Dawn of the Daleks

Well hello faithful readers and belated New Year's greetings to you all!

It's been a while (many apologies!) but I have finally risen from my hibernation.

The reason for my long absence - well the short answer would be work. The long answer would involve me blathering on about being depressed by the lack of balance between life and work, how much I hate my current job and what I would rather be doing with my life until the ripe old age of 72, when I might just be able to retire!

I'll stick with the short answer.

Anyhow, on to more pertinent matters - little men!



Not Oldhammer I'm afraid, although I do have a little something for my next post in that vein. Today I want to talk about Daleks.

There is a tenuous link to Oldhammer however. I really enjoyed (and failed miserably at taking decent pics or writing up a report) Warlord Paul's massive Floating Ziggurat of Mum Ho Thep game at BlogCon back in November. Afterwards myself, the Warlord and Lenihan (or Robotforaday as you may know him from his blog - Where the Sea Pours Out) retired to the hotel bar and, among other things, discussed doing a bit of Dr Who gaming for the New Year.

I must say I also thoroughly enjoyed GM'ing the Battle of No Bridge - a nice little skirmish admirably reported by Lenihan here.



Well I was happy to oblige Lenihan and happily Black Tree Design went and had a 50% off sale on their Doctor Who range just before Christmas. I certainly didn't take much persuading in adjusting my order to bolster my existing Dalek renegade force in order to put up a good fight against Lenihan's Imperials.

 

Knowing that Black Tree can be a little tardy in delivering the goods sometimes, I expected a bit of a wait for my Daleks, Ice Warriors and other Dr Who sundries. However, I was more than a little pleasantly surprised when a satisfyingly heavy parcel arrived on Christmas Eve no less - thanks very much Black Tree Design, I take it all back!!

 

It sounds like Lenihan has a pretty strong force once it's assembled - 18 Daleks, 3 Special Weapons Daleks (gulp!), 3 engineers, and the Emperor Dalek (I was very tempted by this one too) as well as Robomen and Slythers.

 

Happily we seem to have settled on contrasting Dalek Allies, or should  I say Slave troops. Along with them and the differing colour schemes of our Daleks, we should have quite a varied and visually interesting game compared to what a Dalek Vs Dalek game could have been like.

Dalek chronology will be largely ignored in terms of the forces we are putting together. Robomen and Slythers are clearly from the Dalek Invasion of Earth storyline, whilst the Ogrons were only ever used by the Daleks in Day of the Daleks and as part of the Master's overly elaborate plot to engineer a war between the Empires of Earth and Draconia and enable the Daleks to fill the power Vacuum in the Space War.

The Dalek timeline is of course extremely problematical to make sense of thanks to the vagaries of their time travelling antics - not to mention the liberties taken with continuity by the various writers over the years!

Currently re-watching Resurrection of the Daleks as I am at the moment, I'm quite tempted to add some Human Dalek Troopers under the command of Commander Lytton to my force as well...

 

Here's what my force consists of in detail.

 

One Engineer Dalek - equipped with a claw instead of the usual suction cup. This Dalek is able to make battlefield repairs to any of its damaged compatriots. I couldn't resist getting some of the destroyed Daleks either as they were so heavily discounted - there's a nice little rule that they remain in place on the table and that the Dalek creature attacks anything foolish enough to get near enough! I wouldn't mind getting hold of some of the plastic Citadel Daleks to make a few more.

 



Davros - although he does present a bit of a dilemma. I'd love to include him but he, and his impure Imperial Daleks, are what the Renegade Daleks are fighting against. I think I may use him as an objective in our upcoming game - an objective both forces will want to get their hands on!

Another way our forces differ is the presence of Suicide Daleks in my Renegade army. These crazy Daleks appeared in Destiny of the Daleks and were a last ditch attempt by Davros to destroy the Movellan ship on Skaro. If I can get these Daleks near enough to Lenihan's forces, they should level the playing field pretty nicely...

The Command elite. 

The Black Dalek is obviously the Supreme Dalek and leader of the Renegade faction. I also painted up one as the Gold Dalek from Day of the Daleks, should I wish to play that scenario. I forgot where I saw the colour scheme for the red chap - I have a feeling it may have been a cross over from the Peter Cushing film. I seem to remember this colour designates a saucer pilot for some reason? Anyhow, I liked the colour scheme and it lends a dash of brightness to the battleship grey of the rest of the Warriors.

 For the purposes of this game they will be designated squad leaders but won't have improved stats from the rank and file.

Squad Epsilon - or is that a bit too poetic a name for a squad of Daleks?!  I've split my main force into two squads, each consisting of 6 Warriors, a squad leader and a Special Weapons Dalek.

 

 

Squad Theta - as before in true uniform Dalek fashion!

 

Slave troopers in the form of Ogrons - if they aren't given a Dalek master, they need to have written orders made out before the battle which they then stick to. I think they become subject to stupidity if they err from those orders so best to make sure someone's in charge I think!

Not Daleks I know and not part of my Renegade force! I finally got round to basing these Cybermen and their little Cybermats and thought it about time I gave them some limelight.

 A few other bits I got with my Christmas order -

The 7th Doctor with Dalek Jammer and a second Unit Heavy Weapons section - along with the Brigadier and a few others they might possibly come in handy in our Dalek game as a GM led faction...

Another two 22nd Century Guerillas to go with this chap. I thought the Sara Kingdom model - the character appears in the Dalek's Master Plan - might make a nice female Guerilla.

And some more companions - from the right - Romanan 1 (Mary Tamm), Harry Sullivan, Liz Shaw and Victoria Waterfield. Hmmm, the Master seems to have snuck into this pic too...

Oh and I finally got my hand on the Ice Warriors set - one of my favourite baddies!