JDMG Scenario 06 - Devereux's Debut

Following a few requests for me to add a female Psi Judge to my team of Judges, I decided it was a good idea and so I devised this scenario to introduce PSI Judge Justine Devereux to my cast. Devereux is a pre-cog and telepath. She recently had a psi-flash of an arms deal involving the Chambers Brothers gang that was due to take place very soon. The gang was placed under 24 hours surveillance and a day later, in the early hours of the morning, they were traced to a warehouse situated on Damon Wayans Way in Sector 13. Street Judge Scott and PSI Judge Devereux were assigned to the case, with orders to arrest anyone involved in the arms deal. A Mob arms dealer called Mr. Johnson, was conducting the deal with B.J. Chambers, supplying him with a cache of 30 Spit Gun Rifles.
THE FORCES - MEGA CITY ONE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Street Judge Scott - Level:3 Infantry Hero with 5 Experience Points and worth 200 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +2, Shoot +2, Melee +1, Melee Dice 2D, Will +3, Armour +5, Hits 4.
Equipment - Boot Knife, Daystick, Lawgiver Mk II Pistol, Stumm Gas Grenades and Standard Issue Armour.
Talents - Academy Star, Accurate, Voice of Command and Voice of Justice.

PSI Judge Devereux - Level:1 Infantry Hero with 0 Experience Points and worth 175 Credits.
Stats - Psi Points 4, Move 5", Agility +1, Shoot +2, 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 - Accurate and Concentrated Mind.

THE FORCES - THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS STREET GANG
B.J. Chambers - Level:3 Punk Infantry Hero with 4 Experience Points and worth 130 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +1, Shoot +2, Melee +0, Melee Dice 2D, Will +1, Armour +0, Hits 4.
Equipment - Spit Gun Rifle.
Talents - Accurate, Brave, Crackshot and Crippling Fire.

Otis Chambers - Level:2 Punk Infantry Hero with 2 Experience Points and worth 105 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +0, Shoot +2, Melee +0, Melee Dice 2D, Will +1, Armour +0, Hits 3.
Equipment - Spit Gun Rifle
Talents - Accurate, Brave and Crackshot.

Larry Chambers - Level:1 Punk Infantry Hero with 1 Experience Point and worth 80 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +0, Shoot +2, Melee +0, Melee Dice 2D, Will +0, Armour +0, Hits 2.
Equipment - Spit gun Rifle.
Talents - Accurate and Brave.

Willie Chambers - Level:0 Punk Infantry Minion with 0 Experience Points and worth 30 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +0, Shoot +0, Melee +0, Melee Dice 2D, Will +0, Armour +0, Hits 1.
Equipment - Spit Gun Rifle.

Randy Bridgeforth and Damion Bridgeforth - Level:0 Punk Infantry Minions with 0 Experience Points and worth 30 Credits each.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +0, Shoot +0, Melee +0, Melee Dice 2D, Will +0, Armour +3, Hits 1.
Equipment -Spit Gun Rifles.

Anthony King and Terrance Stewart - Level:0 Juve Infantry Minions with 0 Experience Points and worth 20 Credits each.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +0, Shoot +0, Melee +0, Melee Dice 2D, Will +0, Armour +3, Hits 1.
Equipment -Spit Gun Rifles.

Mr. Johnson - Level:5 Mob Gangster Infantry Hero with 11 Experience Points and worth 200 Credits.
Stats - Move 5", Agility +1, Shoot +2, Melee +0, Melee Dice 2D, Will +1, Armour +4, Hits 6.
Equipment - Stump Gun Rifle, Handgun Pistol, Pad Armour.
Talents - Accurate, Crackshot, Close Combat Shooter, Slippery and Stealthy.

The Justice Department forces were worth 375 Credits, whilst the Chambers Brothers Gang were worth 445 Credits and Mr. Johnson was worth 200 Credits. It appeared that the Judges were seriously outmatched, but read the Special Rules section below.
SET UP
Just for a change, I played this scenario on my urban ground tiles by Stoelzel's Structures, measuring 3' by 3'. All of the buildings are from my collection of contemporary card buildings, with the flat-roofed warehouses being produced by Ebbles Miniatures. Note the tower made from a Pringles crisps tube, which has never been seen on my blog before.

The Chambers Brothers Gang were set up first, in and around the large warehouse in the centre left half of the board. The Judges deployed second and could enter anywhere 3" in from the opposite side of the board. The Judges would activate first in this scenario.
SPECIAL RULES
As soon as combat starts, Mr. Johnson will attempt to exit the board by the quickest route possible. He would much rather flee to live and fight another day than to stay and get in a firefight with the Judges. He is not a coward but he has no loyalty to the Chambers Brothers, so he will not aid in them in their fight. Self-preservation is his number one priority.
VICTORY CONDITIONS
The fight continues until all of the models in one of the forces have been removed from the battlefield. The remaining force is the victor.

AFTERMATH
Well, that couldn't have gone any better for the Judges. The shooting by both Judges was exemplary. PSI Judge Devereux only missed with one shot at the start of the game when she fired at Anthony King. But every other shot of hers was a hit and a wound. Judge Scott was just on fire. He hit with every shot he took, and also scored a critical hit on B.J. Chambers, which took him out. Armour and cover behind the warehouse door helped prevent him from taking any damage, even though he was hit a few times. B.J. was unlucky not to have wounded Judge Scott.
Once the dust and gun smoke had cleared it transpired that B.J. and Otis Chambers both suffered injuries to the body (suffering -1 to Agility and Melee stats). Both served time in the Iso-Cubes. Larry and Willie Chambers died as results of critical head and body wounds respectively. Damion Bridgeforth, Randy Bridgeforth and Terrance Stewart served lesser sentence in the Iso-Cubes. Anthony King suffered an injury to his right leg (-1 penalty to his Move stat) and he also served time.
Suffice to say, both Judges performed well enough to advance another level.

Judge Scott earned the following experience points.
+1 for surviving the battle.
+1 for arresting 1 Minion.
+3 for slaying a Level:3 Hero.
+2 for slaying a Level:2 Hero.
+1 for slaying a Level:1 Hero.
This earned him 8 experience points, enough to raise him to Level:5. However, a character can only advance one level at a time, so he rose to Level:4 with 10 experience points, just one point short of Level:5. He added +1 to his Shoot score, bringing it up to +3 and +1 to his Hits, bringing them up to 5. He also acquired a new Talent from the Gunslinger list - Close Combat Shooter, which allows him to perform Shoot actions with Pistol weapons even if an enemy is in base to base contact with him. His credits score increased by +25 to 225.

PSI Judge Devereux earned the following experience points.
+1 for surviving the battle.
+2 for arresting 2 Minions.
+2 for slaying 2 Minions.
This earned her 5 experience points, enough to raise her to Level:3. But, she was capped at Level:2 with 3 experience points. The other 2 experience points were, sadly, lost. She added +1 to her Agility score, raising it to +2, +2 to her Psi Points, raising them to 6 and +1 to her Hits, raising them to 3. Not surprisingly, she chose a new Psi Talent - Danger Sense from the Pre-Cog list. She gains a +1 bonus to her Agility score until the start of her next turn. This is a Special Action with a Psi Cost of 1. Her credits score increased by +25 to 200.

CONCLUSION
The dice gods were clearly smiling on the Judges when I played this scenario. It was another fun game. Even though it appeared to be a cakewalk for the Judges it could have gone very differently. Also, I suspect that if Mr. Johnson had stayed to fight, the Judges would probably have lost badly. At Level:5 he was a combat veteran! We have not seen the last of him in my campaign. So, PSI Judge Devereux passed with flying colours and, hopefully, will prove to be quite an asset to Judge Scott's team. I hope to have more Judge Dredd Miniatures Game action for you soon. Thanks for reading.

Ebbles M8A3 Kirchner Main Battle Tank

As I promised last time, here's my review of the Ebbles 28mm scale M8A3 Kirchner Main Battle Tank. I don't usually include any figures in my photos of vehicles but this time I thought it would be useful to give you a sense of scale as this tank turned out to be a lot bigger than I envisaged. The figure is one of the Black Scorpion 30mm scale US Infantry figures that I recently painted. I have about three dozen of them, enough for a company.

The dimensions of the tank are 15cm long (6"), which does not include the added length of the cannon on the turret; 9cm wide (3.5") and 6cm tall (2.5"). Like the M11 MPUV that I reviewed last week, it comes in eight colour schemes - Factory Gray, Police Classic, UN White, Monotone Sand, Sand Gray, Olive Drab, NATO 3-Tone Verdant, and NATO 3-Tone Desert. I opted for Olive Drab for my colour scheme. Police Classic is unusual as it begs the question, what kind of a contemporary or near future police force uses Main Battle Tanks? Sorry, Mega City One Judges do not count!

The turret weaponry consists of a 155mm cannon, which comes in two halves - front and back. I've pinned the two halves together and pinned the whole cannon to the turret to give it extra strength and to help prevent it from snapping off. You have a choice of two co-axial weapons to place alongside the cannon - a 30mm autocannon or a heavy machine gun. I chose the autocannon purely for the extra firepower. The smoke launchers fitted to the front of the turret are optional but I wanted them on my tank. There is a further option for including a remote weapon mount, identical to those that I used with my Military M11 MPUVs. Somehow, I didn't think they'd look right on top of the tank turret so I omitted them.

                  

The turret turns by the same method I used for the remote weapon mounts on the M11 MPUVs, i.e. with a pin. The turret and body are reinforced with layers of foamboard glued atop one another to give them a very solid feel and to prevent my pin from wobbling about. Nobody wants a wobbly pin!

The design of the tank is reminiscent of the M1 Abrams MBT currently being used by the US Army. It is similar but definitely not the same. It was an absolute joy to make as it is so unlike any other card vehicle I've made. This is one mean looking beast! You can download the PDF files for this model from the Ebbles website for just $5.00. You'll find it listed under the 2003 models section. I do have plans to use this in at least one ATZ scenario, although it won't be making an appearance this year. Next year, who knows?

Ebbles M11 MPUV

Regular readers of my blog will be familiar with the the name Ebbles, as I often mentioned them when describing some of the interiors of my WWG buildings. This is because I'd often use their furniture pieces to complement that provided by WWG. Ebbles is another cardstock company whom I greatly admire. They tend to concentrate on sci-fi or near future vehicles and scenery. This is my first review of some of their near future models. These three vehicles seen in my series of photos are the M11 MPUV or SUV depending if you want a civilian or military version. The website describes them as being 1/48th scale, which means they'll fit in well with any range of 28mm scale figures.

I have made one civilian version and two military versions. The military versions come with optional roof mounted weaponry. I've made two of the three options - the machine gun remote station (shown on the middle vehicle above) and the missile launcher remote station (shown on the vehicle to the right above). The third option is for a grenade launcher remote station. This looks very similar to the machine gun but has a bulkier barrel.

The weapon mounts that I made do rotate. This was achieved by the simple method of pushing a flat headed pin through the centre of their turntables. If I want to use either of these vehicles as unarmed versions then it is a very easy task to remove the weapon mount. Underneath the weapon mounts and inside the bodies of the two vehicles, I added about half a dozen layers of foamboard on top of each other so that the pins would have something to slot into, thus keeping the weapon mounts stable.

The Ebbles website describes this as "the illegitimate lovechild of a SUV and a Humvee." The model comes with eight colour schemes - Factory Gray, Police Classic, UN White, Monotone Sand, Sand Gray, Olive Drab, NATO 3-Tone Verdant, and NATO 3-Tone Desert. My civilian version is in Factory Gray, whilst my two military versions are Olive Drab. Please note that these vehicles come with wing mirrors, which you can clearly see in the photo above, something that is missing from every WWG vehicle!

                   
This set is ridiculously cheap at only $6.00. Once you've downloaded the set you can make as many as you want, and with eight colour schemes to choose from that's great value for money. The civilian version was much easier to make than the armed military versions. That's simply because the remote weapon mounts are a tad fiddly to make.
It is nice to know that Ebbles and WWG support one another. They view each other as allies rather than competitors, which is such a refreshing attitude to see in any industry. I love these models but I have one very minor criticism to make - I'd love to see a version coloured all black. That would be so useful for the likes of a presidential motorcade or transport mode for a bunch of Men-in-Black!

Note, if no post appears on Sunday don't worry. I'm spending a long weekend at home playing as much ATZ as I can. So expect some new batreps in the near future. The next scenario of my campaign will be called Riot!, which tells you all you need about what team Vampifan will be facing next. The question is, will I be adapting the relatively easy Police Riot scenario or the much harder National Guard Riot scenario from ATZ:Haven? Also, look out for my review of the Ebbles M8A3 Kirchner main battle tank next Wednesday. It's a freaking awesome model!