Dalek Size Comparison

I posted here about the Daleks one can now get by buying a copy of Risk, see here for details.  When I posted my news on TMP a while back there was a general discussion that revealed a third option, namely using Dr Who mobile phone charms that offer Daleks.  So I went and bought one and have taken a size comparison picture for you all to judge for yourselves.

So from left to right we have a Dalek from Risk that measures 16mm, my white metal Daleks that are 14mm, and the mobile charm Dalek that measure 18mm.

Without doubt the latter is rather charming, if you will pardon the pun, being prepainted and all.  However, the cheapest I've seen was around £2 per figure, and up to £8 per figure, or even more if you try and buy them from Germany.  That's $3 to $12 dollars per miniature for my American readers.  At the cheaper end for a nicely painted model it's steep, but bearable.  Above that I think you would have to have more money than sense to go down this route.

The Risk Daleks are plain, need work to add details, and of course painting.  However, for £40, or about $60 equivalent I guess, you would get 126 New Who Daleks, and 84 New Paradigm Daleks too.  On the bangs per buck level this is quite attractive, but remember you have to finish and paint them.

I think I shall keep an eye out for more cheap Dr Who mobile phone charms, because with a bit of modification to the base they could be reduced in height enough to be compatible with my white metal Daleks.
  

Ogre Haul

Well this year was not one of over whelming wargaming goodies under the tree, but what was lost in quantity was made up for with quality.  Besides getting a copy of Risk: The Dalek Invasion of Earth I also got Charley's War: The End, the highly acclaimed Pat Mills story illustrated by the late great Joe Colquhoun.  The tenth and final volume of the story, which is a must read for everyone who has an interest in WW1, especially a this year is the 100th anniversary of the start of the war that changed the face of Europe, and the world.

Not a Xmas present as such, as I ordered some Ogre miniatures back in October, but due to the amount of Ogre Designer Editions that had to be posted by Steve Jackson Games there was a little bit of a back log at Warehouse 23 that meant delays on getting other stuff out.  Still I am very happy with my Doppelsoldner, Ninja, Mark 3, command post and spare Fencer turret arriving in time for Xmas.  So well done to all the staff at Warehouse 23 for doing such an excellent job, and  I do hope all the staff had a nice break over the holiday period.
   

Dalek Invasion Earth

Well today I managed to persuade my beloved non-wargaming spouse to play a game of Risk: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, which I had been given for Xmas.  In the excitement to set-up the game board and play I had forgotten that there were already rules for two player games; after I had dealt three factions out, with the third being nominally controlled by the plush toy kitten's.  They represented a neutral Dalek faction that would attack with each of us controlling their forces on alternate moves.

What is nice about the new editions of Risk is that there are ways to end the game in a reasonable period of time.  In this case the game ends on the eleventh regeneration of the Doctor.  You track his regenerations by using a Clara token that progresses each time a player's turn begins, with some of the slots making you roll a D6 to see if he takes another regeneration if you fail the roll.  So games can theoretically be much shorter than eleven rounds.  Ours was over in two hours, which was mostly down to having to read the special rules, refreshing my memory on how the game plays and taking the pictures for the blog.

The other twist to this version of Risk is the TARDIS moving randomly around the board and wherever it lands no movement or fighting may occur.  Other bits of chrome are the Mission cards that give one bonus Daleks for conquering certain territories, and Power cards that can either reduce or increase the number of Daleks one gets at the beginning of your turn, on top of the usual amount that one is entitled to.  One of the Power cards allows you to move the TARDIS to another territory.  However, after counting the cards at the end of the game the odds are you will lose Daleks more often than you will gain them.

As usual every territory you successfully invade gets you a card that you save up and cash in for more Daleks, based not on sets, but on the number of stars on the card.  More stars equals more Daleks.  Our game ended with the plush toy kittens having the most territories, but if the Doctor hadn't regenerated then my partner was about to hand in a heap load of cards and sweep all who stood in their way off the board.

Of course I know that the rabid Dalek fans who are reading this really want to know if the miniatures in this game fulfill their need for 15mm scale Daleks for wargaming.  The answer is yes, but I would want to replace the plunger arms with pins as the moulded Daleks do not have plungers on the end of the arms.

As you can see above the small Daleks are very compatible with my old white metal ones from thirty years ago.  The mid-size ones appear to be a good match for 20mm games, and the large for 28mm wargaming.  However, do note that two of the five factions are mouldings of the New Paradigm Daleks and they suck.  More details on contents here and where to buy it here.
  

Dr. Who Fest

 

This weekend was of course the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Who, with The Day of the Doctor being seen in something like 94 countries and umpty-ump number of cinemas around the globe.  I wrote about what I thought of the episode here.  This is me now writing about the experience of watching Dr. Who for the rest of the weekend.

We were sucked into watching the after show party that interviewed the actors and had loads of the old companions in attendance.  It was mindless fun.  A mere bagatelle of fluffy cotton candy, but we were in the mood for it.  Following that we watched an introduction to the monsters, Doctors and their companions, which was also light and fluff, but triggered waves of nostalgia.  So that was Saturday night gone.

Sunday we tracked down the documentary on iPlayer, of An Adventure in Space and Time having missed the Thursday night transmission.  It was wonderful and the ending was an emotional kick that made me cry.  I can't recommend this too highly, well worth watching.  After that we watched The Five (ish) Doctors, which was a wonderful spoof documentary about the previous actors who have played the Doctor wanting to be in the fiftieth anniversary show.  Very tongue in cheek and funny.  Then we rewatched The Day of the Doctor and both agreed it stood up to being watched a second time.

I'm not a fanatic of Dr. Who, for definitions of fanatic that mean I probably look like one to most non SF fans, in that I talk like one, can be a bit obsessive about the Daleks, and I have a deep fondness for the show, with many happy memories of watching it on TV.  So my favourite Doctor is usually the current one until I get fed up with them, but there are several I never became fed up watching.  William Hartnell, Patrick Toughton, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Chistopher Eccleston and John Hurt.  My favourite companions start with Jo Grant, Sarah Jane, Leela and Ace, Rose, Donna and Amy.  These are my favourites for the things they brought to the screen that I admired.  Monsters, well the Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors and the Silurians.

Favourite episode, far too many to mention, but pretty much multiple stories from every incarnation of the Doctor.  So I say I'm not a fanatic, but as I said that very much depends on one's definition.
  

Daleks

 

Many years ago I use to write wargame articles for a living, sort of anyway, as I mostly made my living by doing other stuff to pay the bills as such. Such is the glamorous life of a wargame author! I also wrote for club zines too, and I did a very long piece on the Daleks for Ragnarok, the magazine of the SF&SFW. Anyway, Daleks scared me as a child and fascinated me as a teenager and about 20 years ago I was given a bunch of 15mm castings of Daleks and Cybermen that were leftovers that had been produced for a demo game.

Foolishly I passed on the Cybermen, and again decided foolishly that I didn't need all the Daleks I had either. Oh how I regret that decision. Give them to me, give them all to me my preciouses. Anyway, I've recently been refurbishing my old figures, and I decided to re-base my 15mm Daleks and re-varnish them too, after touching up the odd chip of paint at the same time.

I had to convert a standard Dalek casting into a Golden Emperor, which is based on the TV21 comic series that I bought the reprint collection of a few years ago. The colours are again inspired by both the comic and the TV series. Now that they are all based I hope to be using them for games again at some point in the future.