This article is a rare departure from our normal dedicated Age of Sigmar coverage – so if you’re strictly here for the AOS, you’re welcome to skip this one. Maybe check out ROCKMAN’s Nighthaunt list write-up in the meantime.
Well all good things must come to an end, and if history teaches us one thing, it’s that miniature wargames published by anyone other than Games Workshop will probably come to an end sooner than you expect1.
I’d mentioned in the Craichouse Discord a little while back that I bought a few things from Warlord Games’s 2000AD range, even though I’m not actively playing those games right now, purely as a “landbanking” strategy. I knew they wouldn’t be around forever, and I’d quite like to have possession of them for further down the track – wargaming’s great irony is that we’ll only have time to do everything we want after we retire, and yet the endless money we pump into this hobby pushes back our eventual retirement by a decade. Hey ho.
And so it was announced late last week that Warlord’s 2000AD license is being wrapped up, and the line is being discontinued:
My own feelings here are on the lines of “Better to have loved and lost” – I was fully aware that this project would have a short shelf life, and it’s just cool that we live in a timeline where this thing was published at all.
The word is that Paul Sawyer (Rest in Peace) – aka Fat Bloke, the legendary White Dwarf editor from its golden era – was the driving force internally at Warlord for this project, and with his recent passing, the games had lost their champion. And sales weren’t strong enough to justify their continued support without their in-house advocate.
As of date of publishing – Friday 20th June, 2025 – the range has been pulled down from Warlord’s main webstore, but there are a lot of kits still available on their official eBay store. So if you want anything, I wouldn’t mess about.
OK Boomer, now what the hell is 2000AD?
Am I right in thinking that 2000AD was mostly culturally relevant only in the UK and Australia? If you’re reading this in the USA, Europe or anywhere else I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. You’d probably at least know who Judge Dredd is, right?
For the youngins or anyone else not aware: 2000AD is2 a British Science Fiction and Fantasy comic that has multiple ongoing stories in every issue, in its own shared universe. Growing up in the UK in the 80s and into the 90s, it was as influential amongst young nerds as you could possibly imagine, and there was accordingly a massive overlap in the audience for 2000AD and Warhammer. But not only the audience.
Rick Priestley has explicitly stated on several occasions that early GW staff drew direct inspiration from 2000AD when they created 40K, for example in this interview:
Dystopic science fiction where even the good guys are sinister? Yeah that sounds familiar. The look, feel, art and vibe were one and the same and when I was around late primary-school age, I remember kind of thinking that Warhammer and 2000AD were the same thing.
You might also recognise names like Dan Abnett and Gav Thorpe: the Plastic Craic Book Club happens to be reading Dan Abnett’s Know No Fear right now for example, and he’s worked extensively on 2000AD. So there’s huge crossover between the creatives behind 2000AD and Warhammer, both in settings and in rules.
Which 2000AD stories were part of Warlord’s games?
Judge Dredd is by far the biggest property in the 2000AD canon, and arguably the only one with major cut-through to wider pop culture. The energy, the violence, the endless creativity and the scuzzpunk feel is still fresh today, and they even have their own slang and swear words.
It’s been made into two movies: I might be the only person in the world who actually likes the Sylvester Stallone movie from 1995, but 2012’s Dredd starring Karl Urban is a consensus modern classic:
One thing we can agree on about the 1995 movie is that at least ABC Warriors easter egg was pretty sweet:
ABC Warriors itself was the final game that Warlord released, and you will never struggle to sell me Mechs. The background is that these are fully-sentient and individual Mechs, who were built to withstand Atomic, Bacterial and Chemical warfare (hence the ABC). A lot of their story arcs cover their deployment after the Volgan War they were built for, so there’s a theme in the series about finding your place in life. This minis game however plunges them right back into the Volgan War time period, because Boom Bang Takka Takka, and this is a wargame at the end of the day.
The other Sci Fi series covered by Warlord, and the first one they released, was Strontium Dog. Set after 2150 and the Great Nuclear War, when fallout has caused extensive mutations in humanity, this setting has a Badlands / Nu West3 frontier feel as S/D Agent Johnny Alpha uses his mutant powers (plus a bunch of high-tech weapons and gadgets) to hunt down equally wild targets. And if you haven’t got a little tingle in your pants at the idea of the “Select Skills and Mutations” step in customizing your characters, then I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe spend this weekend reorganising your clothes drawers? Paint another coat of beige on your bedroom walls? Play chess instead? I dunno.
The best thing is that all three Sci Fi games all use the same rules scaffolding, so you can port across units from each. Your band of Muties can launch a raid on Mega City One, or your Judges can tackle a Mech Warrior that had been in deep hibernation. It’s all pretty cool.
Warlord also issued one Fantasy game in the range – Slaine, which is an alternative-medieval Celtic story of wizards, monsters and blood-stained axes, a bit like an Irish crossover of King Arthur and the Incredible Hulk. I didn’t take the plunge on this one myself – AOS has my Fantasy wargaming needs covered, and I was more invested as a fan in their “Big Three” Sci Fi settings – but there is one other strip that I’d have loved to have seen if this project had more legs.
The one that got away
Rogue Trooper is the story of the lone survivor of a betrayed platoon seeking vengeance, with the personalities of his comrades uploaded into his gun, backpack and helmet for company. As military sci fi it would have made a natural wargame, and especially a cool painting project.
It was also a pretty sweet PS2 game that I played the shit out of back in its day – the way you interacted with your sentient equipment was a nice hook (e.g. setting your gun in an overwatch position while you flank around the enemy), and there were some cool gadgets. It really is teeming with wargame potential.
Were the minis cool?
Yeah, but they were expensive. I wouldn’t really recommend them unless you already like the setting – things like the Block Gangs could be used in other wargames as generic cyberpunk minis, but really I’d be going the other way around and looking for some cheaper bodies to use in 2000AD alongside the cool iconic characters.
In classic Warlord fashion there are some in metal, some in resin, and while I’m rapt to have Johnny Alpha in my life – if you think can live without these minis, you’re probably right.
If you are a fan, however, then this is your last chance. They paint up pretty well and if you do like the idea of owning a Joe Pineapples miniature, I wouldn’t place money on you having another chance in this lifetime.
Further Reading
So if you’re new to the worlds of 2000AD and interested in picking up some reading material, I can recommend a few good places to start. Rebellion Publishing has its own webstore, and the digital editions are quite competitively priced. You can read basically everything published if you’re a retired millionare, but as a couple of bite-sized recommendations:
- For Judge Dredd, jump ahead to Case Files 05 which is where things really get cranking. My own favourite run is The Hunting Party, which you can find in Case Files 26 (especially recommended for Spiderfang players).
- With ABC Warriors you really want to read The Black Hole, which is part of Mek Files Volume 01.
- For Strontium Dog, I’d start with S/D Agency Files 02.
- And as a more general 2000AD recommendation (not directly linked to the wargames) I’d recommend The Complete Alan Moore Future Shocks. This covers a whole bunch of entertaining short stories.
And finally, I’d recommend making some time to enjoy the iconic art. Simon Bisley has an excellent online portfolio of his ABC Warriors work:
Greg Staples is a personal favourite of mine:
https://www.gregstaples.com/selected-work
This interview with Dave Gibbons showcases his art:
But perhaps the most iconic 2000AD artist is the late, great Carlos Ezquerra, and while El Maestro does not have his own active website, his works are celebrated in their own book.
So were these games any good?
Honest answer? Yes and no. They had their own charm, but I didn’t like them quite as much as I wanted to. The upsides were that they felt cinematic (main characters got to activate multiple times per round, so they really felt like the stars of the show) and the wargear options were really cool and fun. The main downside was that the games were just too damn intricate: combat resolution was time-consuming and finicky, and that’s really at the heart of the whole experience.
When the dust settles and I do have the time to really invest in these games, I’ll probably consider adapting some of the excellent minis-agnostic Indie rules that are already out there, blended with these Warlord rules and especially the 2000AD-specific touches. So you’d go in using Warlord’s cool minis, rules and creative flourishes as a starting point, but putting in your own work too to craft the best experience.
See what I mean about this being a project to come back to when you’ve got more time on your hands?
The final word
Bringing it all back to miniature wargaming: a lot of the advanced weaponry and upgrades were cool and thematic, but it’s the “Star Chip” mechanic in particular that really needs to live on. It’s similar in principle to Warlord’s classic “Dice Bag” mechanic, where you’re pulling out chips at random to determine who gets the next activation, but Star Chips can go back in the bag and grant the main characters multiple activations in one round. So the stars of the show feel like the stars of the show, as it should be.
When push comes to shove we’re lucky to have had these games published at all. Nerds of a certain age will always have a lot of love for Judge Dredd, Johnny Alpha and Hammerstein, so my view on these minis hasn’t really changed: I’m glad they exist, I’m glad to have them in my collection, and I’m happy to hold onto them for some time down the track.
And above all – thank you Paul Sawyer for making this happen. I’m sure you had no end of other ways to invest your time and energy that would have brought far greater financial returns, but you did this instead, and you did it for all of us. Thank you for the epic White Dwarf run that will live on forever, thank you for these 2000AD games and thank you for the memories. May you rest in peace.
If you’d like to help us continue our work, we’d love to have your support. All Patreon Tiers include Discord access, exclusive articles and regular contests. Our Tiers are priced to be within everyone’s reach, so please click here to join us today!
- Except Battletech, which appears utterly unkillable. And maybe Infiniti? There could be others you can think of with an indefinite lifespan, but there’s a lot of corpses out there too. Licensed games like Batman and now potentially Star Wars Legion spring to mind, but also decent-sized properties like Warmachine, Malifaux and Guildball. A lot of really cool games have come and gone. ↩︎
- Yup, it’s still going strong. ↩︎
- Because Saturday morning cartoons are my answer to everything, I’ll mention BraveStarr here. ↩︎
Plastic Craic 
One thought on “Drokk! Farewell to Warlord Games’ 2000AD Range”