the woods and headed for the broken gate, intent on setting fire to the homes of the city-dwelling beasts, grown fat and soft in their civilised decadence. To the east, a band of rough-looking rogues snuck toward another gate, Oliver Hardberger, their otter leader, having already infiltrated the city the night before and waiting to open it to them. Hungry and in need of cash to keep themselves going, they were intent on lightening the pockets of the townsbeasts amidst the impending chaos.

Tocsins began to sound across the northern edge of the city, and Geoffroi le Hardi, the hare knight, hastily gathered together his militia to defend the walls. Meanwhile, at the city’s House of Illumination, the De Bouan otter captain, Cuthbert Moor, summoned his fellow witch hunters. Something was brewing, and conflicts usually meant magic users: an opportunity for eliminating some perverted mages seemed imminent.

As the townsbeasts fled toward the city centre, one such mage, an adder volunteer with the militia, cast a bolt of lightning which struck Hardberger, exposed above the gatehouse. The otter took the hit with a grunt, but immediately a rabbit with a bow leapt onto the parapet and began slinging arrows into the streets. Geoffroi le Hardi leapt in turn to attack Hardberger, and each rained blows down on the other till they were both bloodied, while the rogues’ mouse sorceress ran about outside, trying to draw a bead on Hardberger so as to cast a healing spell on it. A mad shrew rogue then scaled the wall to surround Geoffroi, who looked likely to succumb to the invaders. However, a squirrel witch supporting the militia cast a healing spell of her own, returning Geoffroi to full strength as a crossbow bolt from a militia weasel knocked the rabbit rogue, now badly wounded, off the wall.

At the broken gate, Wildlings poured into the town, while one of their moles emerged from the ground to begin burning a house. Damp tinder or a dirty flint, however, frustrated his efforts… The toad War Mother and her lizard second rushed to the market hall and immediately set it on fire. The witch hunters crept through the streets, unsure whether to investigate the magical signature created by the adder and squirrel at the other gate or to attack the Wildling shamans who looked exposed outside the wall as their companions rushed into Escanceastre. 

Moor ultimately chose to go for the Wildlings, deciding that the deviant citizens could be dealt with later or left for the Illuminators. His crossbow-weasel mounted the wall and plugged a sizeable bolt into the back of the War Mother, exulting in her success at firing the market hall. Enraged, she and the lizard crunched down on their berserker pods and charged in a frenzy into Moor and his badger hospitaller, wounding them badly.

As the rogue and militia leaders continued to struggle above the gatehouse, two mouse knights ran as fast as their little legs could carry them to the stairs. One was ambushed by a squirrel hiding on the parapet, but was quickly healed by their squirrel sorceress. As the first mouse surrounded him, Geoffroi committed himself to fate and swung his sword into the otter with a deadly thrust, knocking him from the wall to his death. 

Their leader dead, the rogues seemed to deflate. Their sparrow flitted to a burrow and began frantically searching for any moveable wealth, but to no avail. The others, inspired by this example, tried to disengage from the militia and run to loot the houses, crouching under a hail of crossbow bolts and magical lightning. 

The badly mauled witch hunters realised they could not stand paw-to-paw with the berserkers, and so took to stunning them while waiting for reinforcements. The hedgehog came in wielding his hammer and a torch, the latter of which promptly went out in the lizard’s eye. Unfortunately, a frog, channelled by his toad shaman’s magic, had just surged into the crossbow-weasel covering them from the wall and wounded him badly.

Meanwhile, the weasel zealot racing toward the shamans outside the wall received a face full of adder, magically imbued with the strength of a bear, and turned on his paw to run back to support his leader engaged with the berserkers. Combined, the bloodied witch hunters managed to beat down the paralysed berserkers, but outside shamanistic chanting caused the adder to become ever stronger.

Deeper in the city, the mole finally managed to set a house alight, and then ran on to the blacksmith’s

forge nearby.

Geoffroi le Hardi leapt into pursuing the rogues, cutting down the bowrabbit as she ran toward a dwelling. The shrew charged the squirrel witch, intent on preventing the militia from healing it, but his wounds were too great and he was dispatched by the adder mage as the squirrel, unsurprisingly, healed herself. The sparrow finally discovered a chest of valuables, but, not wanting to be slowed down, grabbed as many coins as he could and flew to the pub where he began trying to force open the till. Geoffroi called to his followers to run toward the smoke from the west of the city, where the mole was having a merry time as an arsonist as he tunnelled under the burning smithy. The mice had to go cautiously, however, watched over by the squirrel archer hidden in the rubble of a gap in the wall. Otherwise, however, the rogues were a spent force, the sparrow still unable to open the cash drawer in the inn.

The witch hunters, meanwhile, were wondering how they had gotten caught in this scrum as the badger desperately tried to heal them as fast as he could. The crossbow-weasel was too far away and abseiled from the wall, only to be savaged by the adder and finished off by the pursuing frog. Just when the witch hunters inside the wall had more or less caught their breath, the adder, now bulging with magic steroids, came charging in, supported by the frog. 

Blows from the enraged and injured badger brought the frog nearly to death’s door, but he then drew deep inside himself to summon up a heroic sacrifice, which took Moor out of action with him. With all of their detachment either neutralised or poisoned by painful adder venom, the witch hunters saw no prospect of bringing any magical deviants to justice.

The militia were still hale and hearty, but nearly half of the buildings in their quarter of the city had been burned or looted. The Wildlings retreated jubilantly into the woods, the rogues slunk away to lick their wounds, and the severely chastened witch hunters made their way back to the House of Illumination with their tails firmly between their legs. Geoffroi le Hardi’s militia could confidently claim victory, and downplayed the three smouldering wrecks of commercial and residential property as inevitable collateral damage.

We called the game here as four hours had passed and the eventual outcome was pretty clear, though it would have been fun to see the militia slug it out with the surviving royalists. We also realised at this point that the Wildling lizard had been their second, which means that they should have routed automatically once he and the War Mother had been killed, which would have given a very different, though perhaps less enjoyable game. 

Burrows and Badgers is intended for two players but works well with four, though one needs to factor in the extra time, especially if there are first-time players. 

Many thanks to Rob, Jean-Baptiste, Bertie, and Alex for a great game that had some great twists and turns. Not sure if we’ll see anything quite this far from the historical again at club any time soon, but I was grateful the opportunity to bring it out to a slightly wider audience and everyone seemed to have a good time.