One Night in Mega City One - Judge Dredd Campaign Day

Today was the third tournament I've attended at Mongoose for their Judge Dredd miniatures game, for that matter it was only the third that they've run (I intend to keep up my perfect attendance record if at all possible).

All 3 events have run with different rules, and I have to admit that I'm not 100% sure that this one works as a tournament format. Basically it was a competitive campaign, we played using all the rules from the basic campaign from the rulebook which meant tracking experience points, hero levels, injuries and income and all the other faff that comes with the campaign rules. At the end of the event, the force with the highest total value is the winner regardless of the number of individual games won.

Don't get me wrong, I love the JDMG campaign rules (after all, I'm running a campaign at the moment that shows no sign of stopping any time soon). But it's all a bit much in a time-limited format like a tournament. Plus things can all get a bit unbalanced and silly if you're not careful (which we weren't). That's not to say I didn't have fun today (I did, a lot of it), but I think the other events Mongoose have run worked better.

Anyway, enough of that. Back to the report.

I arrived at the event this morning with 2 force lists and all the models for both, still completely as to which I was using. One coin-flip later (literally) I had my answer, a Zombie Horde consisting of one zombie mistress with long rifle (to keep the enemy at a safe distance) plus 21 reanimated cadavers. This was compared to the other forces that had between 3 to 7 models each, so it was always going to be an interesting choice. I knew this was an option that may or may not work, either I'd be able to buy so many zombies that I could swarm anyone, or the other forces heroes would increase in level so far that I wouldn't be able to touch them. Time would tell...

We had a total of 6 players turn up, possibly due to the fact that Mongoose only started advertising the event 3 weeks ago. With 7 rounds in the event some duplicate match-ups were guaranteed, but Matt assured us he'd keep it to a minimum.

Round 1 was against Trish and her Ape Gang, playing the Scrawl War scenario (zombies spray-painting downtown buildings, whatever next?). She had 2 orang-utan snipers, a couple of chimps and a couple of gorillas - one with club and one with a double-barelled stump gun (the perfect zombie-shredding gun). I wasn't sure how this would go, but I worried less after my zombie mistress fatally out-sniped one of the orang-utans (Trish's gang leader) with the first dice-roll of the game. Trish had some terrible dice luck and didn't manage to take out any of my zombies as they swarmed over her apes. An easy win in the end, and enough credits earned to add 10 more zombies to my force.

One of Trish's gorillas, just before he tried to flee the zombies.
He failed.

Game 2 was against Richard, playing as Mega City One Judges. This was the Demolition scenario, and I was attacking which meant that my zombies had to attach explosive charges to a target vehicle in the centre of the board while Rich's judges tried to stop them. Rich gave a good accounting of himself, the judges' high-ex ammunition proving to be predictably excellent for taking down zombies. In the end though, I had too many models for him to stop and the target was history. This time I'd taken a lot of casualties that needed replacement, net result was that I still ended the game with 4 more zombies than I started with.

The zombies swarm towards the objective as Rich's riot judge tries to stop them.

Game 3 was against Carl's Sov Judges and was the Demolition scenario again. This time the terrain was much more open and Carl did a lot of damage to my zombies before they once again swarmed over the objective and destroyed it. The zombie mistress sniped out another model but that was the only casualty I caused this game. Another win, but casualties taken meant that I had a net gain of 7 zombies, taking my total to 42. My force was winning games, but expanding too slowly compared to the way some of the others were advancing.

Carl's Sov Judges lay down covering fire on the objective...

...as the zombies advance.

Brit-Cit's finest fail to hold the line.

Game 4, after lunch, was against Andrew's Brit-Cit judges. Three judge players, all using forces from different cities. This was a straightforward Street Rumble, last man standing wins, and was back on the same table as my first game against Trish with all that lovely cover to shield my advance. The judges dropped a handful of zombies as they shambled forwards, then got dragged under by superior numbers. Slightly more successful, I added 10 more zombies to the force overall.

In game 5 I found myself facing Rich's judges again, this time in a Heist scenario that required me to stop them from fleeing the table with a number of recovered artifacts. Rich's force had expanded since out first game, and got a lot more dangerous. They were able to shrug off most of my attacks as the majority were able to flee the table with the loot. My first game loss, but I did earn a lot of credits and expanded my force by another 8 zombies, plus I picked up a Pyrokinetic mutant who'd fought for me as a mercenary this game and added her to the force as a loyal follower.

Game 6, I was facing off against Andy's Citi-Def. This was another Street Rumble, against a force with a missile launcher and lots of spit guns and back on the wide-open scenery. Familiar situation  for me by now, lots of early game casualties before dragging down the enemy under weight of numbers. Another 12 zombies added overall this game, taking my total to 72.

The final game, I was back against Carl's Sov Judges, on the table where he'd caused so many casualties the first time out. It was another Demolition, but this time I was defending and Carl's troops had the explosive charges. But Carl had no interest in going for the objective, he was contesting the lead of the event and just wanted to pick up lots of experience and boost his heroes as much as possible. He spent the game retreating from my zombies, firing as he went, in a very tactical display that worked perfectly for him. We ran out of time just as I managed to corner him. Technically I won the scenario, since Carl never even approached the objective, but he did pick up loads of experience.

In the end, I won 6 out of my 7 games but my final force rating was only high enough to secure 4th place overall. Carl won, thanks to the experience he picked up from our final game.

7 highly enjoyable games, against some great opponents, but I can't help feeling that this way of running an event leads to some odd situations where losing a game can be much more beneficial than winning. If the next event runs the same way, I'll have to alter my way of thinking.

On a final note, I wound up with 78 zombies in my force after 7 games (plus my 2 heroes). This led Matt to comment that the zombies need some kind of "big option" for a bit more choice. A zombie T-Rex (from the Cursed Earth) was suggested, so there's that to look forward to. :-)

Judge Dredd - Kind of a Reboot

Tonight marked our first campaign games using the new edition of the Judge Dredd miniatures game. We'd made the decision to continue running our existing forces from the original campaign, which has given rise to a few inconsistencies (robodogs now have completely different stats, some mercenaries aren't even an option any more) but nothing we couldn't figure out.

In preparation for this, I painted up a few new models for the Judgement League. This was to take advantage of the fact that it's now possible for me to actually spend some of the credits my force has been accumulating so far, and takes the full force up to 8 models with a scarily high total value.

L-R : Outlaw, Captain Metropolis, Wreckage and Bluestreak.
The new additions to the Judgement League.

As it happens, I'm also running an Ape gang in the campaign. These are a newer force with less experience, specifically so that I have something to fight opponents with smaller forces. We have a new player, Dale, with a zombie force that's only played a couple of games so this seemed like a good idea. So guess which force I wound up using tonight? Put it this way, the new models didn't see the tabletop.

My first game was against Dan, who's been using robots since the start of the campaign but has just started a new force (robots again) so that he can rebuild using the new game rules from the start. This was a fun game, although I had the lion's share of the luck this time out. High point of the game was when Doris, one of my gorillas, blasted Dan's mercenary executioner droid out of the sky with a double-barreled stump gun then laid out his demolition droid two seconds later. In the end, Dan's one remaining droid ran away while I only lost a single chimp.

The new game rules worked really well. I've found myself taking a completely different route with regard to talents as the force advances, which I guess shows that the changes have added some viable new options.

Second game was against Adrian's cursed earth desperadoes, another new force and one that he's really gone to town on with some of the conversions (although I suspect he may tire of me referring to one of his lovingly converted mutants as "fish boy"). This was considerably closer than the first game. Ady's Klegg mercenary took out one of my gorillas before I could return the favour and his robodogs swarmed another. In the end though, the fact that my apes were higher level with better stats meant that I made the most of the long range gunfight and got another victory under my belt.

Incidentally, the other game going on was Chief Judge Cal (under the control of Andy) vs Dale's zombie horde. Since Dale was so badly outnumbered we allowed him to take zombies as mercenaries (not normally allowed) and so he was fielding a total of 86 zombies plus a few other, random models. He still lost, and there were many, many casualties. But the game scaled up to that size of battle really easily, which speaks volumes in and of itself.

So yeah, new rules are a big improvement over the previous version (which I was already a huge fan of). Looking forward to next month's campaign games, maybe next time I can unleash the League.