This week looked like an exciting chance to get some new players to try out our modified version of the Mongoose Judge Dredd Miniatures Game, but real life intervened and it was left to myself, Andy and Sam playing a couple of games with new gang builds again. Oh well, hopefully that changes soon. Both Andy and myself have been busy building and painting more residents of Mega City 1, and digging up some existing models to proxy teams we want to play. For me, I had a Street Gang list I wanted to try out and a Demonic Cabal that was mostly part of one of my Warpath Firefight armies. Sam tried the Judges with a Lawmaster to get a handle (no pun intended) on the bike rules, and Andy got to put his fantastic Ape Gang on the board for the first time.
As promised, Andy has been hard at work on his table, mostly Knights of Dice kits, for more of a Mega City look than the Sci-Fi habs we've been using from the club box.
Andy is keen to populate the streets a little for our games, with some spare models from his collection and other 2000 AD stuff he's working on. We tried some basic AI for the civilians in the first game (Street Gang Vs Judges), but it really didn't work terribly smoothly, so we may try the Mob rules from the Mongoose rules next time.
In an attempt to try something different, my Street Gang is light on members, but most have decent armour, the "Sports Armour" that puts them, in terms of defense at least, on par with the Judges. The trade-off is that I have fewer members and I can't afford the best weapons on the Punks. But hey, I had these broken Blood Bowl figures from work and they turned out great when I gave them guns.
After having seen the stats on the Lawmaster, both in terms of movement (up to 30" a turn) and the fearsome Bike Cannons, Sam wanted to try one out in a game. Thanks to vehicles in other skirmish games like Necromunda and Empire of the Dead, I'm honestly not keen on the idea of adding anything much bigger than a Powerboard or Jetpack to my infantry skirmish game. The rules on how many turns of how much of an angle make the Mongoose rules a bit tricky, but thankfully the bikes move more or less like faster infantry, so after one turn of fiddling about, it worked alright.
Unfortunately, Sam has only been playing against my Renegade Robots so far, who being "Illegal" can be shot at without making an Arrest attempt, so when coming up against a Street Gang, he was on the back foot having to push up the board and not shoot anything. One of my Punks did get arrested, but I found I had the initiative in the firefight, so was able to pick off the Judges with some lucky rolls. Being able to target the Judge and not the bike in Melee was a huge advantage, and I'm not sure that the mobility and heavy weapon were really a good trade-off for another Senior Judge on the table.
The second game was probably the most hilarious we've had so far. My Demonic Cabal was set up to summon their Class II Pact (the big winged guy) in the first or second turn, and then let it do the work, because the Cabalists are pretty rubbish in a straight fight. The Apes are probably the most mobile gang (except possibly Sky Surfers), able to move over vertical surfaces and across gaps without making jump checks.
Facing four fast apes with deadly Spit Guns, I decided to go for broke attempting the summoning ritual with my first turn. At first, I thought that the Ritual may need some serious re-working to function with the alternate activation we've been trialing, but the rules stipulate that a Cabalist must perform at least one Special Action in the same turn and be within 2" of the Grand Warlock to contribute, so it worked fine, really. I can see this being more interactive, with enemies trying to pick off the Cabalists that haven't added to the ritual yet during the turn.
The ritual itself, however, is really wild. You roll 1D10, add the Grand Warlock's Will and Level (+4), minus 2 for attempting a Class II Pact, then roll a D10 for for each Cabalist contributing, with them having a 50/50 chance of adding or subtracting 1 from the roll. There's a few options on the table, but basically you want a 14+ to get your demon and be able to control it yourself. My failed summoning, however, got a Minor Entity that would change sides based on a roll-off at the start of each turn.
What followed was a perfect example of how silly the game can be when it wants to. I managed to win control of the Pact every turn for the rest of the game, making use of the fact it could move 10" and ignore terrain to charge each Ape in turn and pick them off with tooth and claw. Andy hadn't bought armour for his gang, so it was pretty quick work.
I don't really feel that either the Cabal or the Apes got a good play-test this week, as the game just kind of went off the rails. It was really fun, but I'm hoping that both are a little more consistent in a proper campaign, and I'll need to make a Major Pact as it turns out you can accidentally summon that one too. I managed to get my hands on some Mongoose Judges of the World, but I'm not sure what to do with them just yet, so I'll keep plugging away at the Robots and other gangs for now.
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