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Author Topic: Judge Dredd Miniatures: Justice Dept v Kleggs - a flawed points system?  (Read 1058 times)

Online Muzfish4

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Cards on the table here, I am a big Judge Dredd fan from way back and thus was naturally predisposed to like the new(ish) Game from Warlord. I backed the Mongoose Kickstarter some years ago now and got a fair bit of play out of it even with rules that were a bit all over the place but, in fairness often seemed to give games that felt ‘right’ in terms of the source material. Anyway, the decision to preorder the Judge Dredd base set was a pretty easy one especially as I’d already played around half a dozen games of Strontium Dog with my regular opponent and enjoyed each one of them.

Our first run with Judge Dredd worked pretty well (just a small game using the cross roads scenario) and we were confident we’d got the rules correct. The next few games were disappointments of one sort or another usually around force parity and hugely lopsided results. One game had a street gang roll the Justice Department, the next had the East Meg One liberation force get an easy win, again over the Justice Department with some seemingly arbitrary swings of fate.  All games were played at points parity but with very little parity in game terms.

Neither game was very satisfying so we decided to explore using the army generator available apparently on the game’s Face-Book site (no link as I do not, and will never, Face-Book). I dutifully compiled a 100 notoriety (i.e. point) list for Judge Cal’s Judicial Reform Project Taskforce to face off against the finest the Justice Department could offer – including old Stoney Face himself.

The force lists included in the rules may be charitably described as ‘incomplete’ so there is nothing there about Kleggs or anything like that. I built my force look to like this:




The basic approach was to make the Kleggs pretty much useless at shooting as they rarely if ever use ranged weapons in the comics (this is different to the Mongoose game where Kleggs were very effective as mobile pill boxes) with their chopper counting as a katana – slicey dicey and all that. The Klegghounds were intended to be fast moving nasty beasties that were all about chowing down on anyone unfortunate enough to be attacked by them (their bite was made equivalent to a laz saw with piercing and rending) but they weren’t so tough that they couldn’t be shot down before they closed.

I had enough notoriety in the bank to field a Klegg boss, four Kleggs and four Klegghounds and I threw in a SJS senior judge just to round it off. Facing them were a variety of Judges, led by Dredd and a Mechanismo. We expected this to be a pretty good test of the points system as Dredd should be a pretty tough proposition, the mechanismo is also pretty tough and the Kleggs could dish it out but shouldn’t be able to take it too much and with only two starred movement counters there shouldn’t be too much in the way of multiple moves for the Judicial Reform crew. Boy, were we wrong.

Online Muzfish4

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  • Posts: 997
The game took place on a standard urban sort of sector with the terrain supplied courtesy of our FLGS host, Jolt Games of Mitchell.


Above: The mean streets of Mega City One


Above: Both forces seek cover as they advance

Things went wrong for the Justice Department almost straight away.  The JD team advanced to positions of cover,  several wisely taking to the rooftops to avoid the threat of the Klegghounds.


Above: Judge Giant in Cover

Above: Rookie Judge also grabs some cover

The single SJS Judge advanced put his counter back, has his counter drawn again and popped off an aimed shot against the rookie Judge. Good rolling from me and some poor luck from my opponent saw the rookie judge downed. The same thing happened pretty much again as the SJS guy rode his luck and cleaned up the veteran judge at the other corner of the building. Two judges down with nary a Klegg in action.


Above: SJS Judge leads the way

Above: The rookie is down!

Above: Giant is also down!

The rest of the turn saw Kleggs and Klegghounds advance to positions of cover getting ready for a push forward the next turn. The Judges too consolidated their positions and managed a bit of desultory fire against their opponents yielding very little results.

The next round really put the aliens amongst the lunch as one Klegg charged forward and quickly bludgeoned the Mechanismo into spare parts.


Above: A Klegg preparing to charge


Above: The Klegg messes up the Robocop


Above: Klegghound on the prowl

Then Dredd was on the wrong end of a Klegghound charge losing the melee badly and was torn into so munce as another hound scented blood and charged in to finish him off – all in two combats. Judge Hershey shot down one hound but was overwhelmed by the unerringly accurate blows from the daystick of the SJS Judge who, again, had plenty of activations up his sleeve.


Above: Klegghound charges Dredd


Above: The scent of blood - Klegghounds defeat Dredd


Above: Klegghound vs Hershey


Above: Hershey defeats the Klegghound but can't withstand the SJS

So, there we were. All Justice Department miniatures were defeated in less than two turns with only one of the Kleggs swinging his cleaver in anger. A thorough rout in anyone’s books and one that felt, well, wrong and again quite unsatisfying.

There was a bit of luck at the beginning with the SJS judge getting repeated activations and good dice, but that is part and parcel of this system. Experience shows that the stats assigned to the Kleggs were way too powerful for what they are but they came within the points limit. The Justice Department seem to be overpriced and prone to underperformance.  This bears out our experience when they were rolled by a street gang and when the cheap-at –twice-the-price Orlok messed up the Justice Department.

Anyway, lesson learnt I went back to the drawing board and rejiggered the Klegg stats. Here’s what I came up with:




The numbers – particularly the key ‘fight’ number - are significantly lower with this list but the points cost differential is negligible. Again, this suggests that the underlying basis for points calculation is flawed.  Sadly, we haven’t had the opportunity for a rematch as yet but once the world gets back to normal we’ll try trotting out these forces and see if they give a better gaming experience.

I’m hoping the only flaw is the points system as the games of Strontium Dog we played were all a lot of fun and pretty well balanced whereas the Judge Dredd games have nearly all been unbalanced disappointments.

Oh yeah, all miniatures shown above are from either the Foundry or Mongoose ranges. I did get some gangers and a couple of judges with the starter box. Nice looking miniatures but they’re on the lead/plastic/resin mountain.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2020, 09:06:18 AM by Muzfish4 »

Online Muzfish4

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  • Posts: 997
So, after a bit of a hiatus we finally got around to playing a return match. Sort-of. The Justice Department were given the bye and instead the ‘Judge Cal Multi-Racial Judicial Reform Working Group’ found themselves facing a Street Gang and friends.


Above: The Street Gang Deploys to hold their ground

The Street Gang had three ‘star’ players, the boss with his hand cannon and very handy ‘c’mon you lily livered scum suckers’ ability (puts d3 ganger activation chits of his choice back into the bag), the terror of the takeaways - Dick Porker (waaaaaaaaaaay too overpowered) and Mean Machine Angel (waaaaaay too underpowered - though less points than Porker). Accompanying them were a motley crew of a dozen or so gangers, most with spit guns, a couple with rifles and one with a rocket launcher.


Above: The Street Gang leaders amongst the troops

The Kleggs had two stars, a Klegg Boss and a SJS veteran street judge, three normal Kleggs and four hounds. Both sides weighed in at around 100 points though this time the Kleggs’ stats were much lower than when they made a mess of the Justice Department as described above.

The scenarios in the rulebook are pretty ordinary so for the purposes of the exercise we agreed to play the ‘rumble’ scenario, the idea being that a Street Gang has declared their part of the sector a No Go Zone and both sides would be fighting for control of the main road in an urban area with plenty of scatter terrain about the place for cover.  The terrain comes from a variety of manufacturers and looks pretty good, I think, if you ignore the unpainted TT Combat coffee shop in the background.


Above: The Kleggs cautiously advance

Anyway, the game commenced with the Kleggs advancing cautiously, taking cover as the Street Gang pushed forward with a first line of spit-gun armed skirmishers, a second line of more of the same with the boss and Porker and the long ranged weapons found themselves in the rear ensconced in good sniping positions.  While this was going on Mean Machine dialled it up to four and looked for something to headbutt.


Above: The Klegg boss takes on Mean

Despite having only a Shoot of 1 the Kleggs elected to try their luck with their auto-stumps and managed to inflict some wounds on the leading gangers. They responded in kind and soon the weight of fire they were able to bring down was having an effect, one Klegg retreated to shake off two wounds while others put a premium on cover as stuns and pins built up.  The Klegghounds though had used their extra move well and managed to get close enough to charge. This they did with devastating effect - the gangers can dish it out with their spit guns but don’t stand much of a chance as the Hounds of Klegg tore into the first wave. The boss Klegg also pushed up and his presence drew in Mean Machine and Dick Porker. Soon the centre of the board was awash in a wild melee of claws, choppers, headbutts, blubber and lots and lots of small arms fire (but no barf). This was tremendous fun; it felt true to the source material and was just the sort of gaming experience I was looking for.


Above: Vicious fighting around the wrecked car

Mean Machine was felled but a Big Meg card (Extra Hottie) saw the car that was being used as cover explode and the slightly wounded chief Klegg took four hits and failed to save a single one causing his removal from the board as a sniper took out the hound that got rid of Mean.


Above: Gangers take a central position

The gangers were bloodied but not beaten and concentrated in a schwerpunkt of spitguns winging a hound but they didn’t finish it as it crashed into the gangers savaging the intended target only to fall to the rocket launcher assisted by a Seeker armoury card.  The gang’s last best hope lay with this knot of thugs and their boss who were holding the centre by themselves and as the punks fell under the relentless jaws of the Klegghounds (and the occasional shot from their masters) the boss endured. For a while. 


Above: Gangers start to lose their central position

He was good enough to hold off one, then two Klegghounds but it all came to a slicey-dicey end when a Klegg clambered over the dumpster and introduced him to his chopper. In the same turn the SJS judge, who consistently failed to get his chit back in the bag after each activation and stayed well away from most of the fighting chipped in with a Rapid Fire! card and then, next turn, a Seeker to dispatch the rocket launcher. Obviously he knew which side of his bread was synthispread and took pains to keep his uniform in regulation order rather than risk losing a button by exerting himself.





Above: the last stand of the Boss

The game ended with the gang’s centre being overrun as the two riflemen teamed up to shoot down a Klegg whose attempted charge fell short but  as one fell underneath the jaws of a Klegghound his fellow beat a hasty retreat removing this latest no go zone. Judge Fish would be pleased.


Above: the SJS lead from the rear

So, with the game concluded both players agreed it was much more enjoyable than the previous walkover. The de-powered Kleggs were good, but not unbeatable. Though, the hounds seemed a tad too good (as does Dick Porker) but Mean Machine Angel really did not deliver. The melee in the centre of the board was tremendous fun and very much in the spirit of the source material.


Above: Casualties

Points of note/contention:
•   The reduced frontal fire arcs for two handed weapons worked well. Made players think about both cover and facing when positioning miniatures.
•   Pins mattered – especially as charges require two actions so a pinned model that doesn’t shake off their pin is unable to charge.
•   The game’s points system is hopeless and some of the characters are poorly designed. Mean Machine Angel should be far more lethal than Dick Poker. However, the revised Klegg stats and point values seemed to work okay.
•   Add something to Mean Machine (and other ‘name’ characters) to make him a bit more interesting and give them a bit more durability on the board. Maybe a few ‘luck’ chits which allow him to reroll dice or cancel an opponent’s dice or something like that.
•   Have some sort of rule for the Klegghounds to add an element of uncertainty to their command and control. Some ‘skill’ like this:

Nom nom nom – If a Klegghound defeats an opponent the opponent’s miniature must be placed lying on the board. The Klegghound must pass an unmodified cool test to be able to move away from the defeated miniature on its subsequent activation.

If the Klegghound passes it is activated as normal and the opponent’s miniature is removed. If the Klegghound fails it receives zero actions and the opponent’s miniature is removed. The Klegghound may activate as normal in any subsequent activations. Does not apply to defeated robots or anything else a Klegghound reasonably would not be expected to eat.


There we go, I’m glad to say that the rules work okay with some tinkering. Weak areas remain the points systems and the way in which certain characters are interpreted but this can largely be fixed with a bit of judicious modification. Other than that, the game played well and would not have looked out of place in the comic.

Offline syrinx0

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Thanks for posting the games and reviews.  I'm still painting up my set but will have to remember your recommendations when I get a chance to play.
2024: B: 0; P: 148; 2023: B:77; P:37;