JDMG Scenario 02 - Scaring the Scabies

The second instalment of my Judge Dredd Miniatures Game campaign follows on one week in game time and real time from the first one. Now that Judge Scott has disposed of the Barko Brothers, who were in control of a shanty town territory in a slum district of Sector 13, the residents are undefended. Lurking just below them in the Undercity are a gang called the Scabies, led by Scab Scabie. With immediate access to the shanty town, Scab decides to cause mayhem to the local residents by blowing up their power generator. This scenario is based on the Demolition standard scenario found on page 21 of the Blood on the Streets supplement.
THE FORCES - MEGA CITY ONE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Street Judge Burnett - Level:1 Infantry Hero with 0 Experience Points and worth 160 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +1, Shoot +3, Melee +1, Melee Dice 2D, Will +1, Armour +5, Hits 2.
Equipment - Boot Knife, Daystick, Lawrod Rifle, Stumm Gas Grenades and Standard Issue Armour.
Talents - Accurate and Boom! Head Shot.

Street Judge Moore - Level:1 Infantry Hero with 0 Experience Points and worth 150 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +2, Shoot +2, Melee +1, Melee Dice 2D, Will +1, Armour +5, Hits 2.
Equipment - Boot Knife, Daystick, Lawgiver Mk II Pistol, Stumm Gas Grenades and Standard Issue Armour.
Talents - Accurate and Close Combat Shooter.

Street Judge Webb - Level:1 Infantry Hero with 0 Experience Points and worth 150 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +2, Shoot +1, Melee +1, Melee Dice 2D, Will +2, Armour +5, Hits 2.
Equipment - Boot Knife, Daystick, Lawgiver Mk II Pistol, Stumm Gas Grenades and Standard Issue Armour.
Talents - Agile and Stealthy.

Med Judge Nash - Level:1 Infantry Hero with 0 Experience Points and worth 150 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +2, Shoot +2, Melee +1, Melee Dice 2D, Will +1, Armour +5, Hits 2.
Equipment - Boot Knife, Medi-Kit, Lawgiver Mk II Pistol and Standard Issue Armour.
Talents - First Aid and Medic.

THE FORCES - THE SCABIES STREET GANG
Scab Scabie - Level:2 Punk Infantry Hero with 2 Experience Points and worth 220 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +0, Shoot +1, Melee +2, Melee Dice 2D, Will +0, Armour +3, Hits 3.
Equipment - Double Barrelled Stump Gun Rifle, Sword, Respirator and Leather Armour
Talents - Luck of Grud, Skilled and Deadly and Voice of Command.

Squama - Level:1 Punk Infantry Hero with 1 Experience Point and worth 155 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +1, Shoot +1, Melee +0, Melee Dice 2D, Will +0, Armour +3, Hits 2.
Equipment - Grenade Launcher (use stats for Hand Bomb but increase range to 20" and double cost to 60 Credits, Respirator and Leather Armour.
Talents - Maximum Firepower and On Their Knees.

Scatty and Scurf - Level:1 Punk Infantry Heroes with 0 Experience Points and worth 110 Credits each.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +0, Shoot +2, Melee +0, Melee Dice 2D, Will +0, Armour +0, Hits 2.
Equipment - 2x Sawed Off Stump Gun Rifles and Respirator.
Talents - Brave and Dual Shooter.

Branny, Crusty and Flaky - Level:0 Punk Infantry Minions with 0 Experience Points and worth 35 Credits each.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +0, Shoot +0, Melee +0, Melee Dice 2D, Will +0, Armour +0, Hits 1.
Equipment - Stump Gun Rifle and Respirator.

The Justice Department fielded a force worth 610 Credits against the Scabies street gang who were worth 700 Credits. With a Level:2 Hero leading them and comprising three Level:1 Heroes and 3 Level:0 Minions the Scabies had a slight advantage.
SET UP
I played my fight on a four feet by two feet battlefield using gaming mats, buildings and scenery items from my Battle Systems Urban Apocalypse Shanty Town sets. The Scabies deployed their force 10" in from one of the short edges. The Judges deployed 10" in from the opposite short edge. I used the generator from my Battle Systems terrain sets as the objective and it was placed in the centre of the board. As written, the attacking force (the Scabies) are meant to act first. However, when I played the game that way, the Scabies destroyed the objective far too easily before the Judges could even reach them. That was boring and would have made for a very poor batrep. So I decided to replay the game with the Judges going first. It made for a much closer contest.

SPECIAL RULES
Every model in the attacking force (the Scabies) is assumed to be carrying a high explosive device. In order to destroy the objective, a model must move into base contact with it and perform eight Special Actions arming the explosives. These Special Actions need not be performed consecutively and the model is permitted to perform other actions while setting up the explosives. If the model is removed from the table or leaves the objective, keep a track of how many Special Actions he performed arming the explosives. Another model is free to move into base contact and continue the task until a total of eight Special Actions have been performed.
VICTORY CONDITIONS
If the attacking force destroys the objective, it will be victorious. If the defending force destroys or drives off all of the attacking models, it will gain victory instead.
NOTE
If you find the pictures and captions are too small to see or read, don't worry. There are a few simple solutions. The easiest solution is to left click on that icon at the far right of your menu toolbar at the top of your screen. It's the one with the three parallel grey lines. That will give you a pop up menu. Left click on the plus symbol (+) to the right of the percentage number and keep pressing until the screen picture is big enough for you to read. My default setting for my blog is 170%. For reading the comic, I'd suggest going up to 200% or higher.
The second method is a bit more involved. First, left click on any of the pics. This will take you to a new screen showing all of the pics without the text. Next, right click on any of the pics, say for example page 1 of the comic. This will give you a menu of options. Left click on the top one, View Image. If you hover your mouse over the picture, you'll see a plus sign in a white circle. Left click it and the picture will double in size, making it very easy to read. If you press the arrow key at the top left corner of your menu toolbar that will take you back to the blog. Sadly, you'll have to go through this procedure for every picture you want to magnify but it's only a few clicks so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. 

AFTERMATH
Scab Scabie took a crippling wound to the head (suffers a -1 penalty to his Psi, Shoot and Will stats). He served a full sentence in the iso-cubes. Squama and Scurf were both killed by chest shots. Scatty's wound was just a scratch. He served time in the cubes. As did Branny and Crusty. Branny was also injured in the right arm (suffers a -1 penalty to his Agility stat). Flaky, who ran away, was never seen or heard of again.
The four Judges did well with the experience they gained from this mission. All advanced to Level:2.

Judge Burnett earned the following Experience Points:
+1 for surviving the battle.
+1 for slaying a level:1 Hero.
+2 for slaying a Level:2 Hero.
This earned him 4 Experience Points, enough to raise him to Level:3. However, as I told you last time, a Hero can only advance one Level per game, so Judge Burnett became a Level:2 Hero with 3 Experience Points. He added +1 to his Agility stat, to give him a score of +2 and +1 to his Hits, bringing them up to 3. He acquired a new Talent from the Sniper Judge list - Timed Fuse, which allowed him to detonate a High Explosive round in mid-flight instead of on impact. Properly adjusted, this can allow a round to explode above the head of a target behind cover, depriving them of their shield. He also put in a requisition request for a Rifle Scope for his Lawrod Rifle. This was accepted and now his Lawrod has a range of 36" instead of 24". The downside is that he can only fire one Standard Executioner round at a time instead of three. It cost 20 credits and with his +25 Credits Level increase made him worth 205 Credits.

Judge Moore earned the following Experience Points:
+1 for surviving the battle.
+1 for slaying 1 Minion.
+1 for slaying a level:1 Hero.
This earned him 3 Experience Points, enough to raise him to Level:2. He added +1 to his Shoot stat, to give him a score of +3 and +1 to his Hits, bringing them up to 3. He acquired a new Talent from the Gunslinger list - Crackshot, which gives him a -1 bonus to the AP score of any shooting weapon he uses. His Credits score increased by +25 to 175.

Judge Webb earned the following Experience Points:
+1 for surviving the battle.
+1 for arresting 1 Minion.
This earned him 2 Experience Points, just enough to raise him to Level:2. He added +1 to his Shoot stat, to give him a score of +2 and +1 to his Hits, bringing them up to 3. He acquired a new Talent from the Sneaky Does It list - Infiltrator, which allows him to be placed on the table after all the models of both forces have been deployed. He may be placed anywhere up to 15" away from another member of his force, so long as he is not in Line Of Sight or within 15" of any enemy model. His Credits score increased by +25 to 175.

Med Judge Nash earned the following Experience Points:
+1 for surviving the battle.
+1 for slaying a level:1 Hero.
This earned him 2 Experience Points, which was just enough to raise him to Level:2. He added +1 to his Shoot stat, to give him a score of +2 and +1 to his Hits, bringing them up to 3. He acquired a new Talent from the Hands of a Healer list - Nurse, which allowed him to automatically negate two characteristic penalties that have resulted from injury, except those resulting from a body part being torn off. His Credits score increased by +25 to 175.
CONCLUSIONS
I do hope that Clint (Judge Burnett), Simon (Judge Moore), Roger (Judge Webb) and Andy (Med Judge Nash) were all satisfied with the performances of their alter ego characters. It pleased me enormously that all four advanced to Level:2. I certainly enjoyed playing this scenario and creating the comic is almost as much fun. The comic format has proved so popular that it will remain a part of all of my JDMG batreps.
Oh, and if you're wondering why the Judges had such limited success in their arrest attempts it is because a Hero will automatically resist any attempt to arrest him unless he decides to voluntarily surrender. However, despite this, a Judge must still attempt to make the arrest challenge before resorting to more violent measures. Minions, on the other hand, are far easier to arrest. Only if a perp (whether Hero or Minion) uses a Melee, Psi or Shoot action against a Judge or resists arrest, may a Judge use force to subdue him.