One of my regular gaming mates, Andy, is a big fan of 2000 AD and Judge Dredd in particular. He put a lot of money into a huge collection of classic Citadel Judge Dredd miniatures that I will likely be painting for him at some stage and has been wanting to game with them for a while. But there's the rub, most Judge Dredd miniatures games aren't brilliant to play. The current Warlord one has its fans, but I really don't like it very much, and as much as I really enjoyed the Mongoose version, it has dated a little and isn't quite what I'm looking for right now. I think one of the big problems any game trying to depict the mean streets of Mega City One has is trying to keep the balance between the Judges being powerful but other gangs being able to keep up on the table, so that's kind of the focus for the moment, hopefully we can look at a full campaign at some point down the track.
To start with, we played the introductory Barko Brothers scenario a couple of times, with only one major change to the core rules and some minor tweaks to other things. The big change, and one we wanted to try out most, was moving the game to alternating activation, rather than I-go-you-go, as is written in the rules. What's interesting about the Mongoose rules is that models get two actions that can be done in any order and duplicate actions are allowed, which feels like it was designed for a game with alternating activation. We also shrank the table down from 4'x4' to 3'x3' and, in the game proper we got to last, introduced a turn limit. I don't like games that drag on too much, especially with this "gang skirmish" style, which feels like the kind of thing you want to run through a few games in night when you can. Taking the newer Necromunda as an example, we went for 5 turns, which seemed about right, but we are considering adding a random game length mechanic at some point.
Anyway, on with the first two games. I'll be more just discussing how things ran rather than giving a proper AAR, because these were experiments, with a lot of discussion and learning of the rules. For those unfamiliar with the game, Judge Dredd provides a learning scenario where one Judge takes on 3 Punks and a Punk hero. The rules are simplified, with none of the Talent, Weapon or Arrest rules that help give the game some character. It's a fun way to learn the game, but can be a little one-sided, with the Punks getting four actions to the Judge's one. Alternating the activation really helped balance things, with my Punks being able to cover each other and draw fire from the Judge, and the Judge's better weapons getting to react to at least one of my moves each turn. We played this scenario twice, with the Judge winning once and the Punks winning the second time thanks to a lucky shotgun blast.
Lessons learnt from the first two games included just how good Cover is in the game (though the rules are simple, which is nice) and how much models need some form of armour. This would also play out in the game proper, but we'll get to that in time. Put briefly, cover grants +3 Agility to a model, which is amazing as most starting models with have at most +2 to Shoot, but also, anything more substantial than a shrub grants +3 Armour. That means a Judge in cover is getting +7 armour saves, so 3+ on a D10. Yeah, Judges in cover is pretty nasty and if they have no reason to break cover, nothing short of heavy weaponry is going to have a chance of doing any damage. Of course, the best way around this is to read the scenarios and make sure the Judges are pushed to move up and break cover occasionally when playing, rather than messing with the rules too much.
The final game of the day involved 'proper' gangs, three Judges (two Street and one Riot) versus my Street Gang armed with whatever I had lying around. As my Punks and Juves were pulled from my play test miniatures for Nocturnal, they mostly had small arms and melee weapons, which would prove to be my downfall. The Riot Judge had a base +7 armour, meaning when he was in cover, I only had 4 weapons that could harm him; I basically spent the entire game throwing my gang at the Riot Judge and only removing one Hit out of three. The Judge's Arrest ability wasn't as powerful as we were expecting (Judges can and have to attempt to arrest enemy models within 15" using an opposed Will roll, unless those models are Robots or Illegal. If successful, the model is removed, if failed, the Judge can open fire at the model). I barely got to use the Talent on my Punk Hero that prevented allies from being arrested.
Lessons learnt from the first proper game were pretty evident from the second turn onward. Things like the Judge's massive stats and armour being a problem will have to be considered as we move on, but I want to avoid messing with the rules as written too much right now. Little additions like Alternating Actions and Turn Limits flow right into the game with no real fuss, but having to annotate the rulebook is something else entirely. It may be a little while before we can get to another game, but I want to try a more heavily armed and armoured gang against the Judges to see how they go, as well as doing a scenario more involved than a straight fight. Until then, keep out of the iso cubes fellow punks!
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