Will brought his Judge Dredd game to the club for a first outing on Sunday. Me, Mitch and Will tried a couple of games with it.
The rule book has 6 scenarios. We played the Street Chase one a couple of times to get the feel of the rules. This involves the Judges busting in upon a collection of gangers and trying to subdue /arrest /take them down. The gangers have to get at least half their number off the table to win, the Judges have to take down at least half the number of gangers to win. If a Judge is taken out a replacement comes on the board next turn so the Judges can keep a constant pressure on the gangers. Mitch and I ran the gangers and Will played the Judges in both games. There are a number of levels of Judge in the rules but they are all invariably more costly in points than most of the ganger types so the gangers will usually have more minis on the board. That being said we got the points mech wrong on the first game so the gangers had more points. It turned out a tough game for the Judges as five of them bit the dust for one ganger down. Will used a standard Judge and rookie Judge in this game.
Next game we got the forces properly balanced. The gangers had some basic types and Juves and there was one veteran Judge. This was a closer game. The Judge took it to the gangers using a repeat move mechanism, took the worst shooting the gangers could put on him and beat up the ganger leader however the leader managed to evade out of the fight leaving the juves to try to prove how big and hard they were (they weren't). In the end a c ouple of lucky dice rolls allowed the gangers to get half their number off the table but the second game had a real Judge Dredd feel to it. I liked the way the expensive but veteran Judge played compared to the standard Judge.
The board/terrain was nice and Will has a big range of really nicely painted minis for it. We had a few hiccups over differences between pinned and stunned but overall the rules/ mechanisms were simple, fast play and fun. Cards/special rules (eg Judges 'I am the law' skill) in the game help give a Dredd quality to it.
It was an enjoyable couple of games, there's a good range of scenarios and there are rules for bystanders etc so scope for very characterful dust ups.
Mitch and Will have the photos from the game and I'm sure will post those up.
I do have to say though that I think Will was taking the game a bit seriously as the picture below shows.
