“You Are Too Clever, Doctor. Clever And Dangerous.”

"Destroy him. Die, Doctor, die!"

These "finely-sculpted" and rather overly-large 28mm scale "pewter" models of six shape-changing Zygons are produced by “Warlord Games” and were some of the first “much-anticipated” miniatures which ‘materialised in stores’ as part of the Nottingham-based company's Doctor Who Miniatures Game range. Arguably based far more upon the “fictional extra-terrestrial race” depicted in the 2013 BBC television story “The Day Of The Doctor”, as opposed to the Warlord Broton’s more obvious rubber-suit wearing brethren from the 1975 tale “Terror Of The Zygons”, these figures are wonderfully detailed sculpts and proved such an absolute pleasure to paint that I quickly went from possessing just a pair of the stranded aliens to owning an intimidating half a dozen.

Originally primed with two layers of "Vallejo" Heavy Skintone, my ‘go to’ pot for portraying flesh since the frustrating cessation of “Citadel” Tallarn Flesh and Pallid Flesh, these miniatures were all predominantly painted using a colour scheme inspired by that recommended on the “Warlord Games” “Into The Time Vortex” website. However, rather than simply ‘build up’ the figures’ shading with increasingly lighter layers of red, I instead just heavily washed them with “Citadel” Carroburg Crimson and then dry-brushed them with more “Vallejo” Heavy Skintone.

"The humans will be following our course by their radar. Transmit a jamming signal."

One somewhat contentious suggestion from the Zygons Paint Guide was to paint their hands and feet in black. Such an obvious physical feature of the “shape-changing humanoids” certainly wasn’t evident during the Tom Baker era, and wasn’t all that noticeable during their recent appearances in “The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion” either. However, as the more ‘modern-day’ monsters now appear capable of firing “electrical charges from their hands that can stun or disintegrate” the thought of blending in some old OOP “Citadel” Chaos Black over the ends of their sucker-covered limbs appealed as I thought it would make the models more interesting to the eye…

With my ‘distracting’ refugees from the Zygor homeworld completed I have finally been able to start working on my monthly unit for the “Age Of Sigmar” rule-set by “Games Workshop”. In the past, I’ve painted up a sizeable gathering of Plaguebearers, Nurglings and Bloodletters, as well as a Beast of Nurgle, Rotbringer’s Sorcerer, Herald of Nurgle and Lord of Plagues. However, I haven’t yet really tackled any of the corking scenery currently being produced for the “tabletop wargame” which replaced “Warhammer Fantasy Battle” in 2015.

Balewind Vortex WIPs - The scenic piece has twice been dry-brushed and had its details undercoated in black

This “multi-part plastic kit” of a Balewind Vortex will change all that, and arguably count as an additional ‘unit’ for my Host of Nurgle, due to the “swirling, violently swaying vortex of fell energies” needing to be summoned by my force’s Chaos Wizard before it can be placed upon the battlefield. Indeed, as far as “Age Of Sigmar” is concerned the “platform from which” powerful spells may be cast cannot actually be set up at the start of the game and instead can only be conjured upon the successful roll of a 7 or higher during the Hero Phase.

A genuinely formidably-sized piece of scenery, I’ve decided to paint the model in three separate pieces before assembling it. As a result I have begun working on the base of the “howling gusts” and not only undercoated it’s skull-festooned icon-covered stone foundation with “Citadel” Abaddon Black, but also started building up the dark foreboding carvings with plenty of dry-brushing.