Good Grud, Warlord Games Acquire Rights To 2000 AD Comics!
December 15, 2016 by dracs
Warlord Games have announced that they have obtained the license to produce a series of miniature games based on the popular British anthology comic book series 2000 AD.
2000 AD is a long running pulp sci-fi, fantasy, horror and action comic series that has been home to many classic characters over its 40 year long run. These have included such series as Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper and, of course, Judge Dredd.
Here is the announcement itself from Warlord Games...
"Warlord Games is to produce a new line of miniatures and games based on the legendary British comic book, 2000 AD.
The worldwide licence covers miniatures games, scenery and collectable miniatures sets based on series and characters from weekly comic, which is the home of Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Nemesis the Warlock, and a whole galaxy of characters from over 40 years.
Game development and designs are in the very early stages but initial plans are for a game based on the world of Strontium Dog, the popular futuristic Wild West-style series where mutated humans such as Johnny Alpha are forced to become bounty hunters."
Warlord Games
Warlord had previously produced a game and line of miniatures based around the Judge Dredd franchise, but now they have the entirety of 2000 AD's joyfully mad pool to play in.
Whether this could mean Warlord plans to revive their Judge Dredd game, or possibly rebuild it entirely from the ground up is yet to be seen. However, I for one am really excited for this news and will look forward to see what they come out with for Strontium Dog.
This is drokking exciting stuff!
Which 2000 AD model do you particularly want to see in miniature form?
"Now [Warlord] have the entirety of 2000 AD's joyfully mad pool to play in..."
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Personally, I would just chuck ’em all in the same game.
Kiss my Axe!
Yeah, nice. But Simon Bisley’s version, please!
Good news 😀 . I would expect to see skirmish level games formed around the likes of Johnny Alpha, ABC Warriors, Slàine, Nemesis the Warlock.
Rogue Trooper would be top of my list though, you could begin with a squad based game, centred around the Drop-site massacre and Souther v Nort engagements. They both have access to BIG armour, so tank lovers ( like John ) could have a great time fielding those . Then it could break down into a skirmish level game, with Rogue and his bio-chip buddies helping Southers against Norts as they look for the traitor.
To expand a little on my original comment. I think there’s two main disadvantages to splitting out the games by IP. One is that the IPs don’t easily lend themselves to lots of factions with lots of options, which ideally is what you want from a skirmish game. Rogue Trooper is a particularly good example, in that you only have two sides and there’s very little variation in forces. Plus the way was the backdrop to the strip rather than its focus. If you combined the games but limited the force you can field to a given IP, then you… Read more »
*Plus the war was the backdrop
Different games with the same engine would be a idea. Pretty sure they’d all be the same scale so that would be a start.
Making separate but compatible games is one way it could be done. Unsurprisingly given my other comments, I would go in the other direction and have one 2000AD game, that individual groups could parse out to their preferred IP if they wanted to game in a specific strip.
Agree – think the different settings could give the opportunity for different styles and games mechanics.
I think the greatest challenge is going to be including the hero (be it Dredd, Slaine, Jonny Alpha etc) into some kind of balanced force – and then you would always have one player as the cannon fodder that the hero is killing off!
Redben – while that might make sense from a marketing perspective, think it would really be a waste of potential.
From a marketing viewpoint it makes more sense to do them as separate games. Even if fewer people buy the rulebooks, because there’s multiple of them you can sell more. I’m talking about giving the game a fighting chance to get a foothold in a very competitive field, and to do that it’s vitally important that you maximise the amount of people playing it. I would maybe not mix in Slaine, but the four main sci-fi IPs of Judge Dredd, Nemesis/ABC Warriors, Rogue Trooper, and Strontium Dog can easily share one game. No potential no granularity is lost, it’ll be… Read more »
(add to the end of the first paragraph): and to maximise the number of people playing it you need to make it as easy as possible to get games. The way you do that isn’t by having four or five separate games as that splits the community and makes it exponentially harder to get games.
I understand @redben . I’m just a massive 2000AD fan-boy, so individual games would be how i envision it. Ultimately, time will tell.
1 model of Torquemada not suffering an alien to live please
If they do that they’ll get a cease & desist from GW. Oh, wait…
I doubt this will sell at all? Feels like Warlord have been doing some rather niche releases lately (Doctor Who, Terminator) but if they like it and they break even I suppose it is all good…
I think the IP has potential if the game is good enough, the minis are good enough, and it’s marketed well. As they were just distributors for Judge Dredd rather than license holders it may be that they didn’t put everything behind that game. That said, their track record doesn’t fill me with confidence that it’ll take off.
Niche in what sense? Terminator still had millions spent on a cinema release and made hundreds of millions in the box office internationally. Dr who is one of the BBCs most expensive productions and is sold globally, it has been running for 50+ years and is something of a British institution. 2000ad has had two major cinema releases in the form of Dredd movies – while the comic isn’t what you would class as mainstream, I doubt there are many people who don’t know who Dredd is in the UK. So, I don’t think niche at all (especially compared to… Read more »
I agree completely. Things like Dr. Who and 2000AD have great potential for bringing in not only the gamers but the collectors. For example, I am very interested in collecting the Marvel universe miniatures (as well as Dr Who) but quite honestly I don’t care if I ever play a real game. 2000AD is similar in that I’m interested though not as much as if I grew up with it (I’m Canadian). For me the 2000AD miniatures game will depend on the miniatures. I agree with @redben in that at the very least they should have a common rule set.… Read more »
I do tend to agree that the miniatures should be higher end than the Mongoose range and Warlord’s usual standard (of which no criticism is implied). They should be pitching for AvP standard rather than Terminator standard. With an IP like 2000AD, the miniatures can sell themselves if they’re good enough.
I think @redben is correct a common rule set for the enature range is the way forwards I think
I like the new ape gang.
Can’t help but hope they rebuild the Judge Dredd game the current one didnt really hot off that well as much as the models were noce the game itself didnt seem to do much