Blood on the Streets Questions

[Chip]

Hey, a group of us recently picked up the Judge Dredd game and am loving it! I was a long-time lover of Gangs of Mega City 1, and am thrilled to see so many of the concepts kept. That said, I do have some questions, primarily about the Blood on the Streets Campaign system...

1) Can you sell gear models start with? As an example, I'm looking at buying a medic for my Citi-Def and upgrading them off the bat to have a Shell Jacket. Can I sell the Pad Armour, or do I have to keep it in the armoury forever more? I know it's a whole 2 Credits, but it'd clear up my force roster...

2) Is there a rescue mission for hostages that I've just not found, or are characters at the mercy of their captors?

3) I'm fairly certain I'm missing something here, but is there anything that limits Loyal Follower in the same way as Fixer? I can't see anything that stops you, say, challenging a Dark Judges player, making a Lone Vigilante tooled up to the eyeballs with psi powers, laser pistols, katanas and other gear, then taking Loyal Follower and immediately upping your gang's value by, like, 500 Credits (minus anything slaughtered by Judge Death, of course)?

4) Has anyone tried house ruling Rackets and the events table back in? It's the only bits from Gangs of Mega City 1 that didn't seem to make it, and that's kinda disappointing...

 

[Chip]

A few more questions came up after I posted the last one;

5) What's the Dark Judge's Rep? I'd ASSUME that having four level infinity characters would mean they're effectively Rep "Infinity", but that raises questions about if you manage to beat them - You get a bonus to your Rep equal to 2(D+1)-(R-1)?* because that's... That's a lot. Best answer I've found so far is to treat them as Level 25 characters, for a starting Force Rep of 104, but I wouldn't mind clarification.

6) I just want to make sure I'm reading the challenge rules right because, if I'm reading this right, if a gang value gets high enough, there's nothing to stop them hiring a single unarmed Juve (or similar) and picking a points score of 10, knowing that noone else in the campaign has anything that cheap to contest them, and then challenging everyone else to Turf grabs? The idea of an entire campaign devolving into hired teenagers having one-on-one fist fights for dominance while everyone sticks together a zombie horde is entertaining to me, but only for a bit...

*D=Infinity, which is a Dark Judge's Rep in this system, and R=a gang's current Rep.

 

[Chip]

Wow! No takers at all? Very helpful, guys! Well, a few more questions to apparently throw out into the ether...

7) Can werewolves/zombies/demons ride bikes? We can't find anything that says they can't...

8) Can you remove an item from a model's gear list without replacing it? The rule's wording implies you HAVE to "upgrade"...

9) Do you have to pay to improve Minions with Inspire and Elevate?

 

[chaoschild]

I'll answer the ones I can, I haven't played a blood on the streets campaign so I'll have to skip those.

1) No, any equipment that's supplied as standard is lost if replaced. No refunds or sales. That's been answered elsewhere on here (I know, because I'm the one that originally asked).

3) There are no limits on Loyal Follower, confirmed that one at today's tournament.

7) Yes they can, and there will be a zombie bikers boxed set out eventually.

8) Not sure. I don't think so but I can't really see a good reason why not.

9) Yes you do, it follows all the normal rules.

Hope that helps, and that someone else can fill in what's left.

 

[Greg Smith]

5) What's the Dark Judge's Rep?

There are definitely problems with using the Dark Judges in any kind of campaign. They have nothing to spend credits on. They can't level up.

Treating them as level 25 (or higher) is probably the best answer.

 

[Chip]

I'll answer the ones I can, I haven't played a blood on the streets campaign so I'll have to skip those.

1) No, any equipment that's supplied as standard is lost if replaced. No refunds or sales. That's been answered elsewhere on here (I know, because I'm the one that originally asked).

3) There are no limits on Loyal Follower, confirmed that one at today's tournament.

7) Yes they can, and there will be a zombie bikers boxed set out eventually.

8) Not sure. I don't think so but I can't really see a good reason why not.

9) Yes you do, it follows all the normal rules.

Hope that helps, and that someone else can fill in what's left.

That helps great! The news that there will be zombie bikers has got our zombie player VERY excited, if only because he's already at something like 40 zombies after one game, and is looking for something a bit different for his shambling horde...

There are definitely problems with using the Dark Judges in any kind of campaign. They have nothing to spend credits on. They can't level up.

Treating them as level 25 (or higher) is probably the best answer.

Oh no one's done it YET, but we're just covering our bases for if a new player shows up with Judge Death and starts wondering why we're crying We were thinking about this last night though and, much like zombies/werewolves etc... There doesn't seem to be anything stopping them buying vehicles, so they could kit themselves out with a bunch of kickass automatic MoPads as minions? I think we'll treat them as four level 25s, because trying to calculate Reputation in terms of n is going to cause headaches

Another question!

10) Can a Zombie Master try to reanimate the same zombie twice (the turn it's destroyed and the turn after) if it remains within 12", or is it one attempt? Also, do you get XP for each time you kill a zombie, or is it the person that finishes it permanently? We've been playing it as two reanimations, and someone gets the XP for the final death but, as soon as the Zombie Master hits level 10, that means there's an exactly 1% chance of finishing off a zombie, and there's SO MUCH book keeping (especially if they've also been set on fire...) with remembering who dropped each individual zombie...

 

[MongooseMatt]

10) Can a Zombie Master try to reanimate the same zombie twice (the turn it's destroyed and the turn after) if it remains within 12", or is it one attempt? Also, do you get XP for each time you kill a zombie, or is it the person that finishes it permanently? We've been playing it as two reanimations, and someone gets the XP for the final death but, as soon as the Zombie Master hits level 10, that means there's an exactly 1% chance of finishing off a zombie, and there's SO MUCH book keeping (especially if they've also been set on fire...) with remembering who dropped each individual zombie...

No, one chance. And you only get XP for finishing off a zombie permanently (removing it from the table).

 

[Anxt]

I'm in the same gaming group as Chip, just another question to add is about the Shroud of Death psi power. Does it last until the end if the game, until used successfully or until it fails?

 

[DrDuckman]

And in the same vain of questioning as above, does Voice of Command stack? i.e would 5 models with Voice of Command give +5 will to a model nearby?

 

[chaoschild]

I'm in the same gaming group as Chip, just another question to add is about the Shroud of Death psi power. Does it last until the end if the game, until used successfully or until it fails?

Lasts until the end of the game, regardless of how many times it kicks in. Although technically if it fails the model becomes a casualty so it'd stop working then.

 

[chaoschild]

And in the same vain of questioning as above, does Voice of Command stack? i.e would 5 models with Voice of Command give +5 will to a model nearby?

There's nothing in the rules to say it doesn't stack. I don't know if this is intentional or not.

 

[DrDuckman]

Thanks, this is very helpful!

Here is one that still bugs me. The Cal-Hab judge specifically states they can get an Iron Lion, but it does not specifically forbid the Cal-Hab judge to run a Lawmaster, unlike the Riot Judges. Does that mean I, as a Justice Dep player, can just buy my Cal-Hab judge a Lawmaster instead? Does not really seem to be anything stopping me from doing that, but I wanted to check in with the group.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Thanks, this is very helpful!

Here is one that still bugs me. The Cal-Hab judge specifically states they can get an Iron Lion, but it does not specifically forbid the Cal-Hab judge to run a Lawmaster, unlike the Riot Judges. Does that mean I, as a Justice Dep player, can just buy my Cal-Hab judge a Lawmaster instead? Does not really seem to be anything stopping me from doing that, but I wanted to check in with the group.

I cannot see a problem with that - if a Cal-Hab Judge visited MC-1, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that they would loan him a Lawmaster to get around with other Judges...

 

[DrDuckman]

Brilliant, helpful as always! Here's another:

Can you cast Psi powers on a bike? This seems like a pretty critical one. And even more specifically, can you cast powers like the Pyrokinetic Blast of the Ectoplasmic Bolt, that have a shooting component? I know you are supposed to only be able to shoot pistols while on a bike, but psi powers are not actually shooting actions.

What do you guys think?

 

[Greg Smith]

There is nothing stopping you paerforming a special action to activate Psi powers, while on a bike.

 

[andrewgpaul]

I cannot see a problem with that - if a Cal-Hab Judge visited MC-1, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that they would loan him a Lawmaster to get around with other Judges...

As a similar example, look at page 193 of the rulebook; the Hondo City Justice department seem to have given Dredd a loaner...

The rules do say "VEHICLES OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
The following vehicles may be used by the Justice Department and Cal’s Personal Retinue only. The Iron Lion may only be taken by the Brit-Cit Justice Department." Depends if you read that as applying to individual models (with Cal-Hab Judges being a specific exception to the restriction on Iron Lions) or to the force as a whole.

Looking at the rules for "Spikes" Harvey Rotten, it says that if he's part of a Justice Dept force, he may ride a Lawmaster. If the rule was that any mercenary may ride a Justice Dept vehicle while in a Justice Dept force, that would be an unnecessary rule.

 

[DrDuckman]

I think the key difference there is that Spikes already has a bike assigned to him, so they would have to have a rule to replace it for a reduced cost.

Otherwise, with the current rule, you could just buy him a Lawmaster and use that instead.

It IS a bit of a grey area, I agree, but given the way vehicles seem to work for the other gangs, you basically buy vehicles and everyone can use them, with the exception of people like Riot Judges, who specifically can't. Otherwise how do you use cars etc?

Speaking of grey areas, can someone explain to me how Wheelie works? Is the vehicle stuck in melee combat after the action? Can it just go through, like Drive By Boot?

If a bike that moved more than 10 it cannot be attacked in close combat, so I am assuming that when it hits someone with Wheelie(and drive by boot), that target gets to hit back normal, but on the opponent's phase, they are not locked in combat, since he can't actually melee the vehicle. In fact, I assume vehicles don't get locked in combat in general, since they simply ram through models.

 

[DrDuckman]

And this ofcourse raises the other question that came up in a game recently. An opponent rammed one of my judges, then also performed Drive By Boot on it. Is that legal? Can I then do ram and Whelee at the same time, and also be immune to counter melee charges next turn?

 

[Anxt]

I have another question, this time about the way the Reporter works. There seem to be a couple of interpretations flying around in the group. One of which seems a little OP to me so I'm hoping to get some clarification about how it works

1) Any time that the reporter could make a shoot action they get to add a point to their total for every single model on their side who has done a qualifying action that they have LOS to. This just happens and there is no need to actually make the shoot action because the rule states "could" specifically but doesn't state that you "must" do one to make it work

2) The reporter makes a shoot action at their target who is a model on their side that has done a qualifying action that they have LOS to (in the same way as a shooting attack but no dice are rolled). For every shoot action performed they add 1 to their total

Please let me know which is correct or if the correct interpretation is something I've missed

Thanks

 

[chaoschild]

He has to target a specific model with his shoot action and you add 1 to his total for every shoot action he takes, so a maximum of +2 per turn. He can't point his camera everywhere at once.