The concept is simple: Take control of a small band of heroes as they work together to destroy your opponent's Effigy. But watch out! Monsters and other obstacles stand in your way.
Oz and I pulled out the game and read through the rules. After that we watched a video with the game's creator. It's a brilliant game. Coming from Warmachine and Hordes there a many similarities that made it easy for us to pick up. I mean, a charge is a charge!
There are some subtle differences that make the game enjoyable. For example, I really like the way Judgement handles forests and line of sight. "Forests do not block line of sight to, or from, models that are within the forest, regardless of the size of the forest." In Warmachine and Hordes line of sight is blocked after 3 inches of forest. The way Judgement handles this detail promotes faster gameplay because there is no need to measure. If a model is within the forest it can see out no matter how big the forest is.
Our map was a 2-foot diameter circular board which works perfect for a 3v3 game. The two player starter box comes with everything we needed to play.
My favorite part of the game is the dice mechanic. Judgement comes with a set of dice designed specifically to handle such actions as attacks. Instead of adding up results to hit a target number, the attacking player is only looking for hits from his or her pool of dice. A hero's attack type statistic tells you how many dice you roll (MEL for melee, MAG for magic, or RNG for range). The attacker then adds to his or pool based on other conditions. For example, you add +1 dice for each other friendly model that is engaging the defender in melee attacks. This is called ganging up. (If you have played Warhammer Underworlds, the concept of ganging up is applied with the support icon on the dice. I don't bring this up to confuse the reader, only to make a connection between this game and other skirmish games.)
Instead of making an opposed roll, the defender has an agility statistic (AGI) that lowers the attackers pool. For example, in melee the character Rakkir's pool starts at 7 dice. If he attacks a character with an AGI of 4, Rakkir only rolls 3 dice (before accounting for any other modifiers).
Regardless of modifiers, an attack pool can never be less than 1 dice. This gives every attacker a chance to do something.
After the roll is made the attacker chooses 3 dice to represent their attack. The number of hits indicate how much damage can be done. Additionally, there are "manoeuvre" symbols that come up. An attacker may want to use one of these instead of a "hit" to execute certain combat maneuvers. The attack will do less damage, but the attacker may want to perform the combat maneuver as part of their strategy.
The game is really quite enjoyable and the core rule book was a pleasure to read. The rule book has fewer rules than many other games. The depth of the game comes from the heroes in the warband. Each one comes with a statistic card that lists special abilities. Additionally, the heroes gain levels throughout the game and gain benefits for doing so.
After our run-through Oz and I talked about our favorite parts and made a decision about whether or not we wanted to continue to play the game. We loved the nuance of the rules and we love the miniatures. (They scream, "PAINT ME!") But we do not think there is much depth to the story. The battles take place on the mythical shadow plane called, "Between," which neither one of us find very compelling. We are under the impression that Judgement is a great skirmish game with clever rules, but that is it. Together we enjoy other games that have rich world-building capacity occupied by characters we are drawn to because of the roles they play in that world. When it's game time in our house we will reach for one of those instead.
--Jeremiah
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