An Interview with Oathsworn Miniatures

UK Games Expo is a great opportunity to meet the people behind your favourite games and model ranges, as well as to expand your horizons by finding companies you never knew existed and sampling their wares. This, of course, is not without risk to your wallet, but it's a risk worth taking.

This year, in addition to picking up a Kickstarter order, I thought I'd be a bit cheeky and see if Michael and Jo from Oathsworn Miniatures would be able to make a bit of time for an interview. To my surprise - and delight - they were happy to do so, so I caught up with them on Sunday afternoon, where the hope was that things would've died down a little. Compared to the Saturday it had, but that's not saying much...

If you aren't aware of who I'm talking about, Michael and Jo Lovejoy are the husband and wife team behind Oathsworn Miniatures, a UK-based miniatures company which produces the Burrows & Badgers game, alongside the Heroines in Sensible Shoes range of roleplaying game miniatures. I've spoken to them at events before, but this is the first time doing so as a "formal" interview.

Quick note - while I'm sure some of you would prefer to hear the recorded audio, there is that much background noise from the Expo that it isn't really suitable. However, what follows is the best transcription I could manage. Enjoy...

Burrows & Badgers - Rulebook

When talking to a gaming group about a new game, it can sometimes be really hard to find the "elevator pitch" - that sound-bite which immediately gives them a mental image of what it will be about, and ideally a little idea of how it'll play. This is not a problem with Burrows & Badgers, published by Osprey Games as a new edition of the rules created by Oathsworn Miniatures. Now in a full-colour hardback, describing the game to people as "Redwall: The Skirmish Game" instantly gets the concept across¹ - and that's before they've even seen the miniatures.

If you've read my posts before² - or watched my stream on Twitch - you'll know that I'm a big fan of the miniature line which accompanies the Burrows & Badgers game, but I hadn't really gotten around to reading the rules or playing it. However, earlier this year I committed to attending a Burrows & Badgers tournament at the end of June - and then I heard that the Osprey version of the rules, which I'd heard rumblings about for a while, would be out in time for Salute.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to get a pre-order in place, and the fruits of that arrived this week - especially impressive given that I imagine Michael and Jo are still recovering from Salute, yet managed to get my order posted out on the Monday following it. So, without further ado, let's take a look at what came through, shall we?

Unboxing: Oathsworn Miniatures: Burrows & Badgers - New Blood

I was aware that Kickstarter campaigns could run for varying lengths of time, but it wasn't until Boxing Day that I realised that a really short campaign could do surprisingly well.

Why Boxing Day? Well, that was when Oathsworn Miniatures ran their New Blood Kickstarter for their Burrows & Badgers line - and ran it for just 24 hours.

The combination of the two things struck me as a bit odd - you'd expect potential customers to be busy on Boxing Day with family affairs, while most Kickstarter campaigns rely on the first and last 2 or 3 days to raise the bulk of their funds. Stripping a campaign down to 24 hours, especially on Boxing Day, felt like it should've been a disaster.

Instead, the micro-campaign was a roaring success, funding in less than 20 minutes and eventually raising nearly nine times the initial funding goal from over 300 backers. I'm still not sure exactly how they did it, but I recently received the fruits of the campaign, so I reckon it is time to take a look...

Oathsworn Miniatures: Burrows & Badgers - Figures

It is often surprising the new ranges and companies you find at shows - even if they've been around for a while, they can still be new to you. I'd vaguely heard of Oathsworn Miniatures before I attended UK Games Expo in 2016, due to their Heroines in Sensible Shoes Kickstarter campaign, though it hadn't grabbed my attention enough to back it myself.

While I was at the Expo, though, I came across a cabinet of painted figures on their stand, and realised by the end of the weekend that I needed to own some of them. These weren't the Heroines, but rather the Burrows and Badgers range. For someone who grew up reading the Redwall series, these were a firm kick in the nostalgia.

Burrows and Badgers figures at UK Games Expo 2016