At the time of the Judge Dredd Kickstarter I didn't have any hobby funds set aside :(. But I recently treated myself to the Judge Dredd game rule book direct from Warlord and got a box of Judges as well. Not exactly cheap but perhaps that is what happens when owners of Dredd (and rightly so) get royalty payments perhaps.  I could have made it cheaper for myself by purchasing the PDF version of the rules. But I like a big fat hardback rule book. Fortunately postage from Warlord to me here in the Rad-Back is free when the order is 50 british pounds worth...on the downside that's just over 100 Oz dollars! I was very excited though to get the brown box delivered.

So what did I get for my creds and do I think I got value for money? Well I already said what I got. A hard cover rule book and 8 metal Judges. Value for money...I think that will come with the substance of the rulebook when it is put to the test with an opponent. However after a few days of flicking and reading I think that the rule book is excellent. Sure it has background that a Dredd fan like me will already be familiar with but the rules look really, really good.

A box..with a blister pack inside..full of Mega City One Judges....Nice!

A skirmish game on 4 feet by 4 feet tables for the most part. It's at the usual scale for these games of 28mm. The rule book suggests that using lots of terrain is ideal. Good. I like terrain. This is a really good game for hobbyists to get old school and make some terrain. Sure there are some really great products now for the Si-Fi gamer but making something unique is really satisfying. The scope with terrain and tables for this game is HUGE as well. My initial thoughts are to aim for Cursed Earth settings. The radioactive part of America that is not behind a Mega City Wall. Then perhaps a ruined part of Mega City One that has frequent Mutant or Zombie incursions. The imagination really can go crazy! Especially if you have read a few Dredd comics. An entire table or half the table that is the interior of a Mega Block floor could be great fun to play on.

Many of the missions in this book are suggestive of what terrain items are ideal to have in storage. Barriers, vehicles, buildings, even a nasty old rad-pool swamps. It's making me look at my terrain collection and thinking Yes! That's now a.... and that is an ideal.... and I could use that as ....! There are a lot of missions as well so a low chance of same game type fatigue. I counted around 10 base missions. If that isn't enough for you there are 6 encounters from Dredds history for using specific forces (Famous Firefights).
Force types. A big variety. You could as you would expect play a group of Judges but the game also offers a decent selection of other forces. Robot Revolt, Cursed Earth Desperado's (Mutants), City Defence,  Zombie Horde (Drokk yeah ...Zombie HORDES!!), Demonic Cabal, Sky Surfer Gang, East Meg Invasion Force, Fattie Stampede, Mobsters, Ape Gang, Street Gang, Brit-Cit....wahoo! On top of all that forces can also hire mercenary characters. I like how a lot of the humorous aspects of the Dredd universe has carried over the writing style and background info.

A campaign system. I haven't dived into the core of that yet but initial glance looks like this will be ideal for a group or club setting. A good group of campaigners could possibly be the glue that will sustain groups wanting to explore this game. Looks like this game has great incentive for campaign play with Credit accrual and skills progression diagrams. However there is still a lot of scope in this if you just wanted one off games.

You want skill son...you got to earn it!

If you ever played Necromunda or Mordheim and enjoyed those games then I would say this one is worth a serious look. Unlike those games Dredd uses a D10 but, like those games you can tool up with a variety of weapons and equipment and specialists.

I am thinking of new uses for a bunch of old figures in my collection. I got a heap of Catachan Imperial Guardsmen who will become City Def, Mutants that will be....Mutants. Might inspire me to revisit them with some paint as well. As a last thought for now I remember years ago (in the 80s) articles and adverts for a Judge Dredd RPG in White Dwarf. A Dredd RPG didn't really appeal to me. It was the action that I wanted to play out, the combats. Looks like this is the game for just that.

Cheers from Brendon (The Kiwi)

As part of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge a Bonus theme round was 'Hero'. An earlier submission that someone posted was a reminder that I actually had a Judge Dredd figure somewhere in my unpainted mountain. I have had it for so long that I am not certain as to who made it having long since discarded the original blister packaging. A little Google Foo later and I think it was made by Mongoose but may no longer be in production as now there is a recent Judge Dredd miniatures game with new figures.
I really enjoyed Judge Dredd from the comic 2000ad as a youngster. A multitude of artists have created various versions of him and his uniform is sometimes blue but was once black. His Lawgiver (pistol) also went through variations as well. The one below is not the classic Lawgiver as I recall but they are interesting figures all the same.
Painting these made for a fun change from Dark Ages dudes. I used some acrylic gloss varnish for the helmet and uniform (not the pads and other bits though). These figures required no gluing together, just gluing to the base. I found the sculptures choice of making the shoulder pads look like a box a bit odd though.

Hard to see in my dodgy images but the main part of the Uniform is blue with a black wash over it making it the dark with a hint of color I wanted.

Drokk it!

Is that a Mutie over there?!

Even in The Cursed Earth....he is the LAW!

In the last image above the Judges are seeing off a horde of Muties that I originally made for that game with all the zeros in it. I like Mutants and had the often radioactive waste land of the Cursed Earth in mind when I made them. If you know Dredd then you will know what that's all about.

Cheers from Brendon somewhere in Memory Lane.

Wow. I heard about a brand new Kickstarter for a 28mm wargame based on the 2,000ad comic strip hero Rogue Trooper and his world and thought I had to share the news here. Man...if it was the 1980s and this came out I think my head would have just about exploded.
Who is Rogue Trooper? A soldier, a G.I. (Genetically engineered Infantry). He has blue skin and was designed to cope with the chemically devastated conditions of the battleground on Nu Earth. A planet that is near a wormhole so is strategically important. Regular humans can not wage war or exist on Nu Earth without chem suits. A rip or tear means death. Rogue was dropped onto the planet with a bunch of fellow G.I. but due to treachery they all got slaughtered so he is the last of his kind who stalks around the planet trying to find the traitors. He is helped by his former buddys who are now contained in bio-chips inserted in his gun, helmet and backpack. So he talks to his equipment and they are not always mentally stable.
He was created for one of the two sides, The Southers who, fight The Northers (Norts). The warfare in the strip was in a world that made you think of WW1 conditions. Devastated environment, gas clouds, infantry, tanks and other crazy secret weapons. It mixed in contemporary warfare concepts with sci-fi technologys but I don't re-call Aliens so it's Humans versus Humans.
The Northers used German stormtrooper type concepts or even at times WW2 Japanese concepts like swords in Banzai charges. The Southers seemed to use British and American types of ideas. Of course you may have worked out that Rogue was a good guy and fought on the Southers side so they had a comic book good guy aspect. But the game does not feature Rogue as the main event by the looks but he is included as a Secret Weapon in the seemingly never ending insane war. Visually the comic was cool. It had a great aesthetic. Hopefully that transfers to the look of the game. It had HUGE tanks so it will be interesting to follow the progress to see if that aspect transfers to the game but at it's core was the infantry.
Here is a link to the first episode from the weekly series. I may have to seek out a collected works to re-read the storys at some stage.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1990654819/234262537?token=99762b22

Cheers from Brendon (The Kiwi)