Board Games Top 10: Featuring Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth

Mega City One will have to hold its own for a little. Dredd is venturing out into the radiation infested wastes of The Cursed Earth.

The Weekly Board Games Top 10

“The Hotness” on BoardGameGeek is a list of the currently most popular games, as based on views. This week brings us these winners:

Terraforming Mars is getting a fifth expansion. Neato. I’m sure it’s going to be actually really good, but we have bigger fish to fry.

But if you actually looked at the list you already know which game we’re looking at today.

Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth

Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth is a cooperative card game with hand management and resource management mechanics. To be fair, it’s a reskin of The Lost Expedition, but theming is important!

In this game, players are working together (or playing solo) to try and catch Max Normal before a group of criminals do. It’s a race through The Cursed Earth!

At the top of the play area is a location track which features many different areas they players will have to overcome. Most of these locations will have some special ability, either helpful or harmful towards the players. As the Judges moves through these locations, the criminals are also running, moving down the same location track, attempting to reach Max first.

As the players move through the locations, they will play encounter cards from their hand, to determine which encounters the whole team will have. Each card has options for the players using symbols to indicate what the effect of the card will be. The color of the box indicates whether the players must do the noted effect (Yellow), choose 1 of the options (Red), or fully optional (Blue).

These effects are what will often draw on the players resources: Rations, Ammo, Health and Radiation. However, some more severe cards, like Satanus, might kill a Judge unless they can perform another of the listed options. Additionally, some events will give the option for Judges to use a special skill: Diplomacy, Survival or Psi. The remaining icons will allow players to skip, rearrange or discard encounter cards, and will indicate when the Judges advance and when the perps advance.

If the Judges can reach Max Normal (the last card in the encounter deck) before the perps do, they win! Assuming any of them survived along the way.

From Osprey Games

Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth – $35 – Available Now

For years he’s been the law in Mega City One, but now it’s time for Judge Dredd to bring justice to the rest of America. It’s time for him to venture into the Cursed Earth.

Featuring competitive, co-operative and solo player modes and specially commissioned artwork from Dredd artists Rufus Dayglo and Dan Cornwell, Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth is an immersive sci-fi western in which players must lead a team of judges against dinosaurs, mutants, and the Cursed Earth itself to hunt down a dangerous man who has fled the city, before a gang of criminals can get to him first. As they scour the wastelands, the team will encounter a host of classic 2000 AD characters that will push their resources and abilities to their limits.

Fans of The Lost Expedition will find entirely new cards and new mechanics like radiation tracking and psychic abilities, while fans of Judge Dredd will find a new interactive story developed alongside 2000 AD.

On an impossible journey through radioactive hell, can even the judges survive the Cursed Earth?

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Author: Matt Sall

Matt has loved games of all kinds his whole life: board, video, war, roleplaying. He's worked as a writer for BoLS since 2017. He's worked as freelance editor for board game rulebooks and has designed many of his own games as well.