Wednesday Workbench 22 March 2023; Judge Dredd - Block War

 

As you can see, there's actually nothing on my workbench right now. That is a purely temporary state of affairs, of course, but I haven't decided what project to tackle next. It hasn't been completely empty since the end of the Challenge - yesterday it had my airbrushes in various stages of being deep cleaned, but that's all done now.

On Monday I took delivery of a pre-order I'd placed in January:

Yes, the Block War expansion for Judge Dredd, plus a couple of freebies.

Para carrying casualty - I've already got this, so I'll make a gift of it

1812 Russian line infantry, to add to all the other sample sprues I have.

Block War Expansion

The pre-order was for the expansion, plus the first three associated packs. Looking through the rules, it looks like another eight packs are set for release later on (from bits mentioned in the rules but without previews, there should be more).

Block War

The expansion contains an A5 format rulebook, a pad of record sheets for players' blocks in the campaign, 2 figures of belligerent residents, 3 new Armoury cards and 15 Block War cards (which replace the Big Meg cards from the main game).

Mega-City Resident Mob

The pack contains 10 belligerent resident figures and 3 cards (1 x stats, 1 x Armoury, 1 x Big Meg)

Fatties At War

The pack contains 2 "fatty" models - Fats Hambo and a fatty battering ram, and 4 cards (2 stats cards, 1 x Armoury, and 1 x Big Meg)

Justice Department Riot Control

The pack contains 3 figures (2 Riot Judges, 1 Assault Judge) and 4 cards (2 stats cards, 1 x Armoury, 1 x Big Meg).

I've had a read-through of the rules and they look as though they should make for an interesting campaign between 2 or more players. There are 12 scenarios split into Early, Mid and Late phases (4 for each). There is an escalation factor in the games - in early phase scenarios you get 75 point, mid phase 100 points and late phase 150 points (NB - points/models available can be affected by certain block upgrades, details of the scenario, special abilities, Block War cards and results of preceding scenarios). Added to the rules are heavy weapons emplacements 

Each player selects their Block from one of 65 types, although it's not clear (other than through their random number of block upgrades) what effect beyond the number of structural points the block has on the game. Maybe just for a bit of "colour" - how many levels and how many residents per level. Winning a scenario will cause structural damage to the loser's block.

Update - on taking another look, the type of block does have an effect and (in one case) the population/level. However, the number of levels seems to have no effect. 

For the block factions, players get to select their roster from the Block Gang, Citi-Def, Fatty, Robot lists and any non-Judge characters. There isn't a Justice Department faction, but one of the block upgrades and certain Block War cards can bring in one or more Judges under your control during mid and late phase scenarios - as four of the 15 cards can do this and each player picks 3 cards from the deck, there is a very good chance of both players being able to bring in and control Judge models (although Judges can never target each other). Each block must have a "champion" - there are stats (and special rules) for these, but I don't see why the Champion couldn't be a Block Gang Lieutenant, a Citi-Def Lieutenant (figures not released yet) or one of the two named Fatties (Dick Porker and Fats Hambo); you could add the special rules for Block Champion to them by upping the points cost.

I've got pretty much all the scatter terrain I need for the 'tween-block plaza scenarios, but might get a few more pieces. 

This expansion is definitely positioned as a perp vs perp game, whereas the main rules (the scenarios at least) are aimed more as Judges vs perps which can lead to a major imbalance in the activation system if you don't use one of the house rules that have been suggested by players and one of the designers). From figure previews that have been seen, it looks like "The Day The Law Died" will be the next expansion and that will pit Judges vs Judges - also a more balanced game. The heavy weapons and new Citi-Def models might also suggest an eventual Apocalypse War expansion.