Judge Dredd Battle Report, or Why Greg Hates "Special Dice"

"This is Hyundai McKesson for Mega-City Channel 7 News with Judge Fraser and rookie Judge Gregg near the Jane Goodall Block, where Jane Goodall Citi-Def members have been going ape for the last few hours..."

Last week I set up our first game of Judge Dredd, the new 2000AD-comic-themed miniatures game from Warlord. I've always been a huge fan of Old Stony Face and the insanity that is Mega-City One, so I have jumped into the new JD with both feet... at the very least, it'll give some renewed impetus to paint some of the OLD Dredd models I still have from the last miniatures incarnation - Mongoose Models' "Gangs of Mega-City One". But anyway...

Here's the 4x4 table set up for the game. The story: Jane Goodall Block Citi-Def has been running an armed exercise in an industrial area of the city bottom, and complaints about gunfire and general arsing-about have been received by the Justice Department. As the JGCD has previously been warned, this incident has escalated to Judge intervention and a Pat-Wagon was dispatched with Judges Fraser (a Veteran Street Judge) and Gregg (a rookie Judge) aboard.

We pick up the game with the two Judges in the middle of the table and the Jane Goodall forces (Eureka Miniatures' excellent "Boiler-suit Apes") about to spring an ambush...

Jane Goodall squad leader and female 2IC lurk...

...while the Gibbon squad waits under cover. The JG apes had to deploy at least 12" from the two Judges and out of their line of sight.

Heavy spit gun with two-Gibbon crew.

The view from the other side of the table.

In his first activation, the JGCD squad leader targeted Judge Gregg, causing some injuries... another ape also activated and put her out of action even before she could activate, herself! Conscript Greg notably failed to roll a single "Shield" result on any of his Resist dice :-(

Disappointing development for the Justice Department side, but Judge Fraser activated next and Conscript Mike had a cunning plan...

He took a Double Action to run, then played the "Crazie" card to take another immediate Charge action, catching the rocket-launcher-toting gibbon flat footed... a light beating with daystick put the Jane Goodall Blocker out of action.

The sensitive simian hearing of the Jane Goodall Blockers picked up the approaching sound of sirens...

...knowing that a Lawmaster bike was on the way, the simians shifted around to Overwatch the road entrances.

On the next Justice Department chip, Street Judge Burch appeared on his Lawmaster bike... the Justice Department also played a Big Meg card - Weather Control. The random dice came up with a snowstorm!

While the simians blazed away with their heavy spit gun, they failed to stop the bike... and Judge Burch dropped them with his Lawgiver pistol.

On his next activation, the simian on top of the power building (top centre) shot at the Lawmaster, immobilizing it! Greg's lousy die rolling continued...

Meanwhile, Judge Fraser was under attack by gibbons with spit pistols...

... and it was not going well. :-(

The simians in the middle moved up towards Judge Burch...

Who had dismounted from his now-immobilized Lawmaster bike.

The gibbon on the rooftop moved towards the middle of the roof and took a "Hunker Down" double action to rid himself of an injury marker.

However, in true Dredd fashion, Judge Burch activated and played a "Ricochet" Armoury card, allowing him to bounce a Lawgiver round off the tower and into the rooftop simian, ending his gibbon adversary in true comic-book style. Nice one!

But in the middle of the table, the Jane Goodall squad leader broke cover...

...while behind Judge Burch another gibbon lurked!

The simian squad leader blazed away at the Judge, who used his "Gunfighter" trait to shoot back and wound the ape, who was himself killed in a volley of Bike Cannon fire.

Judge Burch was finished off by a backshooting gibbon, of all things, and we called the game at that point, with only an immobilized Lawmaster left on the Justice Department side.

The objects of Conscript Greg's fury... a set of extremely uncooperative special dice supplied with the game. The faces bear three explosions (denoting hits), two shields (useful when making Resist (save) rolls), and one special symbol - the 2000AD logo, needed to make tests against a model's Cool characteristic. Greg never seemed to get any traction with these, as his rolls always came up with exactly the symbols he didn't need.

In the end, it was a pretty fun game, and for a first try I reckon we got 80% of the rules right. Drawing chips for activations is a fun mechanic, but we saw the downside in this game with the severely outnumbered Judges having a tough time. I think in games with a more even number of opponents it'll work even better. I've got my East-Meg/Sov Judges and Sentenoid (from the old Mongoose kickstarter) primed up and once they're done it'll be time for some Apocalypse War gaming!

11th Painting Challenge Entry, Part 2 - WarPac BMP-2 Motor Rifle Company

This is the second part of the "points bomb" I dropped into the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge over the weekend - a WarPac motor rifle company mounted in BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles.  There is also a BRDM-2 recon vehicle.  The BMP-2s are multi-part plastic kits from Battlefront.  The infantry are from Eureka.  The BRDM is a metal kit from QRF.

Multi-part plastic kits make me grumble quite a bit, particularly for 15mm size vehicles, but I have to hand to Battlefront, they came up with a really, really nice kit.  Assembly was tricky, but pretty straightforward - and that is by the standards of a total grouch like me.  Each box has five models which you can assemble as either a BMP-1 or BMP-2 (and if you are one of those ninjas with the little magnets, you could theoretically make them as both).

I did encounter one confusing element when approaching these model kits, relating to the IR lamp to the right of the cannon on the BMP2 turret.  Here are examples of the lamp from some photos:

But when I checked over the instructions on the assembly, it didn't seem to have one...

And when I checked the photos in the Battlefront products, it looked like there was no lamp beside the cannon either...

But the actual part is on the model sprues, and it fits quite nicely beside the cannon. So I don't know what sort of mixup may have happened with Battlefront - or perhaps I am mixed up, and maybe not all BMP-2s have that lamp beside the cannons? Perhaps a sharper treadhead out there can enlighten me.  At any rate, it was a small bump, and I was able to figure it out after only messing up one of the models :)

Battalion commander and his ride

I managed to sort out the IR lamp beside the cannon

The infantry are 15mm sculpts of modern Russian troops from Eureka.  While Battlefront has apparently "released" their own line of 15mm modern Russian troops - and they do look quite sharp in the pictures - my order for these figures remains nowhere to be seen.  I got tired of waiting, so I decided to go with the Eureka Russians instead.

Eureka motor rifle troops

PKM LMG stands

The Eureka Russians are, I believe, intended to represent the Russian troops who participated in the initial Chechen War in the early 90s, and so their kit is not the same as the troops from the era of "Team Yankee", which is late 80s.  The Eureka Russians are also lacking a sculpt with an RPK squad automatic weapon.  But with 15mm figures, it looks close enough to me - in fact, I'm not sure how different an RPK would look as compared to an AK-74 in 15mm.  The Eureka range has troops with RPG-7s, RPG-18s, AKs with underslung grenade launchers, and also things which haven't found their way into the "Team Yankee" rules as yet - HMGs, mortars and the terrifying automatic grenade launchers!  It's a great little range, and I quite like the look of the figures.

Another shot of the PKM LMGs

"Team Yankee" gives three different sizes for Motor Rifle Companies in the Russian force lists - this is a middle sized one - seven AK-74 stands, two PKM LMG stands, and six RPG-7 stands.  I've also done one battalion command stand.  And there are 10 BMP-2s to have the whole lot roll into battle.

Propaganda photos - Hind covering the BMPs

Motor rifle dismounts sweep the town...

PKM LMG team deploys

Marksman in position

Hind deploys troops behind the NATO lines...

The last little bit is the BRDM scout car.  Again, no stats or rules for this vehicle in "Team Yankee" as of yet, but I'm sure it won't be too long, and it won't be hard to bodge some in the interim.  This is a little kit from QRF - the quality there is hit and miss, but this one was not too bad.

A nice little disposable recon asset

Here is a group shot of the entire force from this past submission:

Ready to assault on the west...

The delays from Battlefront on the second wave of "Team Yankee" products are significant - even by their own standards.  I'm not sure what the hold up is, but if you are impatient like me, I recommend Eureka, and you can also try Khurasan, who has two different versions of modern Soviet motor rifle troops in 15mm.

As much as I enjoy tank battles, having infantry for both sides I think is important to round out the game, so I'm now trying to work on a solution for the NATO mechanized infantry. But I'm looking forward to getting these guys on the table soon!

Cold War Russians - 15mm

The west is doomed...or just a former Soviet republic...you know, whatever comes up for the gaming table

Another fun 15mm diversion!  A few weeks ago our friend Mike F posted some pictures of a budding modern project.  Of course I like to encourage new projects here among our group, so when Mike sent me a note asking if I had any 15mm Russians for Cold-War-Gone-Hot type games, I promised right away to come up with some - after all, I had been thinking about just this kind of thing as my own 15mm Golan Heights project had gone ahead and is pretty much finished now (in as much as anything is ever "finished" for me).

Motor rifle squad - the officer (pointing) is Peter Pig - the balance are from the new Eureka line

These infantry are the (still relatively) new Eureka 15mm modern Russians, with a few Peter Pig figures thrown in.  The vehicles are all QRF castings.

Another motor rifle squad

Squad number three

The Eureka Russians are amazing.  Just awesome sculpts, easily on par with Peter Pig and some of the flat-out best 15mm castings out there. They are part of a range intended to represent the Russian army at the time of the first intervention in Chechnya (and there is a range of Russian troops wearing those awful and ridiculous-looking sphere-shaped helmets if that is your thing) as well as some Chechen rebels.  I think in terms of equipment they fit anywhere from the late 1980s into the mid 1990s - or even later.

BMP-2D from QRF - a really nice model (and a very cool variant of the BMP)

I painted the infantry in a sort-of-woodland camo that I have seen on Tim Rich's figures.  Of course, his paint job is WAY nicer, but it's still fun to try to copy the best.

BMP-2 - detail is softer on these

The only knock I would have on the Eureka range is that it lacks an ATGM set - a touch disappointing considering how amazingly complete the range is otherwise.  You have AK-74s, AK-74s with grenade launchers under the barrel, LMGs, RPG-7s, the little RPGs that look like LAW rockets, heavy MGs, automatic grenade launchers and mortars.  Wow.

Officer on the left is Eureka, the medic on the right is Peter Pig

Two Russian marksmen - Eureka castings

The other knock I would have gently put to Eureka is the shipping - they go cheap (which is great when you're paying), but I lost three LMG troops with broken weapons thanks to the sloppy packing, which kind of sucks.

Heavy weapons to support the troops

I bodged an AT-4 missile team using an AT-4 missile set from QRF, a spare Eureka grenade launcher crewman and spare Peter Pig heavy weapon crewman.

Automatic grenade launcher - a problem solver on a tripod

AT-4 ATGM team - missile from QRF, crew on right from Eureka, on left from Peter Pig

A motor rifle platoon ready for the attack

The infantry are supported by a smattering of vehicles painted, once again, in a poor copy of a Tim Rich cammo pattern known as "Fulda", a three-tone scheme seen on many Russian AFVs at the time of the fall of the Berlin wall.  I'm not sure how widely used it was, but it looks neat, and I was tired of painting Russian stuff just plain green.

T-80BVs from QRF, infantry from Eureka

The vehicles are QRF castings.  As always with QRF the casting quality is hit-and-miss.  The tanks are T-80BVs, and I have to give QRF credit as being the ONLY one out there offering these vehicles.  They had lots of flash, needed a LOT of drilling and fixing, and each had only left-side track sets.  But in the end they painted up pretty well, and I'm happy with how they turned out.  You can't notice the track SNAFU very much with the weathering etc. I think QRF has re-workd the molds on these models, which would be great, as I ordered several more to round out the force :)

The T-80BV makes use of reactive armour

The APCs are a mix of two BMP-2s and a BMP-2D. The BMP-2s were not too bad casting wise, but the detail was soft and the track assemblies very soft.  The 30mm cannon on the turret was also very thin and I worry they will break before long. On the plus side, as with the tanks, you hardly notice flaws in the tracks once the vehicles are based and weathered.

Are those road wheels on the right side? :) Add more mud...

In contrast, the BMP-2D - an up-armoured model of the BMP-2 with applique plates on the turret and sides - is a top-notch casting.  Super clean, really durable, lots of clean detail, top notch.  And once again, as far as I can tell, QRF is the only company taking the trouble to offer this vehicle.  I have ordered a couple more of these suckers as well.

Another view showing the ERA "bricks" on the turret and hull

Overall the force represents (very roughly) a motor rifle platoon and heavy weapon platoon.  There are three seven-man squads, each with an RPG-7 and LMG, a small command element of an officer and a medic, two dudes with sniper rifles, two heavy MG teams, an AT-4 missile team, a mortar team and a grenade launcher team.

Ready for the advance! Is that a Leopard C-2 over there?

So Mike - over to you....I'm sure you have more than a solitary M113 lurking to defend the NATO lines...I'm looking forward to battle with the Canadians in the Fulda Gap!