Burrows and Badgers: Warband Building Around a Narrative

Burrows and Badgers is a brilliant game set in the land of Albion, invented by Michael Lovejoy and now on its second edition, published by Osprey. We’ve previously written an introduction to the new edition. You can find this here.

Warband Credit: Bair
Jon Hodgson Backdrop

I’m a narrative and competitive gamer. This means I get a kick from playing for a story. But I’ve also come to enjoy looking for horrible combinations of equipment, abilities and profiles in competitively geared games like Bushido. In systems like that there is no rush quite like that feeling of building a murderous list that actually works when you play it.

When list building for a more narrative game that’s easily broken by this kind of approach, like Burrows and Badgers, Frostgrave, or The Silver Bayonet, I like to control the sweatier angels of my nature by starting with some lore. I'll look at models, terrain, scenarios, and art, get a feel for the world and get writing.

Sometimes I'll already own the models. More often, what I write helps me get to a shopping list- or at least refine my selection. It will always help me know what abilities to go for, what kind of equipment they’ll use, their motivations. The sort of decisions they’d make. And once I’ve got characters who start to feel real to me, I won’t play for bust. It keeps me honest, it grows my immersion, and it means that I still have friends. (Unless it fits the story the dice tell; sometimes you’ve got to embrace your Mary Sue if the dice dictate it.)

Warband Creation, Narrative Style

This is an example of this sort of narrative focused list building journey I go on. I find it makes even just browsing minis more fun, and stretches that narrative payoff from purchase, to painting and all the way to playing.

Step one: Inspiration

When feverishly browsing the Oathsworn site I saw one model, a dapper fox with a cane, and was inspired.

The dapper fox in question. Credit @scir_waeter

After reading Michael’s brilliant lore, I decided the best home for this model would be in a Freebeast crime syndicate, run by a ruthless fox family who’d risen to dominance in Mercia.

They needed a motto, and a name… “Profit comes first. The Goldentongue Syndicate will work with anyone. Until it’s bad for business.”

Step Two: The Leader

With this seed, the Goldentongue crime family (and aspiring political dynasty) was born. They’d be led by Mayor Marius Goldentongue (he of the cane). To have succeeded in swindling his way to power, he’d have to have a silver tongue - so the ‘Taunt’ skill was perfect narratively and on the field. He’d be armed with a sword stick (one handed weapon) and artfully concealed light armour integrated into his colourful waistcoat.

Step Three: Key Characters

Like all good criminal despots, Marius wouldn’t be foolish enough to leave a source of influence untapped. I decided he’d have put family members in key positions inside his local powerbase. The faith of beasts can be a powerful force. He’d need to control it if he were to maintain power. This took me to the fox fanatic model: Sinister, brooding, with a horrible flail.

Credit @Scir_Waeter

But like everything in the Syndicate, these foxes are tricksters. Her monastic robes and outward piety would conceal a heretical magic user, Caz Goldentongue, posing as a priest with holy miracles. Morglum’s fiery blast attracted me as a powerful fire spell.

Like every corrupt ecclesiast, she’d need an enforcer to keep the faithful in line, and the model of the stoat fanatic drew me. I decided this would be the ‘Gibberer,’ a slightly mad beast, deluded into total trust in Caz through absolute faith, also armed with a nasty flail.

Caz was going to be Marius’s second. But as I thought more about this, I realised that like every tyrant, Marius would probably be most vulnerable to his own family and heirs…and with a sister like Caz, he’d need to be careful to keep her too close. He needed an ally with a motivation he could control.

I’d fallen in love with the pensive model of the wildcat enforcer with executioner’s axe. Erudite Eric was born. A vicious killer with a love of reading, and a taste for poetry. Marius won his loyalty by procuring books for him, and swearing to make arts education a priority in Mercia. This is one promise Marius will never break, because unlike most art lovers Eric is decidedly tooled up.

I’ve decided that Eric puts his ill gotten gains as the number two and primary enforcer in the syndicate towards building a public library, and is a firm believer that the ends justify the means when it comes to provision for the liberal arts. (There are rumours that some of the rarer volumes in his collection are bound in the hide of tax collectors.) Eric got the Strider skill to represent the literal lengths he’d go to for a good read, and was armed with a double handed axe.

Marius needed someone he trusted to do his dirty work out on the road. To listen out for information of tax collectors or rival gangs. Another fox, this time Jimmy Goldentongue, a pistol toting bandit with a dashing cloak. I could only afford one of his pistols at warband creation, but that would be enough.

By this point, I was very low on pennies. One more model had grabbed me in the right penny bracket - the marmot chef. Like all good swindlers, Marius knew how to wine and dine his marks. Chef Bob was born, armed with a large cleaver, expert in rustling up a quality meal.

Credit @Scir_Waeter

I now had my band of furry ruffians. This is a team photo with a few later additions.

Credit @Scire_Waeter

I was happy with my story, my band, and I’d found a foe to play against - my friend Alex and his band of rats. For our first game we decided his rats were putting the squeeze on one of the lesser villages under Goldentongue protection, and that my enforcers had captured one of his informants. We both took a deep breath, and let the dice tell us what would happen to our warbands.

Step Four: Time to Roll the Dice!

Here’s some fluff I wrote before the first battle we fought to keep my story rolling.

Marius sighed, and tapped his teeth with a well manicured claw. The village was struggling. He’d have to tell Eric to ease off the yokels for a bit. Enough for them to have the slack to make repairs, fatten up a bit and get a few more workers. Any more ‘contributions’ and this flyspeck place would wither away entirely. And that would be bad for business. No workers, no profits. No families, no more workers.

"Boss," Eric called from a nearby barn. "Bob’s caught an owl trying to get at the stores. Not a local. Bob’s been putting the squeeze on him and now he’s hooting on about a bunch of rats coming over here to kill us all."

Marius frowned. “Sounds like we may have to earn our protection fee after all.”

He strolled over to the barn behind Eric. It wouldn’t do to look concerned.

His sister was there already, red robes dusty, as was the fanatical stoat known as the Gibberer, shaking his flail gently and laughing at the sound. Bob, Marius’ marmot chef and erstwhile torturer, stood outside the door to the storehouse, picking feathers from between his teeth.

"I thought you were a vegetarian," Marius drawled.

Bob grinned. "Idiot bird didn’t know that. There’s six of them coming. Rats, squirrels and weasel, led by a huge warrior rat. Well armed. They’ve a cavalier, and a witch of some kind."

"Very well." Marius raised his voice slightly, addressing the rest of the warband. "Don’t get caught in the open. Kill the witch. Eric, please deal with the big one for me, there’s a good chap. We need this village. And we need the inhabitants to owe us. Drive those vermin away..."

After our battle, I shared the following writeup with my friend after rolling for injuries.

Marius looked around at his crew. Battered and bloody, but in good spirits. He didn’t know how Bob was still standing, but the indomitable chef grinned through his wounds, despite a deep gash on his chest. The marmot had faced off against a fox and a rat and come out on top.

His brother and sister had both made it through the fight. The Gibberer was in a bad way and had suffered what looked like a serious wound to his shoulder. Eric was carrying the wounded stoat, flail hanging limp, swinging to and fro. The wildcat was unscathed, but his eyes were hooded. "The big rat was good. Very good. I hurt him, but he got away."

Marius nodded. “We will rest up tonight. But soon after first light I want to be at their camp. We hurt them, but we didn’t take any out…"

Credit @Scir_Waeter

After a few more battles my Goldentongue syndicate grew in power and territory, eventually becoming so strong that they needed new adversaries. I decided to start another warband on the path to taking them out...

The air tasted foul. Over the valley a caul of smoke hung, belching from the smokestacks of the growing settlement. The Goldentongue Syndicate had power now. And beast after beast was being sucked in by their lies. Working in forges. Slaving in the mills. Lungs choked by smoke, pockets stuffed with coin. Brock spat, and turned away. A problem for another day. First, he needed more warriors. Seeds to plant, that would grow, and grow until they choked the smoke lovers and returned their bones to the loam. Today, there was a different cancer in his woods. One more immediate than the townsfolk. Untouched, it would prove just as much threat to the forest. His lodge of root brethren had come across the tracks of rats. Gnaw marks on saplings. Watercourses fouled with the bodies of beasts waylaid and murdered. Campfires left burning, with no heed for the woods. As he strode deeper into the trees, massive paws gripping his staff, his warriors came to him. He spoke, voice like the gentle creaking rumble of an old oak, swaying in the breeze. "Friends. There are rats in these woods. The soil is poor here. Their bodies will make a fine mulch. The forest must rise.”

I hope the story of how the Goldentongue syndicate came to be and how opposition to them began to build inspires you to build your own story within the brilliant world Michael has built. See you in Albion!

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Tags: Narrative Forge | Burrows and Badgers