Drokk the Law! - Part II

Finally had a chance to squeeze in some more games of Judge Dredd. To catch people up, my club mate Andy and I are modifying the Mongoose Judge Dredd Miniatures Game rules from the 2000s to try and play some fun games in Mega City 1 and maybe even the Cursed Earth. Having gotten the basic adaptations down last time (alternating activation and dropping the table size), it was time to play around with some gangs and scenarios.

Now, I've always wanted to run Renegade Robots in the Meg, so that was my first choice for these games. They're a little more elite in the armour and toughness department, but expensive and Judges don't need to make arrest attempts, so they can be a little fragile if you take too many risks. Sam fielded a team of Judges (Street, Psi and two Cadets) for his learning game and we had a little Street Brawl; not tactically deep, but plenty of gunplay and trying out the different Actions fighters can make. This was the first game where Charge and Melee actions became relevant, as both my Demolition Droid Hero and Robodog were close combat only.

On this table (belonging to my club), cover was again king, with basically everything providing +3 Agility and +3 Armour. With decent weapons however, this doesn't slow the game too much, as damage is resolved with saving throws, and a natural 1 is always a fail. My opponent Sam tends to hug cover even when he should push up however, so the game played out with my Robots closing in and picking off Judges one at a time. Turns out most longarms in the game outstrip the Judges Lawgivers for range, enabling other gangs to keep the law at arm's reach if they play clever and stick to cover. I'm going to have to put together (or maybe proxy) a Judge team myself to try them out and get to grips with the strategy.

Second game saw my Robots take on Andy's Street Gang, which I painted most of, as it happens. We settled on a Scrawl War, where the gangs compete to graffiti places on the battlefield; it's exactly my kind of mission, with motivated movement, objectives and some good tactical choices.

The Scrawl points were all along the centre line of buildings, so both sides rushed up out of heavy cover on the first turn, perfect. In the first game, my Robots were the tougher team, but weren't as well armed as the Judges, so I had durability, but outside of my Hero, was pretty much on-par weapon-wise with the Street Gang. In fact, the Street Gang (I started calling them the "Bryan Ansell Blockers") had a Heavy Machine Gun which would prove pretty dangerous, even to my heavily-armoured Demolition Droid.

The game was pretty fun and even, with the Street Gang getting ahead on the scrawling early, but being pretty easy for the Robots to take down. Two issues arose during the game which we have to address now in our slight tweaking; Alert Status and Will to Fight. Alert Status enables a model to react to an enemy model that finishes an activation within 10". The rule isn't terribly clear, but it functions a little like Overwatch from the classic Necromunda as far as we can tell. To go on Alert Status, a model must sacrifice both its actions to potentially make one action later, meaning only certain weapons and Psi powers can be used in response. Will to Fight is the "Bottle Roll" of the game, made when a Minion sees a Hero taken out or when only 25% of a Gang remains on the table. I think this one will need some modification to be made every turn, in addition to when the conditions are met.

Turn limits are something we really need to lock down, as in this second game, Andy would have clearly won if it didn't drag out too many turns and fizzle into a draw. The current GW model of 5 or 6 feels a little short, so maybe we'll try 8 as we play through some other missions in the book and try out new teams. For our next few games, Andy wants to get his Fatties on the table, while I'm going to try Zombies and Badlands Desperadoes, but also have a go at Judges myself and try a better build for Street Gangs.

I also finished my first Renegade Robot while writing this article, so meet "Haro-2 Goodbye", Renegade Robot hero. More to come as we take this journey through Mega City One.