We are excited to announce a brand new, North America friendly, streaming schedule via the Judgement Twitch channel.

Sunday Nights - The Judgement Show

The Judgement Show will feature game creator, Andrew Galea, talking about the latest news, his thoughts on various aspects of the game and general chat with viewers. Andrew will get guests on the show from time to time however the focus will be interacting with viewers and talking about the hottest topics of the week including sneaky reveals!

Sunday Night - Stream Times

• Los Angeles 7pm
• Chicago 9pm
• New York 10 pm
• Sydney 2pm (Monday)

Thursday Nights - Battle Reports

Each Thursday night, we will stream a mixture of both 3v3 and 5v5 battles with various pick 'n' ban formats, and on different Judgement maps. This stream will normally feature Andrew vs Jeff, however we will get other people on the show to battle it out where possible. We will also play battles using user suggested Warbands so get in your requests!

Thursday Night - Stream Times

• Los Angeles 3pm
• Chicago 5pm
• New York 6 pm
• Sydney 10am (Friday)

Re-Broadcast on YouTube

Can't quite make the live stream? Don't fret! All our streams are re-broadcast on our YouTube channel 1 to 2 days later. 

The Judgement crew ran a King of the Grove Series heat during the CanCon convention, and had a healthy 12 players fight it out over 3 rounds. Once the dust had settled, Tobias Ford emerged victorious winning all 3 games, and in the process securing his seat at the end of year KotG invitational. The format was 5v5 with Pick & Ban on maps 5, 2 & 3. 

Final Standings

1. Tobias Ford
2. Christopher Davies
3. Lloyd Mirto
4. Colin Hill
5. Anthony Tortorici
6. Peter Bates
7. Byron te Velde
8. Justin Shearer
9. Evan Ferris
10. Kyle Elbourne
11. Clinton Kenn
12. Shane Patmore

Hero and Class Spread

23 of the 28 heroes were represented with a good mix of classes and races.

Big thanks to all the players for a great event and we look forward to running the rest of the King of the Grove heats. We will be making an announcement about the dates and locations of the heats in the coming weeks.

CanCon will always hold a special place in the hearts of the Judgement crew since it was at that convention, back in 2017, that we launched our 1st Kickstarter. They were exciting times indeed and shortly afterwards we were funded, signalling the start of the next chapter in our journey. We returned in 2018 with one of our first events and another chance to spread the word about the game. In 2019, we return for a 3rd year in a row, this time armed with our wave 2 models and our re-designed two player starter boxes.

Our stall (C-F) is in the same location at last year, sitting directly adjacent to where our 5v5 event (C-3) will be running on the Sunday. Jeff and I are really looking forward to catching up with everyone again and introducing a host of new players to the game. We are also sharing a house with two avid Judgement players in Tobias and Joffrey so that will be a blast as well.

We will be broadcasting a bunch of Facebook live feeds across the weekend along with posting updates about the tournament in the Sunday. If you are in Canberra this weekend, then drop into CanCon, have a demo of Judgement and say hello! :)

Jeff and Andrew

After much consideration, we have decided to rename Itchynads to a something more suited to the general tone of our game and its universe. The name Itchynads was one of historical significance for the design team and an attempt to display the lighter side of what we do. However the nature of in-jokes are that people on the outside miss the context and in that regard it simply looked like a name that just did not fit alongside the 33 other heroes and monsters we have released.

We are proud to announce that from this point forward, our favourite Goblin Hunter will be known as Jaegar, a play on the scandinavian word for hunter. Jeff and I always listen to feedback and have the best interests of Judgement at heart. Every single decision we make, on a daily basis, is made with the intent to enrich the experience of our players, and to help our game grow. The name change to Jaegar is just one of those decisions.

We appreciate everyone's feedback, both positive and negative, about our initial name and look forward to adding more goblins to our mighty hero lineup in the years to come.

Regards,

Jeff & Andrew

Ever since our announcement of the 2019 release schedule, we have been inundated with questions about Lord Fazeal, the undead death knight. Introducing two races, undead and goblins, within the one year is ambitious, however we are so keen to push the game to its limits and provide a fantastic variety of heroes for our players to enjoy. We have set our stall out and stated that we want to be the first miniatures game in the world to balance the undead race against all other races...so let's see how we are going so far. :)

Before we dive in to look at Fazeal's rules, we do want to caveat the discussion by pointing out the version number on the card is v0.8, so there will most likely be changes between now and when Fazeal hits production. In saying that, the v0.8 rules are pretty solid and have survived many play tests. 

Let's start by look at the race rules for undead. 

Undead Race Rules

Cursed

All undead heroes permanently suffer the cursed condition. This means they are unable to contest Shrines, cannot contribute to friendly Soul Harvest attempts and similarly, are unable to detract from enemy Soul Harvest attempts. It also means undead are a prime targets for heroes such as Nephenee (Laser Storm) and Viktor (Hex). Astute readers of the Judgement lore would know that Nephenee is a member of an elite civilian military unit whose primary task is to hunt down undead that have infiltrated society. We that has just been reflected in the game. :)

Soulless

The Soulless rule is very interesting. Giving up an auto-banked Soul whenever an undead hero is killed is a huge negative, however the flip side, when an undead hero kills an enemy hero, can be a positive. The Soul is harvest by the nearest friendly hero model that is not cursed, which provides a good opportunity to manipulate this so an ideal model, such as a Doenrakkar, is the nearest hero whenever Fazeal kills an enemy. It also allows you to dive Fazeal deep into your opponent's backline to make a kill, safe in the knowledge you will not lose that Soul if Fazeal dies later in the turn.

Drain Life & Flammable

Drain Life is a nice ability that promotes combat, something that Fazeal is built for. Lord Fazeal also gets a very nice boost to his Drain Life at level 2. Flammable is another small negative making them take an extra damage from the fire condition.

Consume Soul

This is an interesting ability that all undead will inherit, however we have added a twist so that each undead hero will gain a different buff when they do consume a Soul. In Fazeal's case he gains 5 health. Consume Soul immediately places all undead in the anti Soulgazer category, with Soul denial a legitimate strategy.

Level 1 Abilities

Fazeal's kit is fairly simple. Two Combat Manoeuvres and one Active Ability that scream melee monster and reflect the aggressive nature of this powerful hero.

Weaken and Decapitation

Weaken is a standard condition generator with the bonus of letting the Fazeal player choose either the poison or curse condition. Weaken is good, however the signature play for the mighty death knight is without a doubt Decapitation. Double J is not easy to roll, but the reward has the potential to decimate even the most tanky foe.

Decapitate means any damage to the target is doubled. The +1 damage Fazeal receives on the charge, being mounted, means he can do a hefty 12 damage against an enemy he charges that does not have RES.  Note that RES is used to reduce the initial damage before it is doubled.

Pestilence

Pestilence is a Fate fuelled Active Ability that does d3 True Damage and a power de-buff to any heroes within 6" that are suffering the poison or curse conditions. It is definitely situational however under the right circumstances it can be devastating.

Level 2 and Level 3

Gaining levels on Fazeal is all about improving his survivability, something that is his achilles heal at level 1. Vampiric Touch can drastically improve his staying power allowing him to heal 5 health above his maximum via Leech, and Life Drain is an AOE True Damage dealer that can also heal the death knight significantly. At level 3 you basically want to get this guy in amongst the enemy as much as possible and let him unleash the fury. 

Conclusion

Jeff and I are extremely pleased with the undead race in the Judgement universe. We believe we have successfully captured the spirit of the undead, pardon the pun, while keeping them balanced and challenging to play. We have a lot of plans for future undead heroes however for now it is the might Lord Fazeal that will lead the way for the kings of the night.

We have launched a new podcast dedicated to Judgement, hosted by the game's creator, Andrew Galea, and the main background writer, Colin Hill. Each episode, the guys will discuss various aspects of the game rules, heroes, tournaments, background material and anything else that comes to mind. The recording of the podcast will be streamed live to the PlayJudgement Twitch channel and also available for download from Audioboom.

Episode 1 was streamed on the 5th of January and is available below.

In an effort to help connect our players from various communities, and to have some fun, we decided to run a Vassal league. Anthony Tortorici has done fantastic work creating the Judgement Vassal module so that it is a joy to use and very easy for players to get a game of Judgement whenever they want. 12 players, from 4 different countries, signed up for the league and they were separated into 3 pools, loosely based on geographical location to alleviate time zone issues.

For the pool round, each player played 3 games incorporating the various game formats, including 3v3 (swamp & cobblestone) pick & ban and 5v5 pick & ban. The winner of each pool advanced to the play-offs which featured Justin Shearer (Aus), Anthony Tortorici (Aus) and Marc-Antoine Leclerc (Can). In the play-offs, the three of them played each other in the 5v5 with 28 hero draft format. You can view the entire league rules and results here.

The league proved to be a huge success so a big shout out to all the players for taking part and playing their games. Congratulations to Justin Shearer who claimed the inaugural title by going through the entire league undefeated!

We will look to running another Vassal League in the new year. 

Expansion and Auto-Qualifiers

The inaugural King of the Grove tournament series was setup to bring together the  Judgement early adopters in the Sydney area. Heats were held throughout the year, with players accumulating points and the top 8 meeting for the finals in November. Now that Judgement wave 2 has hit the scene, and the game is in a completed "version 1" state, we are looking to expand the series to allow more players, from various meta, to take part. We hope that in the future there will be KotG series held in various countries, however for now, due to Jeff and I living in Australia, we will have to concentrate on getting it established as a national event down under.

In 2019 we are expanding the King of the Grove tournament series to include heats in the cities of Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. We are also introducing auto-qualifier spots for the winners of certain heats to provide adequate qualifying opportunity for players outside of Sydney, where most heats will be run. 

The 2019 Series

Initial details for the 2019 KotG Series have been posted and will be fleshed out as we progress through the year. For now, we are pleased to announce that CanCon is the 1st KotG heat for the year and is also an auto-qualifier providing a seat at the final for the winner. This year we will be shifting our focus to run as many heats as we can in retail stores. This will allow us to give something back to the stores that support us by stocking Judgement, as well as showcasing the game to potential new players who are in the stores when we run heats. Supporting retailers is something we are passionate about and it the best way for us to grow this great game.

Despite the competitive nature of the KotG series, as we did in 2018, all heats will be run in a friendly manner and be encouraging to new players that want to tip their toes in the Judgement waters. Jeff and I are really looking forward to the 2nd KotG series and cannot wait to observe the evolving meta as we build up to the full 30 hero draft finals! 

For many people, Judgement is a new game that has just hit the scene, however it has been nearly 4 years since the initial concepts of the game were discussed among the game's designers back in 2015. In 2017, we launched the game via our initial Kickstarter, which unlocked 15 heroes and 1 monster. We followed that up with our wave 2 Kickstarter in 2018, expanding the hero pool to 28 and introducing 3 more monsters. Along with our new 2 player starter box and a bunch of accessories, the 1st edition of Judgement is considered to be done. We are in full retail mode and are now focused on growing our player pool around the world.

With that in mind, we have decided to publish our release schedule for the coming year. Before we even start we have to state a sizeable caveat around this. As much as the game is growing and we are blessed with a solid core of players from around the world, Judgement is still a very small player in the table-top industry. We are not flushed with cash, by any means, and will rely on future sales to fund these releases, particularly since we are not planning any Kickstarter campaigns for the foreseeable future. 

The Judgement 2019 Roadmap

January - March Quarter

Shipping the Wave 2 Kickstarter

Despite our best intentions, the shipping of our wave 2 Kickstarter will continue into early next year, particularly for our EU backers. We plan on having this completed within the month of January.

New MuseOnMinis Plastic Tokens

Following up on the release of plastic measuring widgets by MuseOnMinis, we look forward to the release of a new plastic token set by Muse. There will be 3 separate products released to cover all the elements of the game, Core, Wave 1 and Wave 2. The tokens will be launched at Adepticon in late March before being available online via the Judgement and MuseOnMinis websites.

Conventions

• CanCon (Australia) - January 26th - 28th
• Adepticon (USA) - March 27th - 31st

April - June Quarter

New Hero - Itchynads, Goblin Hunter

Not wanting to rest on our laurels, we are charging headlong into introducing a new race (Goblin) and hero type (mounted) with our very first release in the post Kickstarter era. Itchynads brings a bunch of unique elements to the battle field and has proven to be a favourite among the play testers.

Here is his current card.

And here is Itchy's illustration which forms the basis for his sculpt.

Shane L Cook has done a wonderful job with Itchynads, capturing his essence superbly. We have commissioned James W Cain to do the sculpt and are eagerly anticipating having something to publish before Christmas. In the video below, Judgement game creator, Andrew Galea, walks through Itchy's rules in detail.

New 5v5 Neoprene Mat

We currently have two neoprene mats for 3v3 games, the Cobblestone theme and Swamp theme, as well as a 5v5 Cobblestone theme mat. With multiple scenarios and terrain pre-marked on the mats, they have proven invaluable to playing Judgement. We have been planning a new 5v5 neoprene mat for some time, particularly since our current one does not have the terrain pre-marked. The new mat will not be a replacement for the current one however, it will be a brand new themed map with 6 new scenarios on it. We are looking to get the illustration done for the new mat early next year so we will publish that at the time.

The new 5v5 map will include rules for Shrines dedicated to the gods Eldir (earth) and Forin (fire), as well as rules for a new monster.

July - September Quarter

New Hero - Lord Fazeal, Undead Death Knight

Continuing our plans to push the game into different directions, the 2nd hero for 2019 will be introducing yet another new race, this time the much anticipated undead. Lord Fazeal is a death knight of renown and one of the 1st undead to walk upon Athien. Oh and yes, like Itchy, Lord Fazeal is also mounted. :)

We have commissioned Shane L Cook to do the illustration for Lord Fazeal, and we anticipate that will be done during January.

Effigy, Shrine and Soul Packs

We have seen some fantastic work, within the community, in terms of custom built Shrines and Effigies. We have built some ourselves for our streamed games. However we have had many requests to produce an official set of Effigies and Shrines, and this is something we have always wanted to do. So 3rd quarter in 2019 we intend to do just that. At this stage there will be three products:

1. a generic Effigies and Shrines pack that contains 2 of each.
2. an elemental Shrine pack which will include the 4 character Shrines that appear on some maps. Rules for Arden (air) and Wellin (water) are already released.The rules for Shrines dedicated to Forin (fire) and Eldir (earth) will be released with the new 5v5 neoprene mat in the 2nd quarter 2019.
3. a Soul pack that contains 10 Soul models.

Conventions

• GenCon (USA) - 1st -4th August

October - December Quarter

New Hero - TBA

We have 2 possible heroes to fill this slot, so we are reserving our decision until sometime next year. Details of the hero will be released at that time.

New Monster - TBA

A new monster will be introduced with the 5v5 Neoprene mat. We will release the model before the end of the year.

Conventions

• PAX (Australia) - October

Our Best Efforts

The best laid plans can come unstuck however you have our word we will do our best to stick to the release schedule laid out here. If any changes to the release schedule have to be made, we will publish the updated schedule at that time. Jeff and I are looking forward to 2019, with much excitement, and to where the game will be come this time next year. If we can release all the products in this roadmap it promises to be an amazing year for all Judgement players around the world!

Regards,

Jeff and Andrew

The MOBA fans among you will know that one of the best things about the genre is the sheer variety of heroes. With the completion of the wave 2 Kickstarter, the Judgement hero pool currently sits at 28. This provides a decent amount of variety for our players and has begun to introduce serious list building for competitive events, however we have said for some time we intend on releasing 3-4 new heroes a year and we simply cannot wait to get started.

Jeff and I agonised over which hero we would release 1st and in the end we decided to throw caution to the wind and go with one that introduced both a new race and a new hero type. Itchynads, the Goblin Hunter, is a mounted model that brings yet another completely new dimension to the game. You will see that we have kept the mounted rules simple while still managing to capture the flavour of how a mounted model would function within the Judgement ruleset.

Let's take a look at Itchy's card and talk through the main points.

Mounted Rules

Let's kick things off by taking a look at the new rules for mounted models, which are a combination of the overt Momentous Charge and subtle changes to the hero's vital statistics.

Momentous Charge

When a mounted model charges an enemy model, they receive these bonuses for their current charge attack:

• Add an extra dice to their attack pool, after all other modifiers
• +1 damage

The two bonuses represent the extra impetus a mount would confer to the riding hero in an elegant fashion that does not slow down the combat process at all. Momentous Charge increases a model's chance of greater damage via an extra attack dice and then affords them an extra damage point on top of that, the latter representing damage the mount itself would do.

Vital Statistics

Fitting for a small, nimble race, Goblins have AGI 5 and SPD 5, however you will notice that, in Itchy's case, his mount provides a bonus SPD taking it to a remarkable 6. As an aside, Goblin heroes are normally on 40mm bases, however all mounts are on the standard 50mm bases which bumps up the base size for Itchy. Attack wise, Itchy has both melee and ranged weapons however his RNG 7 crossbow attack is his main. Finally Itchynad's health is slightly higher than standard Goblins, once again due to the fact he is a mounted model.

Level 1

Itchy's is the second Monster Slayer hero, after Brok. A powerful ability that provides solid insurance trying to get that 1st turn monster kill. Strip Soul means Itchy is the 1st hero in the game with the ability to strip a bound Soul via a Combat Manoeuvre, from 7" range no less. 

Retarius is another powerful ability and one of the best de-buffs in the game, something that can currently only be removed by Styx's Nullify ability. And finally we have Adapt, a Fate powered Active Ability that sends Itchy's damage consistency through the roof.

Level 2 & 3

Disruption places Itchy at the top of the de-buff hit list with an extremely powerful aura that stops enemy models shaking effects. Think of fire, knocked down and poison and you get the gist of how strong this is.

Finally, at level 3, our favourite little guy learns the Marksman ability, allowing him to aim even if he performs an advance action during his activation. On top of that, he also gains the Amour Shredder ability of ignoring 1 RES.

Conclusion

It is extremely satisfying, for a design team, when a hero perfectly captures the original intentions, in both illustration and rules. We can categorically say that Itchy does that, and we are very happy to add heroes from the Goblin race to the Judgement universe. Itchy's card will be available for download from our print and play section shortly, as will his paper doll.

We can also announce that James W Cain has been commissioned to do the sculpt and the great news is that James will be starting in the next week or so. We will post pics of the sculpt as they come to hand.  We hope you are as excited about Itchynads as we are and look forward to hearing your feedback after you have the chance to try him out in a few games. :)