JDMG MC1 Zombie Master/Mistress 01

These past few months I have almost solely concentrated on my Judge Dredd Miniatures Game campaign. Despite my blog being called Vampifan's World of the Undead not all of my posts are undead related.  Judge Dredd would appear to fall outside of the undead category. But not so. The undead element often crops up in the Judge Dredd comic series. Ghosts, vampires and zombies have all appeared, along with such supernatural entities as demons and werewolves. I have very definite plans for including the undead in my JDMG campaign.

One of the most powerful villains to ever appear in the Judge Dredd series was Sabbat the Necromagus (Zombie Master). Arriving from the year 2178, Sabbat reanimated the dead across the entire world, sparking  the Fourth World War. Several Mega Cities were completely overrun, prompting the remainder to nuke them out of existence, killing billions. Set mainly in 2114 it featured in the Judgement Day story, which was published in 1992. The series is mainly notable because it was writer Garth Ennis' longest Dredd story, because it killed off most of the supporting cast of the Judge Dredd series, and because it was the first story to feature Johnny Alpha since he was killed off at the end of the Strontium Dog series (from Alpha's point of view it was set two years before his death). After a lengthy fight, Dredd and Alpha eventually managed to decapitate Sabbat, and left him helpless, powerless, but still alive (although a story published three months later revealed he had lost his mind and was reduced to a drooling vegetable). At the moment of Sabbat's defeat, his zombies instantly "switched off" and collapsed all over the world at the eleventh hour. Sabbat was, by far, the most powerful zombie master to have ever walked the planet. This is reflected in his stats in the JDMG rulebook, where he is listed as a Level:22 Infantry Hero costing 700 Credits. This makes him more powerful than Judge Dredd - a Level:20 Infantry Hero worth 625 Credits. He has 23 Talents - Animate the Dead, Brave, Concentrated Mind, Critical Reserves, Danger Sense, Daze, Demoralise, Die Hard, Die Harder, Heart Rip, Heroic Rush, Inspire, Luck of Grud x2, Martial Artist, Mental Sting, Mind Shield, Nerves of Steel, Parry, Resist Flames, Shroud of the Dead, Slippery and The Power Within. His Psi Score is 38. He has three Special Rules - Zombie Master - he is the Zombie Master and uses the Psychic Conduit and Rise, Rise my Beauties! Special Rules from the Zombie Hordes section. Second is Natural Talent, which when using the Animate the Dead Psi Talent, allows him to animate all eligible models within range. Thirdly, is Sabbat's Cloak. Animated by the spirits of the those he has pulled from the afterlife, Sabbat's Cloak constantly chides him but also counts as Leather Armour and grants him the Situational Awareness Talent. The figure of Sabbat was produced by Warlord Games and I must admit I am not a big fan of the sculpt. It is okay, I suppose, but I much prefer the Zombie Mistress figure.

I have two figures of Zombie Mistress Malexica. The foot figure was produced by Warlord Games and the bike riding version was sculpted by Dave Stone for Wargames Terrain Workshop. I love both versions. I was quite surprised to see just how closely Dave's version matched the foot figure and the "skeleton" bike is inspired. I removed the very tiny slottatab from the foot figure and bulked out the bottom of her cloak with Milliput so that I could more easily glue her to a 30mm diameter MDF base (she is a very tall figure due to her floating in mid air). The mounted version was glued to a 25mm by 70mm MDF base with rounded corners. I should point out that Malexica is not a character from the official Judge Dredd series but is entirely my own creation. I plan on making her the chief villain of my JDMG campaign. She was originally called Millicent Carr, a resident of Mega City One. Upon reaching puberty, her psychic powers emanated. She tried hard to keep them hidden but eventually her secret was revealed and she fled home just before the Judges arrived to take her away. Shunned by society she retreated to the Undercity beneath Sector 13, where my campaign is based. There, she discovered the true nature of her power, and unleashed psychic control of the dead, animating them into shuffling zombies. Now she will have her revenge on the city that has spurned her. At present, she is a Level:7 Infantry Hero with 15 Psi Points. She has 8 Talents - Animate the Dead, Brave, Concentrated Mind, Danger Sense, Foresight, Shroud of the Dead, Silent Action, Stealthy and the Power Within. She is armed with Cybernetic Blades on her fingers, which count as a Knife worth 25 Credits. She is worth 270 Credits.