Adventures in Burrows & Badgers

I picked up the lovely Stoatbart haulage set for Burrows and Badgers as soon as it was available on the Oathsworn webstore straight after Salute 2019.

I’m a sucker for a bundled scenario and this one looks a lot of fun. The set consists of three stoats in two positions; riding or pulling the wagon and free-standing.

In the scenario they can come away or return to the wagon as the defending player chooses so there’s a certain amount of care needed in ensuring the models have matching paint schemes.

Since they’re a haulage company it’s also a nice way to give them matching clothes and cloaks as if they’re in uniform.

Because it amuses me I’ve decided to paint them up as “white van stoats” with customary warning chevrons and dirt covering. If I can make it look OK I’ll do them a crumpled pile of parking fines in the passenger footwell too.

One of the things I like about Burrows & Badgers is that a little bit of anachronism is amusing and helps keep a light-hearted feel. Maybe I’m just chanelling my inner Pratchett but it feels right.

For the uniforms I just picked up some vallejo turqouise that I wanted to try out. I’m not sure if I’ve mixed it well enough, it has a bit of a weird waxy looking finish that I’m not crazy about, but it seems OK otherwise.

I used all my powers of colour theory and just looked at a colour wheel and found the complement for that turqoise which is a red-orange apparently.

Armed with my two main colours the Stoatbart uniform is a lovely turqouise hood and cloak with a red-orange tunic.

Pic above is WIP and I want to bring the red up to the orange with a bit of Squig Orange.

Fur-wise they’ll be as close as I can get to the natural british stoat colouring; lightish brown fur, black nose and tip of the tail with a white underside.

Now I have made my life a bit difficult because I prep my bases before priming, which means I had to decide whether to glue the towing stoats (who share a base) together before I painted them. The usual issue here is that you end up with weird unpainted bits on the inside that you don’t notice for ages then drive you crazy. I decided to stick with the established method so I didn’t have to try and brush on a primer to the base after the fact – I use the grit to mask the integrated base as well as I can.

I’m just taking my time and doing a bit of long-distance brushwork to see if I can at least hide my crimes a bit, but we’ll see how they turn out.

I’m hoping to finish up the figures tonight so we’ll see how they turn out! I’m looking forward to playing the scenario with my wife (I think I’ll be the defender, I need the numerical superiority over that damned wildcat!)