Kickstarter Watch - Across the Dead Earth

Neil's just published an interview with Richard Chappell, creator of Across the Dead Earth, which has a Kickstarter live at the moment.

I have to say, from a skim of the KS page, it looks rather sweet. It is another 'RPG-lite' gang-based game, which do seem to be all the rage at present, but the figures do also look eminently nickable :D for (say) Judge Dredd mutants, Deadzone Rebs, etc.

And it's already passed its funding target! It gets points, too, for having decent pledge levels that aren't going to break the bank.

For Judge Dredd fans

Mongoose (and one assumes Warlord) have just announced the Judge Dredd Starter Set!

This is pretty awesome if you want to get started in the game, by the looks. For £75.00 (or whatever that is in Mega City One creds, you lucky citizen!), you get:

• 240 page Full Colour Hardback Rulebook
• A complete Justice Department Force
• A complete Street Gang Force
• The Academy of Law Training Guide
• Limited Edition Female Street Punk Leader
• Limited Edition Street Judge with Lawrod

Not a bad deal, given the hardback rulebook is £30, and the box sets of figures tend to be £30 too!

[Adjusting to life with two eyes that actually focus :D May take a day or so before I can spend my usual amount of time on a computer.]

Friday news roundup

This may become a habit: we'll see.

• If you enjoyed the Meeples and Miniatures review of the game with myself and Mike Hobbs, you need to know that Mongoose have put up some previews of the new Judge Dredd rulebook. It'll still be available for download but if, like me, you like having a physical copy to play out of, this is the one to have. It's due out Oct 18th.

• Plastic Soldier Company are having a 30% off sale on all 15mm vehicle box sets from now through to midnight on Sunday 22nd. Must... resist...

• Upgrading to iOS7 as we speak. I wasn't going to, but one of the family members for whom I do Tech Support has been seduced by the siren call of the magic words 'Update Available', and now can't find anything... Argh!

• Just finished undercoating all my Home Guard. For anyone else interested, Pat has just put up final draft 2 of the unofficial list for Chain of Command, which should become official soon.

• Tomorrow I get to play Sharp Practice for the first time with Tim D.

Have a good weekend!

Battle Report - 8 Sep 2013 - Necropolis 2: The Return Of The Dark Judges

(Cue doom-laded music).

Just got back from the club's Judge Dredd tournament - sadly not a great turnout, but we were graced with the presence of Mongoose supremo Matt, who brought along some lovely shiny new toys, including some pre-release figures for us to admire from the new partnership with Warlord. (And yes, I'll be buying several of those!)

We decided, by the way, while admiring Matt's goodies, that the collective noun is an 'overspending' of wargamers. Such candidate 'lines to the wife' were offered as:

• No dear, they were all at the bring and buy. Really cheap. (Riiight...)
• No, I've had these for ages! (Good job she hasn't seen Warlord's new releases page!)
• I traded for these. (As if!)

Anyway: the morning was a straight tournament - 4 games each, 500 pt forces, and a trophy for each of the good guys (Justice Dept) and bad guys. Winners were:

Adrian for the bad guys, upholding
the honour of the club.

Arfon wins Chief Judge, in his first
game of Judge Dredd!

I'm quite pleased to note that after a bad start (two comprehensive defeats) my Judges rallied to come second among the good guys!

In the afternoon we had a single big sprawling battle for Mega-City One. The Judges each got an extra 300 points of reinforcments each, plus Judges Dredd, Anderson and Giant and a Holocaust Judge. The bad guys got 500 points of zombies plus zombie master/mistress each, plus... erm... Mean Machine from the Angel Gang, and the small and trifling matter of Judges Fear, Fire and, um, Death. 

Whee.

Highlights: definitely Judge Cal (in our campaign, he's still a good guy, though for how much longer who knows) successfully making an arrest check on Judge Fear (cue much consternation)... and a combination of several Judges knocking Judge Fire down to 3 hits before my Psi-Judge Silvas arrived with Psi-Judge Anderson riding pillion on her Lawmaster. A blast from the big bike's twin cannons took Fire to zero hits, causing him to morph into his (2 hit points until he possesses someone) spirit form, and then everyone's favourite blonde Psi Judge proceeded to Psi Whip those two hits from him (and then shoot a passing mutant in the face for good measure), all without leaving the back of the bike.

Sadly about there we ran out of time, with Anderson and Silvas facing down Death and a bunch of zombies and mutants, with Dredd and the remainder of the good guys quite a way away. Pity, really, as it was just starting to get juicy!

Warlord and Mongoose join forces

Wow....

Wasn't expecting that one.

And I quote:

"We are delighted to announce an agreement between these two progressive games companies that will see Warlord Games exclusively manufacture and distribute Mongoose Publishing’s Judge Dredd miniatures game. 

Maybe we should arrange for some more space for our Judge Dredd tournament!

 

Announcing Necropolis 2 - Judge Dredd Miniatures Tournament

Date: Sunday, September 8th
Time: 9:00am-5:00pm
Location: Peterborough Wargames Club, St John Ambulance Hall, Peterborough

Judge Death and the Dark Judges have returned to Mega City One; only Dredd and the forces of the Justice Department stand between them and the inhabitants of the city. Can the Dark Judges be defeated, or will they succeed in sentencing the citizens to Death?

Choose a side and join in this one-day Judge Dredd tournament/campaign, culminating in a multi-player battle for the fate of the city.

Tickets: £10. Contact committee@peterborough-wargames-club.org.uk to book a place, or watch out on our website for more details and an online booking form. We're hoping to have some support from the guys from Mongoose on the day, as well.

Battle Report - 08-Apr-2013 - Judge Dredd

First off - an apology. Much as I'd like to have done this battle report like the previous one, I missed out on a number of photos, and the ones I did take weren't really good enough to do a comic from. I'd also like to apologise for this being two weeks late!

.Judge Nicks on her
new Lawmaster, and
wally squad Judge
Germanotta

That said - round 2 of our club Judge Dredd campaign. First off, I got to fight Adrian's 'droids, in the 'winner is the person who kills the highest pointed character on the other side' scenario. I think this is best summed up with these two pictures and the following short explanation:

Adrian's droid with
rocket launcher with
extremely long range

Adrian got initiative.

Adrian rolled well.

I didn't.

On to the next....


The next? Same board, but vs. Dan's 'droids.

Well, except that Judge Nicks had copped some pretty serious damage and was out of the game for the next two scenarios, so I had to recruit a new rookie Psi Judge (Judge Regan) and also (handily) Chief Judge Hershey and a Cadet Judge as a mercenary, as Dan's force had loads and loads of points.

So, we hide here...

Given the rather open and cover-free nature of the board, this turned into a real knock down, drag out fight: Judge Germanotta and the Cadet Judge didn't last long enough for the latter to get a name, and the whole thing turned into a firefight between the only two major areas of cover. After about half an hour it boiled down to Judge Hershey against Dan's serious (8 hits, lots of armour) 'droid, which decided it was getting fed up of being shot to bits (and having its weapon shot away) and moved in to close combat.

...and the 'droids hide there.

I spent a couple of rounds dodging, before I actually looked properly at ALL of Judge Hershey's sheet and spotted the 15 hits and the ability to shoot while in melée...

Game 2 to me, then :D

On the downside, I blew Judge Turner's survival roll. She was about to acquire the Loyal Follower skill, which would have made Hershey a permanent member of the team. Guess I'll have to wait for that, then!

Battle Report - 06 Apr 2013 - Judge Dredd

Off down to Swindon for a Saturday at Mongoose Publishing's HQ, the home of the Judge Dredd miniatures game. Unlike the other guys from the club, I stayed over with a friend in Swindon, and thus was there on time, refreshed and mostly awake (and not having driven for two hours!).

Dropping off Judge Turner to breach the defenses.

Format was seven short scenarios, with (hopefully) a guarantee that you'd not play the same person twice (although there were two linked scenarios designed such that if you played one you played the same person on the next. I started out by getting trounced, twice, and winding up on the same table three times as a result, before I managed to score a whitewash victory in the round before lunch and move up a couple of places.

Not all of the scenarios were 100% perfect - one or two seemed very biased towards fast moving units, and since my force was two Judges, one riding a Lawmaster and able to give the other a pillion ride, I could have won one in a single turn. As I don't play tournaments in win-at-all-costs mode, I did go for a slightly different approach which cost me any chance at a complete whitewash, but hey :D

For my two middle games of the afternoon I got Rob from the club and the infamous Dreddpool, in the two linked scenarios, The first really boiled down to who had the better luck rolling dice to find something (Rob), which gave him the interesting defensive position for the second game. Which was closer than I expected, despite Dreddpool's rather annoying ability to bounce around the battlefield like an idiot. I came pretty close to blowing his head off before he finally got me.

Yes, those are working lights. Cute, huh?

Last up I had an interesting scrap on an Arctic battlefield, which required me to take as many of three objectives as possible with my two figures. Not so easy. I got the Lawmaster shot out from under Judge Nicks AGAIN - it happened so many times today I'm seriously considering buying one of the old Citadel Lawmasters to make into a wreck, as it's probably decent hard cover! - but managed to scrape a minor loss.

That's Dreddpool's head (AKA 'prime target') peering
over the defences.

All told? Fantastic day - bunch of nice folks clearly there for the fun of the game, not to win at all costs,  and the guys from Mongoose organised an excellent day, Final results - I didn't come last (which as anyone whose been following this blog will appreciate is an achievement!, and Adrian and AndyM from the club came third and second respectively.

Apologies, but no comics for this: it was all a bit fast and frantic. But we do have a club campaign night on Monday!

Battle Report - 04 Mar 2013 - Judge Dredd prog 3

A battle against Rob, who was playing a lone vigilante - who may look oddly familiar if you like certain snarky Marvel heroes - as a single 500+ point force against my Judges. Brilliant fun, and I had an absolute ball creating this battle report.

Battle Report - 04 Mar 2013 - Judge Dredd Prog 2

The second encounter on Monday was against Dan's robots, who were an entirely different ball-game: his team's basically one seriously heavily armoured kick-ass Terminator type and several minions. Let's just say I lost and leave it at that.

Battle Report - 04 Mar 2013 - Judge Dredd Prog 1

Monday was the first night of the club's Judge Dredd campaign. The system is very bloody and short, as I think I commented before, and we got several games in, of which I'll only detail the first one today, as the battle reports are pretty labour intensive.

Suffice it to say that Paul's Citi-Def force (from James Cameron Block, that well-known 20th century documentary filmmaker) didn't last long against Judges Turner and Stone, and Psi-Judge Nicks.

Judge Dredd

Ok - I confess: I am in fact an unrepentant Judge Dredd - and particularly Judge Anderson - fan, to the extent of having written not one but two songs inspired by her, and having most of the original Titan graphic novels sitting on my bookshelf.

I'm a firm believer that comics can be as moving and powerful a medium as any other, and I will still hold up one particular Judge Anderson (well, actually mostly Judge Corey) story as an example. If you were a fan back in the day, and have a copy of the 2000AD Summer Special 1989, you'll know what I'm talking about - it's a short but stunningly powerful piece, not even in colour, called "Leviathan's Farewell'. Alan Grant was reportedly very annoyed that it was relegated to a one-off magazine that a lot of people missed. Fortunately, it's reprinted in Judge Anderson: The Psi Files 01, and I strongly recommend you go buy it just for that, even if that one story is the only hole in your collection. Several Anderson stories since reference back to it, and it's a necessary part of the canon, as well as being a stupendous piece of writing.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you how this was taken. 

Bearing that in mind, then, it wasn't exactly difficult for Rob to talk me into a game of the Moongoose Publishing game. And it was probably inevitable that shortly after that my Paypal account would have a nasty accident.

Here we have a bunch of Mongoose Judges, plus the Wargames Foundry Judge Dredd and Judge Karryn, and a Heresy Miniatures figure as a Wally Squad judge. Slight variation on my usual - these were undercoated in Humbrol gloss French Blue, and the basing is Javis grey ballast chippings with a wash of leftover Citadel black ink. And of course, these aren't historical miniatures, so aren't eligible for Curt's contest :D

Battle Report - 21 Jan 2013 - Judge Dredd

As Britain is in the grip of the world's deepest snow fall[1] that has grown men cowering in their houses[2], some folks didn't make it to club last night, including my regular partner in Dux Britanniarum crime. Instead, I joined in with a pickup game of Mongoose's 'Judge Dredd' system, run by Rob.

Yes, these are shots from the game!

Rob has some awesome scenery, and he, AndyM (not to be confused with AndyH, AndyB or AndyMac - we are somewhat swamped with Andy's at the club) and I had three short games. The system is very bloody, very quick, and manages, despite being a pretty simple set of I-Go-You-Go, opposed skill roll rules, to capture the feel of the setting very well.

Out of the three, Rob got wiped out first all three times, and my judges wound up in a shootout with Andy's Judge Cal and henchmen. The first two times I was outnumbered, and wiped out - the third was a bit better balanced as Rob had managed to off one of Andy's renegade Judges beforehand: the firefight ended with Judge Cal copping a round of high explosive from Judge Orwell's Lawgiver...

Great fun, simple, easy to pick up: great for a club night, comes with a levelling/experience system for campaigns. Also, minimal outlay, as it's a skirmish game with half a dozen at most figures a side - AND... the rules are completely free to download!

[1] exaggeration, though you wouldn't know it
[2] seriously, people? Buy some winter tyres, learn to drive on snow! Our Polish workforce here at LOVEFiLM are laughing at you.