Drokk the Law!! - Part XVII

Game day with Andy rolled around again, and we got another three quick games in. We actually could have managed another one or two games in all likelihood, but Andy was feeling poorly after a flu shot, so we were lucky to get to play at all. As I recently picked up some Warlord Kleggs, I rushed to get them done for the day, and I have to say, for Contrast Paints and a little overbrushing, they look pretty damn good. 

Now, when Andy and I started playing the Mongoose Judge Dredd Miniatures Game, we said that we would stay away from Gangs that were built around characters, like The Angel Gang, or Chief Judge Kal's Retinue, which is where the Klegg rules lay. After looking these rules over though, there was the option to have a Klegg hero, so the list can be used as the basis for a Klegg gang. A little discussion with Andy and we decided to give them a try. With only 3 Kleggs in my collection and no Klegg Hounds as of yet, it's a pretty limited gang, but it is somewhere to start with yet another gang. I'll have to amend the Mercenary list in my next one of these. 

We put together a fairly basic setup with Andy's buildings and some of my vehicles for cover. I do have some Dredd terrain in the works, but it'll be a while before it's really table-ready. Until then, this table works alright so long as both Andy and I play reasonably fair, as a heavy weapon in one of the buildings can quickly dominate the table, as we'll find out in the second game for the day. 

For the first game, my Kleggs had to break through a blockade set up by Andy's Sky Surfers and escape. With such a stark difference between our gangs, Andy had a speed advantage but the Surfers are far more fragile, any hit from a Klegg would be lethal, selecting the right mission is paramount to having a fun game. Neither Andy nor I are super competitive when it comes to JDMG, though I do tend to win more games as I'm a tad more aggressive, but it is never really fun to start a game that one has no hope of winning. 

As regular readers will know, one of the changes we've made to JDMG is shrinking the table down to 3x3', which has mostly been good, but we also haven't tried everything in the rulebook yet. Turns out the Power Boards used by Sky Surfers can move most of the length of the table and back in a single turn, which wasn't a problem for this mission, but could be pretty brutal for others. My Kleggs pushed up the centre of the table, taking what cover they could, but the simple fact was, the surfers could get a line on me no matter where I was thanks to their huge movement. The Kleggs had to rely on their general toughness and heavy armour to stay alive. 

My return fire, basically machine guns on both models, was almost always deadly when it hit the unarmoured Surfers, so for me, it was a matter of time before I drove the surfers off. Admittedly, Andy wasn't rolling the best, but he still only managed to take half the Hits off my leader and the other Klegg was untouched. Part of the issue was the small amount of gear Sky Surfers can carry, meaning most high-damage options are eschewed. They're just not very killy, at the end of the day, which is a problem in a miniature wargame. 

After a few turns, I drove the Surfers off and it was fun, we even got a close combat to see how brutal the Kleggs can be up-close. From this game we suspected that maybe the Sky Surfers needed some tweaks to the rules, but that would get solidified with another game later in the day, so I'll discuss it below. 

Game two was a more straightforward punch-up between our two Street Gangs, with my Miameg Porpoises being outnumbered and outgunned by the Brian Ansell Blockers, but I was relying on my heavy Sports Armour to keep me safe as I picked off the enemy. 

So an issue with our current terrain set (belonging mostly to Andy) is that the big buildings are great sniper spots and the roads are too open to cover the distance most of the time. In the first two turns of this game, the only important interactions where mine and Andy's heavy weapons blasting across the street between two buildings until I came out on top. Whilst, as you'll see below, it didn't win me the game, I would like to not have this be the case when we play. Hopefully, with some stuff that I'm working on, we'll have a better terrain density and reduce the lines of sight somewhat. 

After the heavy weapon shoot-out, this was a really fun game, with both gangs pushing to occupy the centre of the table. I do try and build my gangs with an eventual campaign in mind, meaning some of the Porpoises are really under equipped and I have to get pretty close to do much damage. I have one Punk with just a hammer and he and my leader with chainsaw crept up through cover to get to Any's pistol toting Punks. 

I got my bloody close combat against a Punk and things were looking up for me, but a lucky shot from Manimal's spit gun took out my Leader and my entire gang's morale collapsed within a turn after that. This is JDMG at its strongest and why I really hope to get a campaign running someday, as my team decided that seeing their leader shot down was enough and called it a day, turning Andy's probable defeat into a victory. That makes for a fun game and drives narrative for campaigns nicely. 

Final game of the day saw Andy's Sky Surfers return against my Lone Vigilante, Bubba Feet. This turned out to be another great match-up as Bubba's jet pack gave him a decent amount of movement to keep up somewhat with the powerboards. 

It was in this game that the Surfers really showed how they don't quite work with the rules as written. I'll expand on this in a future article, but the Surfers move like infantry that can just ignore terrain, which makes sense, but makes them play like Jump Pack infantry rather than guys on flying surfboards. Shooting and charging them is pretty normal, but they can't fight melee at all unless charged and have to take a whole action to shoot. Being able to turn 360 degrees at any time during movement also makes them not quite "feel" right when being played. As much as we don't enjoy re-writing the rules or adding complexity where it's not needed, we have been going back and forth on email over how to get the Powerboards closer to how we want them to run, so keep an eye out for that getting worked out here as we move forward. 

In better news, this was Bubba's first win in a game, thanks again to the Surfers not being able to pack high damage or AP weapons. Also a first, the Concussion Grenades, wielded by the Surfers, came into the fore. When successful, the Concussion Grenades rob targets of Actions, which can really shut down more elite teams and models. We'll be experimenting with this as we build new gangs, and I can see the right combination being pretty nasty. Until the next game session rolls around though, I'm back to painting and should even have some terrain happening soon. 

Drokk the Law!! - Part XIV

The quarterly game with Andy rolled around last weekend, and whilst I didn't quite get the painting done I wanted, it didn't really matter, as playing fun games with a friend is much more important that what is and isn't painted to my usual standard. It still bugs me though. We got two games in, Scrawl War and Demolition, and whilst I did win both, it was usually pretty close and both games had a good narrative flow. 

Andy's terrain on my new mat, plus some NWA club stuff for low-level cover. I'm not a huge fan of how "bitsy" it looks currently, especially when compared to my Necromunda, SuperSystem or Nocturnal tables, but hopefully it comes together in leaps and bounds if we're only playing every few months. I'm also hoping that next time Brutal Cities is doing a print run, I'm doing better work-wise and can justify a bundle. 

The first game saw Andy's Brian Ansell Blockers (Street Gang) versus my Yakuza (Mobsters) in a Scrawl War, a scenario where gangs have to spray tags on certain places. It's a fun and objective-based mission that requires movement and cleverly punishes just rolling over your opponent with gunfire. I won't transcribe the entire mission here, but basically there's four Scawls and whoever controls the most at the end of the game wins. So even a gang that runs off due to casualties can win if they got more Scawls done. 

I was up against it from the start, as Andy's Blockers had a Heavy Spit Gun (basically a LMG) and more long-range firepower than my Yakuza, who are more built for close and medium range fights. My gang pushed up through cover as best as possible, but my Blitzer went down the second he poked a toe out, and I didn't do a lot with return fire. Andy had two Scawls before I could get my gang into position to take even one.

The game turned around for me when I actually gave up and did something silly. My gang leader is armed only with a Katana, and often doesn't get to do a lot, so when I had nothing left to use, he broke cover to slice an enemy Scrawler in half. Andy loves a good scrap, so his leader leapt out of a window to clash blades with mine, but my rolling won out and I claimed my second scalp for the game. Of course, his spree was ended on the next turn by the Heavy Spit Gun, but it was a fun run while it lasted.

Emboldened, I pushed forward with my remaining gangers, taking out the Heavy Spit gun with a lucky shot throw the window with a pistol, so that my Punk could run out on the balcony for the last unclaimed Scawl. At this point, Andy was down to one model, and would have won if he had failed a Will To Fight (morale) roll, but the stubborn bastard just stuck it out, enabling the Yakuza to convert a third Scawl for the win. 

Game two was Demolition, with the City-Def trying to prevent known robot terrorists, Blood in the Machine, from destroying a statue. In order to complete the mission, the robots have to perform a total of 8 Special Actions in contact with the statue, which can be done by any number of models across different turns. Though they're outnumbered and out-gunned, all the City-Def have to do is drive the Robots off to win. 

My initial plan was to have Vendi and Call-Me-Kermit cover Haro2-Goodbye while he completed the mission, relying on his armour and 7 Hits to get the job done as fast as possible. However, I underestimated the City-Def's spit guns and trigger-happy tendencies, and Haro2 was low on Hits after just two lucky shots. 

In order to get the City-Def out of cover, I sent Haro2 straight across the plaza and into melee, where he's pretty much unstoppable, and picked off any City-Def he could get his claws on. Meanwhile, the other Robots converged on the objective, alternating between laying down covering fire and planting the bombs. With three robots on the statue, I won pretty quick, especially with Haro2 taking down all but one of the City-Def members.

This gaming day was mostly about just catching up and seeing where projects were at, next time we'll put in a little more planning and try a few new things, maybe even do the campaign stuff. I have a few more models on the painting table for Dredd, so expect to see another one of these before too long.

Drokk the Law!! - Part XI

Mega City 1 action kicked off again, with an actual variety of gangs, believe it or not! This was kind of a last-minute game night, but I had a little time to prepare, so I decided to get some gangs together other than my Renegade Robots and Lone Vigilante, so as to at least get some different images. This does mean that most of my teams aren't finished, so the pictures aren't as nice this time out, sorry.

Using the club table once again, which is good to play on, but doesn't quite look right for the Megs, maybe it's a settlement in the Cursed Earth. As I was playing my Demonic Cabal and Andy was using his City-Def Squad, we decided on the "Getting Whacked" mission, where the attacker (Andy) has to kill my Grand Warlock to win. As the Grand Warlock is the only member of the Cabal who can summon the Demonic Entities which do the actual killing for the gang.

Naturally, I clustered my gang together so they could just do the ritual as easily as possible. Now that I've had a good look at the table (which runs 0-14), it looks a lot better to play than I first thought. To summon an entity, the player rolls a D10 and adds the Grand Warlock's Will and Level (a combined score of 4 for me), minus a little if the pact is Class II or III. To this, each Cultist within 2" can take a Special Action to contribute to the Ritual, adding +1 for each 4+ rolled on a D10, or -1 if below that. Each time I rolled for the Cultists, I ended with a 50/50 split, so it really came down to good rolls for the Grand Warlock.

Andy broke out some classic GW models to run his City-Def, a team with elite equipment but mediocre stats. I played them once myself ages ago and seem to remember being able to field more than four models, so I may have to take a look again sometime.

The first turn involved the City-Def moving up through the town and the Cabal attempting to summon their Class II Pact. A bad roll meant nothing happened in the first turn, but a natural 10 in the second turn resulted in a nasty winged demon turning up and basically immediately swinging the game in my favour.

I spread out the cultists and started popping off shots to keep the City-Def heads down, but really the Class II Pact did all the work for the rest of the game, killing one enemy model per turn and there was little Andy could do to compete. Whilst the Pact is pretty deadly, it doesn't have much in the way of armour, so theoretically, a high number of shots should bring it down through sheer weight of fire. I'm thinking that another gang might have more luck in dealing with the Pact, especially if they can counter the mobility. I'll paint up my Cabal and try and get more games in to test.

The second game saw Andrew (not Andy, different guy) use my Mobsters to take on Sam's Apes in a Scrawl War. I haven't had much luck with my Mobsters, though they should be fairly strong, as the majority of the gang are Heroes, with only a Blitzer and Punk for henchmen. To make up for lower numbers, my Leader can bring a 100 credit (or less) Mercenary to each game. This time, I borrowed one of Andy's models to have a Jimp, a Judge Impersonator. The Jimp can perform an Arrest Action, but has worse stats and gear than a true Judge, so is useful but not game-winning.

With the objective based mission, Andrew was at a distinct advantage, even with a gang that was less effective on-paper. Andrew plays a lot of competitive games, so has learnt to go for the win over the kill, something that, as we've discussed before, Sam struggles with. The Ape's mobility and range advantage is easy to offset once they stop actually moving, and the option to make two Shoot actions in a turn is often too tempting for inexperienced players, so more shots replace the (typically) better Move/Shoot option. Staying still became a liability for the Apes when the Blitzer got into combat and made short work of everything in reach. I'll have to find some more Cyberpunk Yakuza to round the gang out, because I do want to try them more now, seeing how they worked for Andrew.