This is the forth of a series (of 6 at least, 1 starter and the rules to go) reviews of the Brushfire Miniatures Game by On The Lamb Games, and some of the attendant starter sets for it. I am reviewing the starter sets first as I am still acquainting myself with the rulebook and wish to have at least three solid games under my belt before reviewing the rules themselves.
I will be presenting the starters as I un-box them and prepare for assembly/painting and give an accounting of what I perceive to be the good, the bad and the ugly. This is purely subjective and My Opinion Only. I am not connected in any way with On The Lamb Games. This is because of how little I have seen out there about the game.
Brushfire is an Anthropomorphic Alternate History Miniatures Game. Animal People take the place of Humans here. Think Redwall and the Secrets of NIMH rather than Flintloque though.
The The Ribenguo Shogunate: Quickstart Rules, 3d10, Armory Cards, 1 Tanuki Samurai, 3 Otter Ashigaru , 1 Kunoichi. Metal minis, plastic bases. Retail Price: $34.95 USD ($27.99 at TheWarStore)
The Box and Packaging: Clamshell type like an old VHS box. For those of you too young to remember a VHS ask an old grey-haired person. ;) Color artwork on front, color picture of box's assembled miniatures on the back. The picture is not the best and is blurry for over half of the minis and does not present them well. a better shot would have been nicer. The picture from the website is MUCH better. All told, it's solid and more than adequate, with thin foam inside and individually bagged minis and attendant parts.
Kunoichi: 6 Pieces (Body, 2 arms, 2 hands and tail) +40mm base. (A Kunoichi is a female Ninja)
The Good: The hero of this starter is a fox. No, really. She's a Fox.
Nice casting, with minor mold lines, clean nice model. Detail is decent, not overly detailed, but not bad at all either. There is a mounting point for the tail.
The Bad (bordering on Ugly here): There is no ‘peg and hole' here for the arms. Some filing will be needed. The contact area at the shoulder is small and pinning this was not easy (I've been doing this a while and I had issues. I'm talking early Malifaux or Privateer Press fiddly here.)The best bet is to ‘flatten' out the arm at the shoulder joint a bit in order to get a better fit. I also recommend a two-part epoxy for attaching the arms for strength, instead of regular "superglue" though the ‘gap-filler' types may prove a strong enough bond. The hands (holding knives) are small. The contact area is smaller. Yes, this is a warning.
Tanuki Samurai: 10 pieces! (Body, 6 arms! 2 heads and a helmet) + a 40mm base.
The Good: Again, nice casting. Next to no mold lines. A very clean, nice model. Detail is minimal, not overly detailed. There are 2 heads: One wearing a helmet, one without. There is also a helmet included for using as an accessory, say on the base.
I'm going to talk arms here separately as they are both good and bad.
There are three right arms and three left arms provided for the model. Two of the right arms are holding a sword; 1 in the regular upright position, 1 is holding a bigger sword, but it is held ‘point down'. The last right arm is holding an arrow. The arrow is a bit ‘thick' but acceptable.
The three left arms
One is holding a Wakizashi (short sword) and one is open handed.
The problem is with the Bow holding Arm.: The arm itself is decently detailed. The bow
Is not. At all. As in, at first I thought they left the armature on the mini. No grip detail, no detail at the ends for the bowstrings, zip, nil, nada, nope. It's a semi curved piece of round metal that is clipped unevenly at the bottom end.
The Bad: Yet again, there is no peg and hole here for the arms. Contact area to the body is decent and it is fairly obvious in how the arm should be positioned, it's still a bit ‘off' especially on the left arms.
While the bow arm and arrow arm are included there is no quiver for arrows on the mini. A minor detail, but still
Otter Ashigaru: 10 Pieces! Body (2 different types), 5 arms, 3(!) heads, a Pavise, and a 30mm base.
The Good:
A multitude of assembly options, pike, rifle or bow for arms.
One of the bodies is kneeling on one knee, the other two are standing. Detail is nice and crisp, with a heavier amount of extra detailing on the bodies than I have seen before. Nice casting. Next to no mold lines, very clean nice model.
2 heads with helmets and 1 without.
The bows are MUCH better than the Tanuki one. Details here are good except when they aren't (see below about rifle).
The Pavise (think big shield set on the ground kind of like a movable ‘wall' to hide behind) is a very nice touch and can be mounted on a separate small stand so you can ‘set' them up for the Ashigaru to hide behind..
The Bad:
More arm pinning and possible putty issues here. This one is actually better on this due to the areas where the arms mount being flatter.
Still no quivers, and Japanese style quivers are different from Western ones.
The ‘Rifle' is more a long pistol, with no stock and it just doesn't seem big enough or detailed enough.
The Dice: 3d10, nice, clean, numbers contrast marked. They're dice.
The Armory Cards:
The Good: Uhmm
they have the minis' info on them.
The Ugly: This is a recurring issue with this game, yet again.
Why, oh why, didn't the makers drop the dice to save money for some decent cards? I can't even call these ‘inexpensive'. They are cheap. Very thin paper that is laminated on both sides. The cards aren't even cut uniform as even identical cards are miss-sized when compared to each other. I have yet to open a starter set where the cards where uniform. And yet another.
With the preponderance of games using cards for the minis these days there really is no excuse for this. The ONLY saving grace I can come up with is that any markings needed to do on the card with a grease pencil or erasable marker is easily accomplished without needing sleeves, however I really don't see these holding up very well at all. This is the part that makes this product seem amateurish.
Quickstart Rules: 1 Front and Back printed Legal-sized paper. Nice type font that you don't have to squint to see. Pure basic rules of the game. I'll get into the stats of the minis and game play when I review the game itself.
Note: There are Three Resource costs inherent within this game (Food, Lumber and Gold), so purchasing troops or upgrade equipment is a bit different than in other games. The standard equipment seems to come included in the base cost of the mini. I did have a question about upgrading weapons, and I am waiting on reply from owner/forum before I post on that issue and I will follow up on this post when I have the answer.
Heroes don't cost Resources; they have Hero Levels that you and opponent will determine before the battle. If you are having a Level3 Hero game you could have 3xHeroes of Level 1, 1x level 1 and 1xlevel 2 or 1xlevel 3 Hero. You're the one who has to decide what you take. This is a nice feature.
Overall: It's not a big budget production, but the maker is obviously trying hard. The minis look good when finally assembled and awaiting paint. The Troops points cost does come up the 25 before add-ons (though I do wonder if the samurai is under-costed) so back of box was accurate.
On a grading system of: Very Satisfied, Satisfied, Not Satisfied and Gimme me back my money!
I have to count this as Satisfied but frustrating in places. Still not thrilled with the cards or arm assemblies. A newer miniatures player not accustomed to pinning will probably have some issues, especially with the Kunoichi.
Maker Website:
link