Armoured Justice Posse Set Write Up

Hey Game Fans, today we’re going to talk about the Armoured Justice Posse Set from Warcradle Studios for Wild West Exodus. Before we go any further, feel free to hop over to our Youtube video here to see what’s in the box.  Seen it? Good, now let’s talk about what the people in the box are and what they can do, and see about finding you some add ons to expand out the posse.  Saddle Up, we’re heading into the Dystopian Age’s Wild West. 

First up, Let’s take a look at the minis in the box. 

Every Posse Set comes with a Boss.  In this case you get Morgan Earp.

You Also get an assortment of other units.  In this case you get the following:

3 UR-30 Lawbots
2 K-9 Gun Dogs

1 UR-31 Heavy Lawbot

You also get an assortment of cards including the stat cards for all of the units in the box, the Posse Card, and a few common condition cards. 

Let’s take a look at the Unit Cards and see what kind of trouble we can get into with those.

Morgan Earp

So Morgan costs 240 points, and gives us a lot to work with.  Morgan has a Limit of 3, Quickness of 5, Mind of 6, and Fight, Grit, and Aim 6.  All in all, they’re pretty good stats for what you expect from a Boss. 3 Fortune should give you plenty of re-rolls for the day.

 His weapon options are interesting though, with both the Baton and the Bionic Arm for close combat work. Parry on the Baton means you can force your opponent to re-roll a successful hit in close combat, and being able to hand out the Stunned condition is handy.  The Brutal Critical on the Bionic Arm scores a second automatic hit if you didn’t bring the Target down.

For Ranged options, Morgan has the Electrocarbine and the Galvanic Discharge.  The Torrent template for the Galvanic Discharge means that Morgan can potentially hit a lot of baddies in one go, and Disrupt is very handy against Automaton heavy forces.  The Carbine has a respectable RNG, PRC and ROA, meaning you can take 2 shots at -2 to the target’s grit at 15 inches. 

Morgan’s Special Rules are another kettle of interesting. Tinman Is typical of the Lawmen faction, and gives you +1 to grit while you are in base contact with another friendly lawmen unit.  Pair him up with say the heavy Lawbot and they both toughen up. 

Dead or Alive gives you the benefit of the Lethal special rule against stunned or disordered models, which given the amount of Stun that Morgan can throw around is very handy (lethal forces the target to re-roll successful grit checks). 

Headhunter gives Morgan a reason to target your opponent’s unique models, and can give you a fortune chip at a clutch time. 

Tesla Masterwork is very useful and makes Morgan a lot tougher than he appears.  Being able to ignore the penalties from the stunned condition is useful.  Further, when you Hunker Down, you can spend an action point to gain the Tough special rule while you’re hunkered.  This means Morgan can take one hell of a beating and keep on fighting.

UR-30 Lawbot

Now the box comes with 3 Lawbots, but 2 sets of cards in case you want to grab another box of these bots.  50 points each, with respectable stats.  They shoot a little better than they punch.  The three in the box will net you out 150 points for the trio.  They share the Bionic Arm and Iron Asp Batons with Morgan and they work the same way.  The Pistols have a range of 10 inches, -1 Piercing, and an ROA of 2.  Revolver fan let’s you take a -2 to your Aim but double your number of attacks.  Close work allows the Pistols to be used in Melee in a desperate situation.  Otherwise they have the same Tinman and Dead or Alive traits that Morgan does.

UR-31 Heavy Lawbot

The Heavy Lawbot is 85 points of hard hitting robot.  It’s slower than it’s little brothers at its Q4, but it’s a little tougher at Grit 6.  It has the same Close Combat options that it’s little brothers have, but carries a blaster pistol and a Grenade Repeater for ranged weapons.  The pistol is just like the pistol on the little brothers, but only has ROA 1.  The Grenade Repeater is the star of this show.

At Range 12, it covers a decent amount of table space and with PRC -2 it can go through lightly armored targets.  ROA 2 gives it 2 shots at the targeted area.  Blast hits an area of effect around the target, meaning you can bring down an entire unit of bunched up hands or a group of characters hanging out.  Indirect means you won’t need LOS to shoot at the target.  Now because it’s Heavy, it could be restricted to move or firing, but because the Lawbot is a machine, it ignored this hindrance.  Finally, critical Shred ignores the first piece of terrain in the way of the shot.  This makes it significantly easier to bring down a target if Shred goes off. 

It has the same special rules as its little brothers, so it’s going to play a lot like them on the table with the exception of its grenade launcher.

K-9 Gun Dogs

The box comes with a pair of K-9 gun dogs, and these cost 60 points each.  For the pair it comes out at 120 points, pus the optional costs of the special issue guns. The Gun Dogs are Q6, allowing them to keep pace with Morgan, and share similar stats with the Lawbots.  They have the Steel Jaws weapon, which is a fairly typical melee weapon but the Dog gets to bite twice with each activation.  The stock version comes with a Flamethrower, but the Special issue rule lets you switch that out for either a Liberty Gatling gun or a grenade launcher. 

Each of these weapons gives you a different way to engage the opponent.  The stock flamethrower has the torrent rule, meaning it can hit everyone under the template.  Engulf ignores the target’s obscured bonuses to grit checks, and Hazardous gives the Hazard Condition.    The Grenade Launcher works just like the one the Heavy Lawbot uses but only gets 1 shot instead of two.

The Liberty Gatling Gun is a neat weapon.  Refined lets it score critical hits on 9s and 10s, Linked lets it re-roll failed hits, and Brutal means it gets to score an automatic second hit after the first is resolved.  It also has critical Shred.  With a range of 15 inches, -2 PRC, and ROA 3, the Liberty Gatling Gun can blow holes in lots of targets.

Total Maximum Points for the Posse with most expensive options: 655 Points

 

Let’s take a look at the Armoured Justice Posse Set and see what we can do with that.

Boss: Morgan Earp (no other choices available)

Theme Posse Benefit: Automata do not have the Tasked rule

Slot 1: A Lawman Automata Unit

Slot 2: A Lawman Automata Unit

Slot 3: A Lawman Automata Unit

Slot 4: A Lawman Automata Unit and/or A Lawman Support Vehicle Unit

Slot 5: A Lawmen Automata Unit and/or a Lawmen Face Unit

Slot 6: A Lawmen Automata Unit and/or A Lawman Support Vehicle Unit

Now this gives you a lot of interesting options.  In a typical setup, you can fill slots 1, 2, and 3 with the The Lawbots, the Heavy Lawbot, and the Gun Dogs in the box.  Bear in mind that Theme Posse benefit removes the Tasked rule for the bots in the posse and that opens up a lot of options for shredding units and people.  Being able to change targets on the fly after bringing down an enemy model gives the Automata flexibility and allows them to spread the damage out.  This means if you want to take advantage of this rule, you want to load up on more Automata to take advantage.

What to add next?

Honestly, I would probably add another box of UR-30 Lawbots, two more boxes of K-9 Gun Dogs, 
and a box of K-9 Attack Dogs.  The other box of Lawbots lets you take another unit of them to fill another slot or fill up the slot you have.  K-9 Gun and Attack Dogs can be taken in groups of up to 6.  Having 6 Gun Dogs lets you take 2 groups of 3 and equip them with different weapon options to deal with threats.  K-9 Attack Dogs do a good job of giving you extra activations and can be helpful screening Morgan from other close combat threats. 

From here, you can go a variety of directions and can slot in a couple of slots worth of vehicle options and you can even sort through the Faces of the Lawmen, so take some time and look through that section to see if anything strikes your fancy. 

How they play

The Armoured Justice Posse has a lot of gun options to deal with threats.  The thing you have to keep in mind is that the Automota have very low limits, so you’ll have to be very careful with your actions and spend them very carefully.  Free actions give you a few more ways to do things, but you have to be aware of the potential Victory Points you are giving up to take those free actions.  It’s also possible that you are going to draw cards for units that you aren’t going to be able use all of their Action Points for.  That is one of the potential downsides of using an Automata heavy Posse.

This is a fun way to join into the larger Wild West Exodus universe and will play differently than a generic Lawmen posse, and that’s part of its charm.  If you want the feel of a rough and tumble Lawman and his pack of robot assistants, then this might just be the box for you.

Note: You can purchase this set as either the basic Posse Set or as a Starter Set.  The difference between the two boxes is that the Starter set includes all the components of the Rules and Gubbins Box and is literally everything you need to get started as a player. 

That’s our in-depth review of the Armoured Justice Posse Set for Wild West Exodus. Game On, Game Fans.