Judge Dredd #3: Sweet Justice

The final tutorial scenario from Judge Dredd: I Am The Law pits the entire contents of the starter box against each other in a battle royale.

We swapped out the Rookie Judge model for the Judge Dredd I painted as she didn't exactly look like 'Veteran Judge Cassidy', I've also made a slight change to the scenario as Ramirez got blown away in the last one, and so Kinsey is back for this one.

The battle is just a straight fight. The Judges are trying to take down four gangers and the High Rollers are aiming to drop a single Judge...easy, right?

This was a real back and forth fight. Initially, the Gunfighter rule of the Judges (which we'd finally got the hang of) meant that it was really dangerous to fire at them, as it should be, and it seemed like the perps stood no chance.

However, the stump gun shot and chain attack suddenly put Kinsey on the back foot, but I just couldn't finish him off. When he got back into cover and healed, it felt like the gang has lost their opportunity, especially when Matt started blowing things up.

Ultimately, the return of the ganger with the combat rifle (probably still the Diceman), who'd been severely injured early on and had spent several turns healing, turned the tide and put enough damage onto Kinsey to end the game.

All in all I feel this is a really good game. The miniatures are good and the mechanics really allow for forces mismatched in numbers to feel balanced. The Big Meg and Armoury cards are really powerful, but a limited resource that need to be used wisely. The game also offers the closest representation of a movie-style shootout (the Gunfighter rule is key to this) that I've come across in any skirmish game.

If there's a down side, the rules are a bit scattered through the rulebook and sometimes it's hard to find the bit you need. I also think that it's a game that relies on interest in Judge Dredd to drive sales as this box really does contain everything you need for a good game.

Will I pick up more of the range? Possibly...if the price is right. I'm not a massive Judge Dredd fan, but I might grab a few of the more well known characters: Judge Death, Mean Machine Angel, the Fatties, etc. I suspect I'm more likely to raid my remaining Wargames Factor Survivors to add to the Block Gang, rather than buy expensive resin models, and I'm inclined to use generic city and post-apocalyptic terrain (like the movie did) rather than start building Mega City One.

However, I like this game, and that might have an impact when I'm next passing a Warlord Games stand at a show.