As fans of my Life of Die Youtube channel may have noticed, since my good friend Simon Fearn completed painting up my Judge Dredd collection - you can find videos of the commission here and here - I've been playing a lot of Warlord Games' Judge Dredd Miniatures Game. While I've been having a lot of fun, I have been finding my Judges have been struggling a little so I started thinking about one or two different things to help make the Judges a more attractive proposition. In this post, I deal with the first of two ideas which I think will help, that being to slightly reduce the cost of fielding the Judges - and in a completely legal way (using the costings provided in the Strontium Dog Miniatures Game to calculate these).
Reducing the Notoriety of the Judges:
Born To Ride Skill: It's clear from the strip that the Judges know how to ride so it's absolutely appropriate that all Judges, even Cadets, have this skill...however, if you're anything like me, most of your games will not make use of Lawmasters as all of the combatants are on foot. That means that, in those games, for every Judge you take, there's 1 point of Notoriety built in to their cost that's useless to you.
So, provided you do not intend to make use of vehicles in a game other than as static scenery, you can reduce the cost of each of your Judges by 1 Notoriety. If, for any reason, you decide to drop the skill and vehicles do come into play, then your Judges, unthematic as this may be, are subject to the Forced Dismount rule on page 28 of the rulebook. You can't have it both ways!
How This Was Costed: Born To Ride costs one point of Notoriety as per the rules set out in the Strontium Dog Miniatures Game rulebook.
Close Combat Weapons: In just about every martial arts film, even though the villains outnumber the hero, they conveniently attack one by one rather than en masse. That's not the Judge Dredd Miniatures Game! The perps have the numbers and no qualms about fighting dirty! If you decide to engage them in close combat, the chances are that the perp player will try - and likely will - overwhelm you just by sending in several of his perps to attack you at once! While there's no guarantee they will succeed (the Judges stats will beat most of the opposition), the fact is that the more Fight actions that rain down upon your beleaguered Judge, the more likely those numbers will tell and your Judge will be swiftly and brutally put down. That means that it's more effective to keep perps at arm's length and rely on your Lawgiver (aided by Gunfighter skill). Add into this that you have two close combat weapons - Daystick and Boot Knife - both of which you cannot use at once, and here is another opportunity to lessen the cost of your Judges.
You can lose 1 Close Combat weapon to reduce your Notoriety by 1 or lose both to reduce it by 2. Again, if you decide not to equip one or both weapons, you are bound by that decision and cannot miraculously pluck one out of the air in a time of need.
How Was This Costed?: In the Strontium Dog Miniatures Game, a basic Close Combat Weapon is free, but a variant on a Close Combat Weapon costs 1 Notoriety. Both weapons have variant rules in the form of Stun for the Daystick and Throw for the Boot Knife.
Note: Reducing a Judge's Notoriety by 3 points may not seem like much, but it quickly stacks up! For example, if you take 2 Judges, that means you can add a Cadet Judge for the cost you usually normally would have paid for the two Judges alone (assuming, of course, that you also reduce the Notoriety of your Cadet Judge from 9 to 6) and, in the process, added an all-important extra chip to the bag! And if you're feeling particularly bold...
Close Combat Specialist: Occasionally, when making an example of lowly street-gangs, Dredd likes to rely on his Daystick (or fists!) to make an example of perps, showing that he doesn't need the Lawgiver to bring them in. If you do not equip your Judge with the Lawgiver, you can reduce the Notoriety of your Judge by a whopping 4 points! On the downside, expect your Judge to take a beating! Again, if you take this reduction, you absolutely cannot call upon the Lawgiver for the duration of the battle!
How was this costed?: The Lawgiver is identical in its stats and number of variants as Johnny Alpha's Westinghouse variable cartridge blaster which is set out in the rulebook as costing 4 Notoriety.
So that's it. Hopefully, this will give you some extra options to tailor your Judges to the challenge at hand! Keep your eyes open for another blog post in the coming days where something a little more radical that Andy Chambers himself suggested will be set out... A video will also be going live on the Life of Die channel tomorrow (Friday 10th June) which shows the points reductions in action - and also an earlier prototype (and less effective version) of the incoming new rule in action!
Stay tuned, creeps!
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