Doctor Who the Miniatures Game ( DWMG) webpage and Yahoo group shut down.

The  Doctor Who the Miniatures Game ( DWMG) webpage and Yahoo group have been closed.  I suspect the heavy hand of Warlord Games or the BBC.  This is very sad news as Graeme Dawson produced an excellent set of rules (DWMG) that will now be difficult to find (but not impossible, see link below for the facebook page).
 http://www.drwhominiatures.co.uk/

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1180247582062247/


Seems nothing is ever gone forever on the internet thanks to archive.org if you search  drwhominiatures.co.uk


https://web.archive.org/web/20161001184029/http://drwhominiatures.co.uk/


But don't expect any new official content, but their may be some scenarios produced by members of the Face book group.
More on the disappearance of the DWMG website:
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=438010





 As for Warlord  the figures they are producing  for their game (that they are taking ages to release) are too large to fit in with any of the current 28mm Doctor Who range of figures.  Some of them look to be very nice sculpts but reviews state they are 33mm or more (pictures confirm they are larger than standard 28mm used by Black Tree / Harlequin and Heresy) and they are expensive.




New Warlord Doctor Who figures  about 33mm scale

This certainly leads one to suspect they are deliberately making the figures larger (out of scale) to compel players to buy their figures rather than mix in their older 28mm figures.   Warlord's response to the size issue is as follows:




"Our figures are that size for an entirely different reason – they are true scale representations of the subject matter rather than the big-headed, ham-fisted wargames standard figures we are all so used to. As a result, to make such fine miniatures cast well and retain some semblance of strength they need to be a little larger.
You are still free to buy rip-off 'not' Doctor Who figures if your conscience so allows..."
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=437436




Can't say I am convinced you have to make figures 33mm to have properly proportioned figures. I also don't buy the conscience issue argument since about 99% of the Doctor Who figures in 28mm were sculpted before Warlord purchased the licence from the BBC.  Are they suggesting all the Harlequin / Black Tree figures that were made under licence at the time they were originally sculpted are now "rip-offs"?  GW once made Doctor Who figures.    Lots of companies make "not" type figures from diverse subjects including Star Trek, Casablanca, Captain Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes....."


I agree with this post about DWMG back in August 2015 and it looks like his prediction has come true:

"This [DWMG]  is a fan-made Doctor Who Miniatures Game that has been around for years. The creators of this game went on to create their own company, Crooked Dice, and tried to secure the license themselves. They were essentially priced out of the market years ago. Undeterred, they went on to adapt the rules into their own game, 7TV, which takes the DWMG rules and expands them to cover the whole range of cult TV shows.
 My point is that there are already some pretty solid rules for a Doctor Who Miniatures Game and my worry is that an official offering would force the publishers of the unofficial set to make their book unavailable. 7TV, with its more generic setting and themes, would be safe, so the rules would be largely preserved – second edition is due out soon – but the DWMG would potentially be in trouble."

See the full post at:

http://hitsomebody.com/the-doctor-who-miniatures-game-and-why-i-am-not-enthused/


The latest on 28mm Doctor Who figures is that Crooked Dice, Heresy and other companies making Doctor Who like figures are being forced to pull them off their website stores.


http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=433975






No doubt Warlord is holding off on their Doctor Who  rules until they have sculpted and painted enough of their own figures so that they can have many colour pictures of them in the publication  to make it one of their  standard hardcover picture filled rule book selling for $50+

My Six point SAGA Viking Army

Here is a picture of my six point SAGA Viking army on my game table shortly after it fought in the Ottawa Miniatures Gamers (OMG) annual tournament that was held on Sunday November 6, 2016. This years tournament  was a SAGA rules tournament using six point Dark Age armies.   How went the day?   My Vikings were victorious in all three battles defeating Saxons, Danes and other pesky enemies to win the tournament.

The victorious Viking Army with their plunder.

I look forward to playing more games of SAGA with League members. As you can see the painting commitment is not that big as only around 33 to 41 appropriate 28mm figures are needed.   Hearthguard are 4 figure groups, Warriors 8 figures and Levies (missile weapons) 12, the leader is just 1 figure.  The Leader is free and each of the other groups is worth one point, games are typically 6 points per side, but sometimes small games with just 4 points per side are played.  The rules are very innovative in that they use a dice board that dictates the actions the figures can take. There is also a fantasy variant army called Revenants I am curious to try out.

Honours of War

The battle of Gross Jaegersdorf. My first time playing Honours of War, and first foray into 7 Years War in decades...
One of our members has returned to the area and brought his armies with him.

 

Pulp Alley: Star Trek Away Team - the Apple. December 27th, 2016

Star Trek Away Team game in 28mm using Pulp Alley was held on December 27th at Western Keep, 1:30pm.  Four players: Federation, Romulans, Klingons and Temporal Marauders on a tropical planet involving Natives and  "Vaal" (Maoi statue). Inspired by the Star Trek TOS episode:- the Apple:

A screen shot from the TV episode "the Apple"

UPDATE December 29, 2016:

See the After Action Report at:

https://lordofwesternkeep.blogspot.ca/2016/12/pulp-alley-star-trek-apple.html

The Federation Away team: Landon, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, &  Chekov

Screen shot of Vaal from the TOS episode

Wraith King

Here is a picture of one of my old Citadel Wraith Kings / Wights. He will work for Frostgrave, Kings of War, Pulp Alley and many other games.

Witches

Here are a couple of characters that may be in the Halloween PA game.

Flames of War Early War

This was a 15mm Flames of War ( FoW) game set in Malay in late 1941,  Japanese versus Allies (Commonwealth).  It was hosted by me on Sunday 13 November 13, 2016 and I also played on the British side.



This game had 4 players and some spectators, including The Ronin North of the River  Each player had 1,000 FoW points worth of troops and the game lasted 4 turns.   The Japanese proved to be very effective, especially attacking at night in the jungle,  see the special FoW rules for them here:
http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=3955

Overview of the battle field - Japanese deploy forward near the British artillery at night.