Time for a post on a wargamer's blog about something that most wargamers do a lot, but I hardly ever get around to. Yes, today, Wednesday, 27th February, 2019, actually saw me setting up some terrain, rolling some dice, moving some figures and playing a game!!!
Of course, it had to be "Burrows & Badgers" and it had to be against Nephew Nick. Now, he played a crafty one and did NOT bring the Florentines! Oh No! He did, however, bring a dirty, great badger with heavy armour and a two-handed club!!!
I, on the other hand, in a most definitely uncrafty way, chose a selection of figures that had mostly not taken to the tabletop before. I had created two options for myself and selected the first of those options, entirely oblivious to Nick's cheating by choosing something entirely new himself...
It was a bloody affair that swung firstly Nick's way, then mine, then very nearly back to Nick again before I scraped the victory with just 5 wounds left across my two surviving characters. If you do not know the game at all, each figure gets 16 wounds and you lose effectiveness the more you take, meaning you get weaker and weaker with your attacks, defences, attempts to dodge, etc. I was seriously wounded by the time Nick was beaten at last!
Nick took as badger, a hare with heavy armour as his second in command and three mice, two knightly types and an archer. I took a wildcat with two swords and heavy armour as my leader, seconded by a ferret with light armour, a sword and throwing daggers, a pug with light armour and a two handed club, a weasel with sword and light armour and a rabbit archer. Only the Wildcat and weasel made it out alive on my side!
 |
| The setting, with my forces stage right and Nick's to the left. |
 |
| The Renegades line up, with Percy "One-Eye" closest to camera, then ferret, wildcat, weasel and finally rabbit. |
 |
| Nick's blatant attempt at cheating. Badgers are rock hard and rightly feared in games of "Burrows & Badgers", especially when tooled up like this one! |
 |
| Into the game, and the ferret has taken one for the team by guarding the wildcat's flank and getting taken down by a tough hare character. The weasel was able to pin both the hare and mouse in place, however, though he was starting to take some punishment. Both sacrifices, though of different sorts, enabled the main event to occur - badger vs wildcat, to the death! |
 |
| A sideshow, though crucial later in the game, was the pug squaring off against the mouse knight to stop it entering the wildcat/ badger fight. The pug ultimately bludgeoned poor Mickey into the dirt. He then headed to the main event and took the place of the beaten ferret, using his last ounce of strength to call a self-sacrificing assault on the hare which took him down, at the cost of the pug's own consciousness. |
 |
| Before that, however, a wildcat down to its last wound successfully toppled the brute that cheating Nick had brought to the table! It was oh so tempting to squeeze that sauce bottle and dump some tomatoey goodness onto the table to show exactly what this fight would have looked like!!! |
And so, with the badger toppled and the pug charging in to give his life to topple the hare, despite a last attempt to shoot the last wound off the wildcat for a draw, Nick had narrowly lost this bloodfest. He had a wounded mouse knight and a completely healthy mouse archer, but no one to command them, so they fled. I had a wildcat on the verge of bleeding to death and a weasel who was barely any better off, but the day was mine!
I just hope neither of them stubbed a toe on a rock as they limped back to base or they will not have made it home!
A great game that went down to the wire! Go Wildcats!!!
G
No comments:
Post a Comment