And this time it's a whole new category of gaming. Now my science fiction has thus far been limited to the glorious heady days of Victoriana where aether ships cross the cosmos to exotic locales like Mars and Venus , where stout hearted British redcoats fight savage Parrotmen or evil Martian Tripods.
VSF (don't call it steampunk!) will always be my first love but never let it be said that I am afraid to try new things. So when a new rules system/game is in the offing I will always be interested to see what it can offer. Now if the new system happens to feature one of my favourite comic book characters, well then in true Jerry McGuire style I would say, " You had me at Judge Dredd!"
Yes it's off to Megacity One to clean up the streets and bash some juvies heads and throw them in a cube prison. I loved 2000AD and in particular Judge Dredd (and Rogue Trooper but let's not get started on that one!). I still have my piles of comics and annuals in a box in the garage waiting for my sons to be old enough for me to "pass on the baton" as it were.
I guess I am a recent convert to what would be called "gang skirmish" where each side runs a faction of around 10 figures each. Individual characters develop skills as you play more battles. Judge Dredd is one of these games. Fellow NWA'er and gang skirmish supremo James Wright ran me through a game of Dredd to try it out. The mechanics are pretty straightforward , being simple but not simplistic and the game runs well and doesn't appear to be unbalanced.
Here is the layout for the game:
The basic scenario was a group of fanatical cultists were trying to open a portal to the underworld and summon a demon. The judges, well they had to stop them. I was running a rogue cyborg-robot faction that was out to spoil everyone's fun.
The cult leader has summon one real nasty mother of a demon (with a strange elephant like appendage!)
My robot's had a mercenary fatty to help out on the day. Fatties are hard to take down especially if there is a ready supply of hamburgers nearby.
"I am the Law!" Judges swing into action
One thing you learn quickly in the game is that cover is your friend, here some of my bots hide from cultist fire coming from the tower.
I advance my leader to the base of the tower ready to clear out the cultists.
It's chop chop time!
After clearing the tower my fatty and another bot engaged the plod bot and judges on the right while my leader made for the demons
Dredd taking on a rather chubby demon.
Fatties can launch a devastating attack by charging. My Fatty charged a plod bot and squashed it against a wall!
My leader cyborg took on the demon but came off worse off. My faction broke and the judges were left to clean up the cultists but it was not looking good for them.
All in all Dredd is a good fun quick game that captures the flavour of the comic. I will be looking forward to playing this more in the future.
Cheers
Neil
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