"2000AD (Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog, etc)" Topic

Inspired by the thread on ABC Warriors:

TMP link

I'm a big fan of a lot of the old 2000AD strips and I've made various attempts to find miniatures and rulesets to represent them over the years, some of which I've discussed here before. I'm wondering what experiences other TMPers have had with gaming 2000AD and whether we might be able to share some ideas.

I won't go into ABC Warriors as they're being discussed in the thread linked to above, but here are my thoughts on some other strips (apologies in advance for the long post!):

JUDGE DREDD

Easily the best served of the 2000AD strips, with comprehensive miniatures ranges previously offered from Citadel, Wizkids and Mongoose and currently from Foundry. There was also an official game in Gangs of Mega-City One, and many sci-fi skirmish games can be easily modified for this setting (I myself ran a version of Necromunda for Dredd games a few years ago). Not much more to say on Dredd!

ROGUE TROOPER

Again there is the official range of miniatures from Foundry, which I haven't tried myself but I have to say don't look very appealing from the images on their site. Has anyone got 'hands-on' experience of this range?

I've also seen people use Copplestone Castings troopers as GIs, and Bronze Age Miniatures now has a "Dark GIs" range with the possibility of some enemy troops to be sculpted. I've got the Dark GIs, and I really hope that range is expanded in future. In the meantime, I've been considering using Foundry's Norts with Bronze Age's Dark GIs – does anyone have any idea how well these two ranges would mix?

I've been focusing my efforts up 'till now on collecting the old Citadel line – which isn't easy! It's relatively straightforward to find all the major players on ebay (Rogue, Venus, the Traitor General, Major Magnam) but building up substantial forces of regular troops is a real challenge. So for I've got 5 Norts, 2 Nort snipers (sold as the character Morgen but usable as generic snipers) and 5 Southers (originally sold in the Rogue Trader Mercenaries range).

I've also got a bunch of GW's surfacing Termites from 1st ed Epic to use as Drill Probes, and a 40k scale Termite to represent the larger troop-carrying Drill Probes from the Rogue Trooper video game. I recently tried to get a GZG Leviathan tank, as it's the closest thing I've seen to a 25mm scale Blackmare, but sadly that kit is not currently in production by GZG. I'm also thinking of getting GZG and/or Old Crow dropships to use as Hoppers. Still on the lookout for automated pillboxes and Nort battlesuits – the closest I've seen for the latter is the American walkers from West Winds' "Secrets of the Third Reich" range, but they're too rounded and not boxy enough.

Rulesets for Rogue Trooper are not so easy either. Ideally I'd like a system that emphasises stealth, ambush tactics and the exploitation of weak points rather than a straightforward shoot-out, i.e. one that would enable a lone GI to take out a group of enemies or a large target like a Blackmare or Dreamweaver by wits and skill rather than sheer firepower. Does anyone have any suggestions for this?

STRONTIUM DOG

While I have the old Citadel miniatures and think they're great, sadly there were only three characters produced – Johnny, Wulf and the Gronk. If you add in the Dredd Perps range you have a lot more potential combatants and bystanders, both human and mutant, but no more named characters from the strip.

The Wizkids range added the Stix brothers, but had no Gronk. Foundry's range provides the most characters from the strip, but again the quality of most of the sculpts doesn't really grab me – nor does the Foundry 2000AD range provide the same amount of generic fodder as Citadel's Perps range, but I guess some of Foundry's Street Violence range could be used for that purpose, presuming the sculpts mix well between Foundry's ranges (does anyone have any experience of this?).

I think Strontium Dog is more suited to traditional sci-fi skirmish games than Rogue Trooper is, albeit with one side consisting of two or three high-level characters and the other consisting of greater numbers of lower-level grunts, perhaps with a more powerful leader. Any game like Necromunda, Chain Reaction, Rezolution, etc. should be open to suitable adaptation.

These are the main strips I've thought about in terms of gaming. I suppose Slaine could be done easily enough with the core characters from Foundry, some Celts either from Foundry or elsewhere and monsters from any suitable range. Maybe Songs of Blades and Heroes as a ruleset? I have no idea how one would go about gaming the likes of Robo Hunter or Nemesis the Warlock!

If anyone has any thoughts on any of the above or any other 2000AD gaming, your comments would be most welcome.

I'd suggest, for Rogue Trooper, Infinity. The minis you've already got would make for a decent small fight. Give Rogue a Multi-Rifle and some good stats (plus a few of the neat skills), keep the Southers and Norts as average troops, and you'll do fine.

Thanks for the suggestion. I haven't got the Infinity rules but I've heard they're pretty deadly, which may fit my needs – so long as Rogue himself can be made suitably tough!

I was also wondering about using one of Rattrap's narrative gaming systems for Rogue Trooper, as I think it might suit the character/scenario-driven ideal and RPG-hybrid flavour I'd be hoping for.

HI Parminion.

Thanks for the comments on my ABC Warriors thread.

I wont comment on dredd as you've covered most of that.

ROGUE TROOPER

You've covered all the figures i have and know about… you can see them here. picture

As to rules, I've always thought rogue trooper games on Nu earth would be a cross between a zombie game and a sci-fi skirmish game.

You need a very small unit of GI's and lots and lots of Norts. Add southers to taste.

Any sci-fi skirmish game should work ok with a few simple alterations. You'll need some rules on ambush and concealed movement – and probably a referee.

Give the GI's improved stats on movement, and initiative (reflecting their enhanced agility as they don't need to be suited). I'd give them some small combat bonuses too (perhaps +1 on a d10?)

The big difference is that the suited Norts and Southers get no armour saves. All hits are kills. Hence you need loads of Norts! So it becomes a zombie-like swarm. with the GI's cutting swathes through the massed enemy. The difference to a zombie game is that the Norts are regular troops, with leadership and morale and so forth, they also get the same kind of equipment as the southers including ranged weapons.

You mentioned you'd managed to pick up 5 southers which were sold as rogue TRADER mercenaries in early 40k days. How did you manage to find them… i've been stalking ebay for months/years!!

I'm not as up on vehicles as you seem to be but i do like the GZG leviathan… but i doubt they'll ever remake it in 25mm… they've gone all 15mmm now. :-(

I think a Rogue Trooper game would be best played as a campaign system. Say with a couple of platoons of survivors from the quartz zone massacre having to meet certain objectives to 'get home' or ' capture the traitor'. Any GI 'killed' in action can be transferred to a chip on a suitable dice roll. and transferred to another GI where it might provide additional bonuses (helm had sensors for increased initiative, bagman an extra attack for micro mines or can repair wounds with a medi-pak, gunnar some simple combat advantages).

So as the scenarios wear on there are fewer GI's but each is slightly more effective. It would be a war of attrition to meet the campaign objectives.

STRONTIUM DOG

Agree with you on the GW and foundry ranges. Here though i think you have massive opportunity to mix and match future citizens from a number of ranges. Some Chaos mutation type figures would also fit in here. I dont have any of the street violence of citadel perp ranges to compare. sorry.

Personally I think Strontium Dog is better suited to an RPG than a skirmish game.

Slaine

Agreed, Slaine would be character models from foundry with rank and file celts – i'd be inclined to use celtos ranges here for the cartoony style!

NEMESIS THE WARLOCK

Nemesis plus the ABC Warriors against hordes of termight soldiers.
The old regiments of renown sets
Disciples of the red redemption link
and knights of the cleansing flame link
spring to mind. But WHFB Empire flagellants and knights would do also.

I think these games again would be like zombie games… one small very strong side against lots of weaker troops. The problems are always with the fact that in the comics the heroes don't get killed!

Don't forget to make sure nemesis has lots of magic skills!

ROBO HUNTER

hmmm…. i only know of the foundry figures, for sam slade and hoagy etc. But there must be loads of good robot designs. Hydra miniatures and killer B games spring to mind immediately. You need a baby in a pram too!

Again this feels like a small team against big hordes type game.

For extra emphasis you could have a whole scenario where only dice rolls accompanied by singing are successful!! :-)

Thanks for all the detailed comments and suggestions Brandlin, and for the picture of all those Rogue Trooper minis. It looks from that photo that the Foundry Norts and Bronze Age GIs might work together reasonably well – is that your opinion? I have the GIs but not the Foundry figures, and I find it difficult to be sure about such things without having the minis in hand.

Regarding the rules for Rogue Trooper – I'd always thought of doing this with either Rogue on his own or maybe with one ally (e.g. Venus Bluegenes, Sister Sledge or a lone Souther) stealthily attacking various Nort troops, tanks and encampments. I hadn't really thought about using a group of GIs. The concept you describe sounds more like an open slaughter sort of game, which makes sense if we're talking about a group of survivors immediately after the Quartz Zone Massacre. Sadly I don't have the necessary number of Norts to make that feasible!

Have you ever played the Rogue Trooper video game? It's an excellent game, and also provides a very good gaming insight into Rogue Trooper and Nu Earth, much of which can be translated into tabletop gaming. For example, I quite like the idea of utilising my small number of minis to run staged missions, with Rogue encountering only a few Nort troopers and war machines at a time as he makes his way towards an objective. The level of challenge can be gradually increased by the quality of the enemy troops/equipment, their defensive position, a greater need for stealth and so on. This is the sort of structure that I would expect would work better within a narrative gaming system like Rattrap's.

Either way, I agree that any hit on a Nort would mean instant death (except on the scum seas) though in my "stealthy assassin" vision I would see benefits to Rogue sneaking up on Norts for silent kills, rather than just blasting everybody and alerting more enemies to his presence. I also agree that there should be an in-game mechanism for bio-chip extraction and the enhancing effect on equipment.

You mentioned you'd managed to pick up 5 southers which were sold as rogue TRADER mercenaries in early 40k days. How did you manage to find them… i've been stalking ebay for months/years!!

I don't know that there's any trick to it, I've just been picking them up on ebay over time. Try a saved search for "Rogue Trader Merc*". The Souther figure in question was never released under the 2000AD line, but the RT Mercenary "Abbadon" was clearly a Souther sculpt released too late for the IPC license. They're sometimes misdescribed in various ways, but as I also collect RT miniatures I've seen them come up quite a number of times. If only Norts were more commonplace!

I'm not as up on vehicles as you seem to be but i do like the GZG leviathan… but i doubt they'll ever remake it in 25mm… they've gone all 15mmm now. :-(

Well if you like the GZG Leviathan, please email and tell them so! When I got in touch to make enquiries about it they said they didn't have a current working mould, and the creation of a new mould would depend on customer demand. So by all means, please demand!

You're probably right about Strontium Dog making a better RPG than wargame, though I might still try to run some skirmish scenarios with it sometime just using my Citadel figures. I'm pretty sure a Necromunda mod could run reasonably well.

Celtos would be a good choice for Slaine minis – also possibly Bronze Age's barbarians.

Interesting ideas for Nemesis, and those old Regiment of Renown figures are lovely – but tiny compared to Foundry's Nemesis! In any case, while I'm a fan of Nemesis comics, for some reason I've never really felt a great deal of gaming potential there.

As for Robo Hunter – I think some people might draw the line at having a baby in a wargame, regardless of how old he actually is! In any case, this is another one where I like the strip, but I don't personally feel that it lends itself well to wargaming. Maybe another one better suited to RPG?

Excalibur Miniatures from Germany do a number of "Not-Hammersteins" as well. They have, however, gone up to a price where I find it hard to justify buying them.

picture

This one is painted not as well as the fig would allow it. It´s a rather nice sculpt with a good, looming/advancing pose, and rather big (that´s a 30mm base which it is mounted on, IIRC).

Another one with a cannon.

picture

And a final one with a gun and a sword.

picture

But, as said, ranging up from 12,25 (in the double box set for the last) to 14,50 EUROS apiece, they are almost as brutal as Foundry.

As how to find them, click here: link

Then go "Figures" on the top left, "Science Fiction" in the middle of the page, then "Droids" on the right top, and the Hammersteins are found towards the bottom of the selection menu on the right. Poor store design if I ever saw one.

Thanks ChrisGermanicus – I'd seen those "not Hammersteains" before, but since there are two official options for Hammerstein already and as you point out there's not a great price difference, it's probably best to stick with Foundry.

Incidentally, for those who don't know, Foundry is currently offering a 40% sale on their 2000AD range – so, for example, a regular human-sized fig is now £3.00 GBP instead of £5, or you can get 3 of one type for £7.50 GBP (good for anyone considering building up forces for Rogue Trooper).

I do like those Excalibus minis though – if I was ever to do an "ABC wars" scenario (as opposed to ABC Warriors) I could see myself fielding a squad of them with mixed weaponry.

By the way, Excalibur now has a new shop here:

link

Not sure if it's any easier to navigate though…

I painted up a couple of Heresy Minis as GIs:

picture

I will also be painting up a host of Void marines to join them. They look a little out of proportion and suit a 'genetic' flavour.

I still have Morgen and maybe a couple of Southers. PM me if you are interested in trading.

Beowulf. I'm interested in tracdign/buying the southers from you.

can't pm sorry – not a supporting member. But you can get me at alan dot phillipson at btinternet dot com

thanks.

There used to be a RPG called 'Manhunter' which would be perfect for Strontium Dog as you could totally design your character how you wanted, probably only available via e-bay these days mind…
Mick

Another 2000AD thread I need to watch . . .

Great suggestions so far, guys.

Parmenion – ref GZG leviathan… i think if i email them asking them to bring it back into production one more time then they'll take out a restraining order!

CHrisGermanicus – not seen those before – thank you. I'll put an order in to what they are like… maybe useful for a pre-ABC warriors squad…

How did you get on?