Tuesday, 7 January 2025

ByronM - Burrows & Badgers [60 points]

Today's second entry is one that I have been looking forward to for a while.  I happened across this game last year and picked up a bunch of the figures as the game looked like fun and the miniatures even more so!  I mean, which of us didn't grow up reading Wind in the Willows, watching Disney's Robin Hood, or watching way too many Saturday morning cartoons with anthropomorphic animals in them?  Seeing these bits of memory from childhood turned into a wargame fills me with memories and was way too much fun to pass up.

I wanted to paint them up as soon as I got them, but set them aside for the challenge and for new glasses so that I could attempt to do justice to them.  Having got my new glasses mid-December, and having booked holidays from late December through mid January, the time was right to spend way too much time painting these lovely little miniatures, so without further ado here is the first batch of my Burrows & Badgers collection.

This is the first of the base warband sets, which includes Shrew-zerker, a mouse nun, a squirrel archer, a rabbit archer, a barn swallow scout, and an otter pirate as the leader.  Quite an interesting mix of characters which will form the core of my rogue force.


I painted all of these miniatures as one offs, meaning by them selves and not in bulk with others.  This allowed me to focus on each one and give it its own character and look.  As an added bonus because I had such an interest in these figures I spend a bunch of time on each one (thanks to having the last few weeks off since the challenge started) and as a result I am actually really happy with them all, which for me is not very common as I am often my harshest critic.  I am super thrilled with the look of all of these figures and am only disappointed that I can not get around to the terrain that I printed up to go with them while the challenge is on, due to Curt dropping terrain from the challenge this year :-(  Oh well, I will get it done once the challenge is over.

This is the second of the base warband sets which includes 2 mouse (mice?) knights, a squirrel caster, a serpent caster, a weasel archer, and a rabbit knight.  These will form the core of my Royalist faction.



To not bore anyone with pictures of each figure separately, here are just a few of the ones that I really like how they came out.  First is the squirrel witch, and I think her red brown colouration really looks good against her green forest cloak.

Next up is the ferret crossbowman, which reminds me of the archers in the Disney Robin Hood cartoon. I know they were not ferrets in there, I think they were wolves or something, but it still makes me think of the show and I think he would fit right in there.


Technically, this one is supposed to be a sparrow, but while looking up picture of birds to go from for colours I saw a picture of a barn swallow and liked the blue and tan colouration so decided to go with that instead.  In person the blue really pops and makes the model stand out.


I still have about a dozen more models to paint up for this game, but will probably do them piece meal over the challenge, but I promise to put them all together for one big group shot at the end.  At some point I will need to go back and add some more basing elements to the rouge faction models as I 3d printed the ferns and plants for the loyalist models a while back and have since misplaced the files for them, so could not print up more.  That will be rectified shortly.

Overall there are 12 models here, but the shrew-zerker was submitted earlier in another post so only 11 count towards my points here, so 55 points (unless some of the bigger ones class as a different scale as they are quite big on 40mm bases).

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WoW! Those are wonderful sculpts and you've done them beautifully Byron! 
Looking forward to more submissions like this and the big group shot in the end

Take a few bonus points for the bigger models, and because I love Wind in the Willows too :-)

- Paul



23 comments:

  1. Wonderful work on some very interesting figures.

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  2. Nice painting job, nice memories!

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    1. Thanks Dan, it's funny how as you get older you get more and more fond of memories from when we were kids, isn't it? maybe just me.

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  3. I remember showing my daughter those models in the hopes she might like to paint some. I wasn’t successful, but it was worth a try! Great work on these!

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    1. Good luck on getting her painting something! It may happen eventually. Only took my son Quinn to age 24 to start painting....

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  4. Great Brushwork Byron

    Cheers
    Matt

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  5. Great stuff, Byron! Focusing on each model separately with new glasses does great justice on the models. And the minis and the game sounds interesting, too. I hope you have a good time with them!

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    1. Thanks Teemu, yeah they were a lot of fun to paint. I was a little worried I wouldnt do them justice, but with my new glasses and way too much time per model, it all worked out.

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  6. Lovely brushwork and figs - reminds me I must paint up a batch of tales from the riverbank figs!

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  7. Awesome painting,lovely work all round, weren't the archers in Disneys Robin Hood vultures? I may well be misremembering, seems to happen a lot!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain! I think you might be right, I remember rinos as guards, and I thought wolves as something else, but hearing you say vultures, I think you are correct.

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  8. These are lovely figures and you’ve done a grand job on them. I saw the range in the flesh a few months ago for the first time and they really are quite chunky and well designed.

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    1. Thanks Jamie, you are correct they are very chunky. It works well for them though, and allows the size to vary dramatically between the small creatures and the large. Wait for the Badger, she is huge!

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  9. Wonderful Redwallesque figures Byron. I am disappointed that you didn’t claim a squirrel point for this post!

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    1. Thanks Peter, Red Wall is one I never read, I think it came out too late for my boys when they were young (or maybe we just missed it). I have heard of it and it's likely they took inspiration from that series as well for this.

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  10. Tremendous brushwork Byron!

    And I'm pretty sure armed squirrels are from the nightmares of my dogs...

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    1. Thanks Greg, coming from you thats a big compliment!

      As for armed squirrels, yeah the dogs would be in trouble!!! Armed mice would be more of an issue for Kaiser (my dog) though as he does a good job clearing the yard of them, the squirrels are too quick getting up the trees for him.

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  11. These are amazing Byron. I've seen some these talked about on the PCP and I've managed to hold off so far. Yours are superb and I really enjoyed the crossbowman hound. Cheers.

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  12. Terrific painting Byron. You've bought the figures to life, I just loved Disney's Robin Hood when I was a kid........and still do!

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  13. Very nice work all round, Byron! All lovely models, but that (barn) sparrow magician is my favourite

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  14. What a lovely submission Byron -- really good treatmeng of some wonderful figures and good choice or colour/species! Especially the spwallow!

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  15. Fabulous work Byron. Such great models. I love the crossbowman.

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  16. Awesome brushwork! The face of the rabbit knight is just perfect. Made me think of Redwall immediately, my kids devoured that series.

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