Industrial Showdown - Dredd

First of all, sorry for the lack of posting lately. It's been a difficult and busy time of year, what with moving houses and attending an interview for the next level of my university (which I've thankfully passed). I'll be off to Cornwall on the 3rd of June for holiday, which is a few days after the next club meeting, so content may continue to be a bit sparse until I'm back. I haven't given up on the blog however, so do watch this space!

So, as mentioned in the previous post a few games of Dredd were played throughout the afternoon of the last club meet. David brought along some lovely modular terrain that was themed around industrial walkways and towers. Certainly set the theme as a pair of Judges, one a street judge and the other a rookie judge, descend into the smog filled industrial zone of the city to investigate a disturbance...

Below are some pictures I managed to snatch during the game. The terrain is yet to be painted, but you can imagine how it will look when the decaying metal is painted upon it.

Two gang members sneak under the tower

looking to flank the street judge

Out of all games played, I think I was the only player who managed to win as the gang. The judges have brutal weaponry including execution and explosive rounds. With high armour saves they're no push overs. In the end however, I managed to kill both judges with my stub gun, which hasn't got a great chance of hitting but when it does you know all about it as it launches the target back 1d6 inches and inflicts impact damage.

Some more shots from the game

Stealth is the way forward!

The street judge is blown back by

the stub gunner, pictured 

below with heavy gun

Stub gunner MVP!

It was an enjoyable game. I found the balancing a little odd. Having watched Adam play the gang against David's judges, and seeing them be destroyed by turn 3, though they did take out the rookie judge. However when I played, having split my gang up in two directions, it felt that the judges were very hard pressed to win. The rules state that a judge must try to arrest a criminal before they can open fire. If the target fails the will save against the arrest, then they are taken off as a casualty, to spend their lives in the terrible confines of the megacity correctional facilities. If they resist the arrest, the judge's action is wasted but they can then kill that criminal. And this is where the balancing felt a bit odd.

Once they had permission to open fire, the judges execution or explosive rounds made short work of the gang members who only had knives or antique revolvers...
But when the gang split up and went down the sides and the judges can only attempt so many arrests per turn, I managed to effectively get into close range with many combatants before the judges could do much about it. Of course I don't think this is terribly unbalanced, it is true to the lore of Dredd and for that I'm thankful and it was a thoroughly enjoyable game, so thanks to David for hosting and Adam for playing the judges against me!

So what's next?
Well, I'm still to start on LOTR painting, with real life getting in the way (boo!) But I do have a bit of spare time today and I'm eyeing up the minis... The club meet on the 1st, so I have that to look forward to, with a game of WFB arranged with me controlling some Greenskins forces. I'll also take my Lotr down for battle companies or matched play, as well as the next scenario in our FOTR journey book campaign. So at the very least I'll have those to post!

Thanks for reading, I'll see you next time!