Mongoose Judge Dredd rules thoughts

[obsidian3d]

Hi everyone,

I've read the free rules available through Mongoose for their Judge Dredd skirmish game. I did pledge on their Kickstarter, simply because I like some of the figures. A few of my regular gaming folks like Dredd and would probably play if I had it set up. For those of you who have played the game, what are your thoughts on it? Pros, cons, nifty things in the rules, favorite figures, figures to avoid et cetera.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[Hat Guy]

I've only played a couple of games, but I've found that the game is pretty fast and deadly, especially when compared to Necromunda.

I think smaller teams with better equipment may be the go.

[Dr.Falkenhayn]

First of all i appreciate that the Rulebook is completely free to download,that said,i still would buy a printed Copy.The Guys at Mongoose put alotta Work in it,be it Artwork or Background Fluff/Stories from Megacity One.
The Basic Rules are very easy to learn.The Introduction Scenario (The Barko Bros) is a good Way to start/introduce new Players to the Game,you'll only need 1 Street Judge and 4 Perps to play:if you want the Game bigger add another Street Judge and 4 more Perps 
you probably want to start with the Justice Dept.only to find out they're by Far the most boring Faction in the Game  Street Judges are hard to kill,slowly (but steady  ) moving Killing Machines.You will always be outnumbered when playing the JD.Overall, Judges are good Allrounders,some of them (Dredd himself,Holocaust Judges) are basicly unstopable.

surely you'll need at least 2 Dredds,one in Black and one in Blue Uniform. I went with the Foundry Dredds,they're more Iconic than the Mongoose ones,just my personal Taste


To Bolster your precious Justice Dept. Force, Cadet and Rookie Judges or Citi Defs are a good Way to keep the Costs low while having more Fighters in your Ranks.They can handle regular Enemies like Perps or Chimps

few more of my Justice Dept,along with the unpainted ones i'll have more Judges than i will ever need.

[Dr.Falkenhayn]

In my Opinion the Rules begin to shine when playing any of the other Factions:The Ape Gang is a very agile Gang,with lots of crazy Stuff going on,same for Perps,Robots and my personal Faves the Skysurfers.Some of the most interesting Games we had were Apes vs Skysurfers or Perps vs Robot Gang etc
The only Thing that really bothers me at this Stage is the Block War Supplement,again lovely Artwork/Background Fluff and lots of new Forcelists though mainly more Justice Dept. in form of Brit City and East Meg Judges.The best Thing is probably the new Citi Def Forcelist,i havent tried them yet but i will  
i have very low interests in turning a nice Skirmish Game into a Mass Battle Simulation.The Manta Prowl for example costs bloody 2500 Credits,add a few more Judges to the Force maybe Dredd himself (625 Credits) and you have 3000-3500 Credits spent.
On the Opposite a Juve costs 10 Credits a Chimp 25 Credits so we're talking of 120-150 Miniatures to fight the Manta Prowl and his Buddys,not to mention how long such a Game would take,5-6 Hours me thinks (Dredd alonge can take 22 Hits  )
Mongoose dont supports/sells the Gangs of Megacity One (Gomc1) Plastic Minis anymore,most of the Gamers seem to hate them,i wont miss them.You can grab a Box fairly cheap from Evilbay.The Box contains enough Parts for 2 Citi Defs and/or 12 Perps.They come with seperate Weapons/open Hands so they'll make also nice Sci-fi Civies.here are few more wips im working on and Size Comparsions

[obsidian3d]

Some very nice figures, thanks for posting them.

Good to hear some thoughts about the game itself too. I certainly hope that it stays focused on skirmish level battles. I'm not interested in mass battle games.

[MongooseMatt]

It will stay focussed on skirmish level. The mass combat rules are there because a) there will always be players that want them and b) we needed an excuse to bring the Manta into the game

However, you need not have a hundred models on the table to hit the high points and thus need a Manta - a Dark Judge or four will do the job just fine

[Stavros Banjo]

Been tempted many times to give this game a whirl but sadly I'm one of those boring old farts that still insists on printed rulebooks 

[Major_Gilbear]

@ Stavros Banjo: You can get printed copies of the rulebooks through the Judge Dredd Kickstarter here.

[Stavros Banjo]

@ Stavros Banjo: You can get printed copies of the rulebooks through the Judge Dredd Kickstarter here.

Damn! That's blown my feeble excuse clean out of the water
Finally weakened & jumped into the Kickstarter thingy.

[obsidian3d]

I like printed rule books too, but have actually found that PDF books are a pretty nice change. They are generally cheaper (or free like in this case), and since I have access to binding facilities... It's a lot easier to set a coil bound book open to a particular page, or flip around to find something. Additionally, if I spill something or tear anything, I can just print a replacement!

[cheetor]

I've only played a couple of games, but I've found that the game is pretty fast and deadly, especially when compared to Necromunda.

My experience of the game is similar, fast and deadly.  The rules are very clean too.  There are a couple of ambiguities that have been dealt with by player feedback but on the whole the rules are intuitive.

 I have played a couple of day long sessions (documented here and here) and so have not really engaged in protracted campaigns and such, but I have enjoyed the games so far.  I recommend the system.

@ Dr. Falkenhayn - fantastic work on those figures.  Do you have a dedicated thread or blog or something for your Dredd stuff?  I would love to see more.

[obsidian3d]

What did you search for on trollandtoad? I couldn't find anything other than Heroclix figures on there.

[Van-Helsing]

What did you search for on trollandtoad? I couldn't find anything other than Heroclix figures on there.

Ditto! 

[sundayhero]

search for judge dredd, in the rpg list appearing, on the opt of the list you'll see the gang boxed set for around less than 3USD.


Any chance that a solitaire rule exists for that game ? I remember playing necromunda...Around 15years ago 

[obsidian3d]

(reposted from my blog http://obsidian3d.blogspot.ca/2013/01/lawbreakers-beware.html
Lots more pictures available there too.)

Lawbreakers Beware!

It was a Dredd-ful weekend.

Ooh, bad pun. Sorry about that folks, but I just couldn't resist.

On my way home from a nice brunch on Saturday morning I stopped to pick up a copy of Dredd on 3D Blu-Ray. I quite enjoyed it in the theatre and was very much looking forward to a second viewing in comfort of my own home.

I also had to stop in to pick up some mail at the post office and was pleasantly surprised to find a second parcel waiting (in addition to my stuff from HobbyZone, which I'll talk more about in my next post). The box was small, but very weighty, so I headed home eager to crack it open and dive into the goodies sure to be inside.

Not certain what to expect, I split the tape and opened it up...to find bag upon bag of metal Mega-City One goodness! There was a lot of stuff jammed into that box, and it took me the better part of an hour to go through each, identify the contents and verify that they had all the bits they should. That might seem lengthy, but in the process I was marking off what was included in the Council of Judges pledge level from the Kickstarter campaign and making notes if anything was missing.

Here are the gangs packs that were inside the box:

1x Angel Gang
1x Ape Gang
1x Caligula's Retinue
1x Citi-Def (very nice figures, and early. I hadn't expected these in the first shipment.)
1x Cursed Earth Desperados
1x Fatty Stampede (which shouldn't have been included. I had swapped them for a 2nd Zombie Horde)
1x Justice Department
1x Renegade Robots
1x Sky Surfers
1x Street Gang
2x Zombie Horde (also earlier than expected...so I guess the Fatties were an unforeseen bonus)

Of the box sets that are already in production I was only missing one, that being the Holocaust Judges. I'm not sure if my memory serves correctly, but I seem to recall an update going out at one point saying that Mongoose Publishing was behind with their casting of these. Hopefully they just didn't have enough to go around this time.

For the single figures, smaller items and stretch rewards from my pledge I received:

1x Judge Anderson
1x Judge DeMarco
1x Lawmaster Bike (there should have been another, as I'd requested to swap my Pat Wagon for two bikes)
1x Walter the Robot

That's not so bad, only two things missing. Actually it ended up being three, as there should also have been a lone Kickstarter Judge Dredd figure in there as well. I've already notified Matthew over at Mongoose and am sure that they'll come in my next shipment. The communication and responsiveness from Mongoose has been really good and I think they've handled issues quickly and politely. I don't honestly think that Mongoose was prepared for the amount orders they received during their campaign and were quite likely overwhelmed by the demand.

All in all the models look pretty damned good. In most cases the figures are single-part casts (which I truly appreciate as a lazy modeller). A few do look to have a fair bit of flash to be trimmed off, but none of the casts look fault or incomplete. I've already watched the new Dredd movie once, and it's only fired me up even more to get started on some of these figures!

The list of stuff to come is still pretty lengthy, but I'll not inundate you with that. Instead I'll leave you with my first effort, and probably the most modelling work I'll have to do for a Judge Dredd figure: Harold the Undead Citi-Def trooper.