Late in 2018, we announced our successful application to secure a booth in the Entrepreneur's Avenue, which was a massive boon for us. GenCon is now only two weeks away, and we have been feverishly working behind the scenes to make sure everything is good to go. Today's announcement is twofold. First, we reveal the "con specials" that are available, and secondly, we open up for pre-orders which can be picked up in person at our booth #2861.

GenCon Specials

Sharn - Orc Guardian

Two Player Starter Boxes

Free Monster Model

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It took a lot of convincing the early playtesters that neutral monsters were an essential element of the game. Over time, the task of convincing players that monsters are more than a gimmick became a lot easier. Now, they usually are singing the praises of monsters to us. Our monster designs have come a long way since Gloom. The shadow hound was the equivalent of the designers dipping their toe in the water, in terms of monster board presence. From Gloom we moved to Ashtooth, then Inferno, the first monster with a ranged attack and then, boldly, we introduced Vujasha into the game.

At that point, we all took a collective breath and gave the game some time to breathe. The last 12 months have seen unprecedented growth in Judgement's player base and the introduction of new heroes and a new 5v5 Scorched Earth map. Dor'gokaan represents a natural progression in the evolution of Judgement monsters. He has the most rules, the highest potential damage output and being a demon, can be summoned by Warlock heroes! 

Something that Jeff and I keep in mind when designing new heroes or monsters is to make sure we maintain the Judgement model range's variety. Of the three official Judgement illustrators, Helge C Balzer is the one who pushes character design into areas we would not usually go. Vujasha is the most obvious; however, his Styx, Loribela and Nephenee illustrations have all introduced unique elements. Safe to say that Helge's Dor'gokaan tops them all. From the outset, Helge had a vision for the demon that none of us would have taken from the design brief. Before too long, Dor'gokaan had a life of his own, and the final product became a fusion of various archetypes and genres.

Dave Whitaker, the sculptor who recently sculpted Sharn for us, was commissioned to turn Helge's vision of Dor'gokaan into a 3D sculpt and he nailed it. We are itching to produce Dor'gokaan and get him onto the battlefields of Judgement players everywhere, as a neutral monster and a summoned minion of Viktor Clerval.

Dor'gokaan Pre-Release at Warfaire Weekend

If launching the Judgement North American Championship at Warfaire Weekend was not enough, we are also going to pre-release both Dor'gokaan and Fazeal at the convention. Both models will be available to pick up on the Friday, and they will be legal for all the Judgement events, including the JNAC. 

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Inferno made a huge impact when he was released during early play testing. A real risk/reward opportunity for either player, and a monster that cannot be ignored, since he has a powerful ranged attack. We actually provided some background for Inferno in an earlier blog post. Fire elementals are a classic monster in many fantasy games, including of course, the ancestor of them all, Dungeons & Dragons. Gloom and Ashtooth were the first 2 monsters developed since they are traditional natural inhabitants of the Shadow Plane, however once we looked to expand the monster range further, the fire elemental was at the forefront of our minds. There are various interpretations of the fire elemental, from a pure flame being, with little solid form, to a molten rock body, all fire and brimstone. The Judgement rendition is more towards the latter. Helge C Balzer capture the essence of Inferno magnificently in the illustration, however it left a tough task for James W Cain to represent that in 3D form. After a lot of work collaborating with the Judgement team, we are over the moon with the final sculpt, and here it is.

James painstakingly sculpted the numerous plates all over Inferno's body to truly capture the molten rock look we were aiming for. More than any other model in the range, we believe that Inferno will be transformed once he is painted. Rivers of yellow/orange lava running between the outer plates of his body are going to make this model pop, and he is going to look amazing on the battle fields of Between. Despite being a beast of raw power, the sculpt has captured the grace and beauty of a being at one with its environment. We are incredibly excited to release Inferno, and are pumped to include him as a free add-on for high level backers of our wave 2 Kickstarter.

 

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Neutral monsters are a unique, challenging, and fun aspect of Judgement. As the game has matured, the best players have come to realise that appropriate manipulation of the neutral monsters can go a long way to ensuring victory. The Judgement crew have always treated the creation of monsters with the same care and attention as we do our heroes. Ashtooth was actually the first monster created, when we only had the 5v5 game on our horizons. It was not until later, when we developed the 3v3 version of the game, that we introduced Gloom, to provide an monster that was easier to kill, and better suited to new players.

While we were fortunate enough to get Gloom sculpted up in our wave 1 Kickstarter, Ashtooth remained unlocked, so we were always keen to get him done. With wave 2, like we did with Gloom in wave 1, we are making Ashtooth part of the core range, so he is almost certain to get produced this time around. With that in mind, we commissioned James W Cain to bringing Helge's magnificent illustration to life, and here it is!

Ashtooth is currently the toughest monster in the game to kill, and provides the healthy reward of 2 Fate, and of course, the obligatory level. He also hits like a freight train with a massive 7 damage crit attack, along with a 2S Poison combat manoeuvre. Outside of possibly Brok, you normally need to commit more than one hero to take the werewolf down, and many a great battle plan has come unstuck in the attempt.

Work has already begun on Inferno, the other wave 1 monster that remained unlocked, so look out for his reveal in the near future.

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Continuation of Lich Dance - Part 1

“Hmph”, grunted Styx. “We both survived. Interesting”, he thought, filing away the memory in his data-bank for retrieval once he had returned to his master. But for now it would have to wait. First, to battle.

Styx entered the fray swinging his chain scythe in a wide arc, the keen blades whistling as they cut through the dull air of the shadow plane. His cyber-mind scanned through data stored from previous battles, formulating plans that would optimise the synergy between his allies and his own considerable powers. There was no data on the hooded minotaur and any attempts to read its mind were being met with considerable resistance. “Curious”, mumbled Styx. It seemed that today was full of the unexpected. Pushing the distractions from his mind, Styx sprinted like a madman towards the centre of the enemy’s battle lines in what appeared to be a suicide mission. His target was the orc, Rakkir. He knew full well how dangerous an adversary the rogue could be if left unchecked. Nephenee, who was still finding her bearings and trying to work out exactly where she was, watched incredulously as the cyborg ran off into the gloom. 

 

Rakkir readied his blade, dripping wth toxin, as he saw the half-man, half machine, hurtle towards him. A snarl formed at the corner of his mouth. “What was this idiot doing..?”  Rakkir’s blade began its descent, aiming for a deadly blow to the base of the cyborg's neck. Moments before the blade hit home, Rakkir heard Styx utter an incantation before the cyborg began phasing in and out of the orc's vision. Then, with a faint blue pulse of light, the half-man disappeared completely, before a giant werewolf appeared exactly where he was a moment before. “Ashtooth!”, Rakkir exclaimed, in an attempt to rally his allies around him. The orc had fought the beast numerous times before, however it was normally on his terms. The blood shadow admonished himself for underestimating his foe, before hastily dropping a shadow orb to escape the predicament the cyborg had placed him in.

 

Styx braced himself as the enemy’s effigy exploded, hurtling the heroes bound to it back to the prime material plane. It was a hard fought victory, secured when the she-elf, Nephenee, launched herself over the enemy defensive line and sunk her twin laser blades deep into the effigy itself. She had fought well, and Styx managed to glean much about her abilities through the course of the battle. Invaluable information for his master Zaron, no doubt.

The minutes after a battle were always surreal, Styx mused. First, each of the victorious heroes was momentarily connected with the demigod that had summoned them, a mind link that allowed the briefest of dialogue. This was followed by a permanent transfer of a fraction of the demigod's powers to the summoned mortals. The five were then left alone on the plane for a time, until the power of their effigy faded, at which point they were transported back to their bodies on Athien. Some of the heroes used the time to explore Between, although there were limits to how far the ethereal chord connecting them to the effigy would allow them to wander. Most of the time, they would just sit together and go over the battle they had just fought. They would compare strategies and tactics on how best they could work together the next time they were summoned. Because, while they could just as likely be enemies next time, the reward of power gained whenever they were victorious meant that the vast majority of the summoned considered the others their allies, and would work with them to secure victory whenever they could.

It was so odd, thought Styx, that these heroes had become his friends of a sort. Back on Athien, most of them did not really know each other. This was especially true for him, who through his master’s work was actually summoned from another timeline. Despite this, all of the summoned shared a common bond, one that set them apart from all of their kind back home. None of them knew where this would lead, but all of them considered it a tremendous gift and they all enjoyed the power it bestowed. 

“I don’t know what this place is, or what just happened to me, however I will find out once we return to our homeland”, Nephenee said quietly as she sat down beside Styx. He had forgotten all about her. He turned to her: “Truth be told, I hoped it would kill you. However, now that you have survived and joined the ranks of the summoned, you will learn that I have bestowed upon you a priceless gift, she-elf.”

Nephenee found herself getting angry without really knowing why. “Don’t try to twist this, beast”, she spat out in frustration. Not being in control of things irritated her no end. “I will continue to hunt your master down. And after this treachery, I am certain you will be added to the list of wanted.”

Styx smiled wryly. He stared at her, his mechanical eye boring into her soul, making Nephenee uncomfortable. “Don’t be a fool. We are the only two summoned from our time. We should work together; we are brother and sister now”, he said, before turning back to gaze at the hooded minotaur who busied herself idly carving glowing runes into the earth. If Styx's cyber computer was correct, she was Xyvera, however if true, it was certainly a significant turn of events. What would master Zaron say...

Nephenee followed the cyborg's gaze towards the hooded minotaur. The crone adjusted her hood until she was able to match the elf's stare. Nephenee immediately lowered her gaze. She then turned to ask Styx about the crone,  however she was interrupted by the tug of her ethereal chord as the effigy that bound them all to the plan of shadow became dull, its last energy fading.

Moments later, Nephenee found herself floating, moving ever faster through the ethereal plane before she broke into the atmosphere of Athien. She could see her prone body lying where she had left it on the floor of the decrepit building. Seeing herself from this vantage point highlighted how slight and small she was. For the first time in a long time, Nephenee felt vulnerable, even afraid. She knew the last few hours would change her life forever, for good or ill, she did not know.

With a start, Nephenee took a big gasp of air as she entered her body, then sat up trying to take it all in. After a minute or so, she rose to her feet, adjusted her armour and jet pack, and climbed the stairs to the parapet so she could look towards her home city. How she loved that place. To her right, a bright glare caught her attention, the sun's rays reflected off the metal plates of the cyborg. For several minutes Nephenee watched him walk off in the distance, pondering what the cyborg had told her on the shadow plane. “Until we next meet…brother.”

-- by Andrew "Guns" Galea --

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Herein lies the very first clarification and errata document for Judgement. From the very beginning we socialised the fact Judgement would be a regularly "patched" game, in keeping with its MOBA origins and to ensure the game's rules are kept in an optimal state. Our patch schedule is quarterly, with the changes becoming official on the 1st day of the start of the next quarter. Therefore the official date for this patch is the 1st of January 2018.

Clarifications

Base Contact

A simple clarification around the proper use of tokens that a model is placed in base contact with, such as Shadow Orbs.

A model that is placed in base contact with a token must be placed so that the edge of the model's base is touching the edge of the token. The model's base is not allowed to be covering any part of the token.

Engaged & Engaging

The rules for being engaged or engaging were incorrectly omitted from the Core Rule Book.

Engaged

A model is considered engaged when it is within the melee range and line of sight of an enemy model.

Engaging

A model is considered to be engaging an enemy model when they have that enemy model within their melee range and line of sight.

Magic Attacks in Melee

Page 15 - Core Rule Book

There is no actual change to the rules for magic attacks in melee, however we felt it required further clarification. An easy way to remember this rule is that magic attacks in melee follow all the normal rules for standard melee attacks, except the hero cannot charge with the attack.

Some models possess magic attacks that are also melee attacks. Despite being a magic attack they can be used while engaged, however they cannot be used to charge. For all other cases they follow the rules for melee attacks. A model must use it's MAG stat for this kind of attack.

Pushing Models and Walls

Questions have arisen about what happens when a model is pushed into a wall.

Models cannot be pushed over walls. If they come into contact with a wall during a push, they immediately stop.

Ranged Attacks

Page 17 - Core Rule Book

Clarifications around a model making a RNG attack and receiving the aiming bonus.

A model that is placed during its activation, by any means, is not able to claim the aiming bonus in subsequent attacks.

Re-Rolling Dice

We have had a few queries around whether you can re-roll a single dice using Saiyin's Augury, and then re-roll the entire dice pool using a Fate. The answer is no.

A dice that has been re-rolled, by any means, cannot be re-rolled again, by any means.

Soul Spawning

There has been some confusion with the Core Rule Book's assumption there was more than one Soul pit on a map. 

On maps that have a single Soul pit, a Soul will spawn from that pit each turn, assuming there are not 2 or more un-bound Souls on the battle field already.

Thorgar's Enraged Slam

There have been a few questions around Thorgar's Enraged Slam ability, and the way it interacts with other rules, and heroes, in the game. Enraged Slam does operate outside the bounds of "normal" Judgement play, however we have always felt it was worth some pain to be able to have something as cool as 9' Minotaur gladiator rampaging across the battle field. This section is merely to clarify two things in particular.

Thorgar's Enraged Slam is not an advance. Therefore, parting blows are not triggered whenever Thorgar sets off on an Enraged Slam movement. Similarly, since it is not an advance, Thorgar can escape Doenrakkar's Stone Grasp ability. Any time an advance is specifically mentioned, it generally would not apply to Thorgar's Enraged Slam movement.

Errata

Invisibility

This clarifies the invisibility rule to make it more intuitive, preventing active abilities from targeting the model as well.

This model cannot be targeted by active abilities or RNG/MAG basic attacks from greater than 3" away. 

Heroes

Bastian Oriel

Bastian has established himself as the pre-eminent Supporter in the game, and is a staple in many player's warbands. The combination of Heroic Ballad, Calming Waters and Prayer of Health make him the most Fate efficient hero in the game. We are very happy with Bastian's ability to support his allies. That was the design intention with him and he fulfils the role perfectly. Our main gripe with him was his combat prowess, particularly when you consider his 3" reach, was not be-fitting a supporting Lore Keeper. We also felt the Prayer of Health was simply too efficient in its original guise.

• MEL dropped from 6 to 5
• Prayer of Health changed from (1F) to (1A+1F)
• Staff damage reduced to 1/2/3

Brok

We felt a slight adjustment to Brok was required to bring him back to the field once he reached level 3. 

 

• Molten Metal cost changed from (1F) to (1A+1F)

Kvarto

We felt Kvarto's Telekinesis had too great a sphere of influence, particularly on 3v3 maps. We reduced its range and the distance it could place the enemy model. The 4" range also brings it in line with most other abilities of a similar nature.

• Telekinesis range reduced from 6" to 4"
• Telekinesis place changed from within 4" to completely within 5"

Piper

Piper sits in a pretty good place, and he plays true to our original design goals. The intention of Enhance Self was to provide a combat buff for Piper, however often it is being used to turn Piper into a Soulgazer that is extremely difficult to hit in the following turn.  Removing the Soul harvest buff returns the ability back to its intended use.

Once Piper reached level 2, we felt that Viper Venom was too easy to trigger. Changing it to (2S) also brought it in line with abilities used by other heroes. The wording of Duplicate Self was causing some confusion around whether the enemy's attack actually occurred. Therefore we clarified it to only ignore basic attacks and that it ignores the damage and combat manoeuvres resulting from the attack.

 

• Enhance Self no longer increases Piper's Soul Harvest ability
• Viper Venom changes from (1S) to (2S)
• Duplicate Self now only ignores the 1st enemy basic attack that targets Piper. It has no effect on active abilities that target him. The attack action still occurs, and the attacker can execute combat manoeuvres that affect itself. 

Saiyin

Just another cleanup exercise with Augury. We incorrectly omitted an end of activation expiry for Augury in the original card, so that has been included. It was also unclear whether Saiyin could use Augury the activation she cast it on herself, so that was included as well.

• Augury clarified so it has an automatic expiry, and so Saiyin can use Augury the activation she casts it on herself.

Skoll Bonestorm

Skoll has been the centre of many a discussion around his power level in the game. Some players swear by him, whereas others struggle to find a place for him. Our main concern with Skoll centred around the fact he was good at too many things. He could pretty much compete in all facets of the game, and this is not a healthy place for any hero to be in. We also felt his damage was a tad too high for a Defender, particular when you consider he has the highest health value in the game at all levels.

With these changes, Skoll now sits as a solid health-tank hero that brings a lot of utility to the table, including substantial damage against low DEF or knocked down targets.

• Great Axe "Crit" damage dropped from 5 to 4
• Soul harvest dropped from 5 to 3
• Combo Strike "Crit" damage dropped from 7 to 6
• Knock Out changed from (1S) to (2S)
• Soul Burn cost changed from (1F) to (1A+1F)
• Dual Wield text removed since it is now included in the core rules - and note that the 2nd attack now incurs a -1 attack dice pool penalty

Monsters

Monsters Attacking Heroes

Page 21- Core Rule Book

The Core Rule Book presents different rules for resolving when monsters have more than one hero in their melee range, depending on whether the monster moved or was pushed. We want to standardise the way this is handled moving forward, so we have changed the rule for when a monster is pushed.

Replace the paragraph on page 22 regarding when a monster is pushed with:

If the monster is pushed, placed or thrown (assuming it has a special rule preventing it from being knocked down because of being thrown) so that it is engaging a hero that was unengaged by the monster. If multiple heroes are engaged by the monster when it is about to attack, the closest will be attacked. If they are equidistant, then randomise.

Ashtooth

Ashtooth is the most difficult monster to kill, and hits like a truck. We feel a single Fate and level is not a good enough reward for bringing the big man down.

• Bounty is increased from 1 Fate to 2 Fate
• Poison combat manoeuvre changed from (1S) to (2S)

Inferno

We feel Inferno's Bounty should be somewhere in between Gloom's 1 Fate and Ashtooth's 2 Fate...

• Bounty dropped from 2 Fate to 1 Fate
• Incendiary combat manoeuvre changed from (1S) to (2S)
• Removed Fire Fist (+1 damage vs models suffering the fire condition)
• Gains Glyph of Ember:
• the hero that collects the Fate Bounty can add +1 to one of their statistics (i.e. MOV, MEL, RNG, MAG, AGI, RES or Soul Harvest) until the end of its next activation.

Shrines

Page 23 - Core Rule Book

We have discovered a few inconsistencies with the way non-hero models are treated in the rules, such as models that are summoned. I.e. Zaron's Child models. We are making a slight change to the contesting and claiming of Shrines, to clean this area up.

Replace the 1st point of the "Controlling the Shrine" section on page 23 of the Core Rule Book with:

• 1 or more of their hero models are within 2” of it.

Summoned Models

There are plans for more heroes that summon models in the future, this clarifies one of the finer points on how they operate.

When a summoned model kills an enemy hero, by any means, the hero that summoned the model harvests the enemy hero's Soul.

Below we provide complete clarifications on several points for the only summoned model currently in the game, "Zaron's Child".

Summoned models are not hero models. They are friendly models to the hero who summoned them, and their warband, but not heroes in their own right. Therefore anything in the rules that references a hero model, does not apply to summoned models. 

Summoned models:

• do not contest, nor can they claim, Shrines.
• do not help or hinder Soul Harvest skill checks.
• do provide ganging up bonuses.
• do provide distracted bonuses.
• do provide a firing into melee penalty.
• do perform parting blows.

The End

Download the latest Wave 1 Hero PDF here

Download the latest Wave 1 Monster PDF here

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