Sunday 2 July 2017

Doctor Who: Exterminate! Report: The Daleks Verses The Zygons

"CUBE OF DEATH"
This game was played using the "Doctor Who: Exterminate!" rules by “Warlord Games” and, in essence, followed the parameters established for the "Guide To The Time Vortex" skirmish scenario "Ship Of Death". However, in order to allow both sides to get to grips with the Zygon factions' unique Special Traits, and simply because of the number of painted miniatures available to us, a couple of minor 'House Rules' were also followed concerning Fate Tokens and Adventure Cards. Whilst Battle Cards were not used at all. Lastly, a few last minute 'tweaks' regarding General Deployment and Winning The Game' were necessary so the battle could be accommodated upon a 20" x 20" neoprene gaming mat instead of the recommended 3' x 3' table...

"The story so far... Crafting a stellar converter, which has the power to lay waste to entire solar systems, the Daleks are holding the entire Earth hostage, and planning to turn it into a planet-sized starship. However, after learning of its existence, an incursion force of Zygons has gained access to the location of the device, and plan to stop such a despicable use of their new home world. Aware of the threat to their scheme, the Daleks are trying to expel the raiders and resume the stellar converter's activation..."
THE TABLETOP - A STREET ON EARTH
As the location of the stellar converter was obviously going to be a heavily-guarded zone, the Dalek Faction started with four Recruitment cards: a Patrol Leader (Dalek Sec), two Dalek Patrols (both of which generated three Daleks each) and another Dalek Patrol (which generated two Daleks and a Fate Token). In addition, the Patrol Leader, a special character, also created two Fate tokens to be added to his faction's Fate Pool. Finally, the Dalek's received five Adventure cards "to use during their game." These were randomly dealt from the fifteen generic Adventure cards found within the boxed set. This provided the Daleks with "Regenerate!", "Rapid Response", "Combat Senses", "Shield Of Steel" and "To Arms!"

The Zygons only started with three Recruitment cards: a Zygon Leader, a Zygon (which generated three Zygons) and a Zygon Elite (which generated two Zygons and a Fate Token). The Zygon Leader also generated two Fate tokens for his faction's Fate Pool. However, unlike the Daleks, the Zygons were allowed to select the five "Zygons Only" Adventure cards which come in the "Doctor Who: Exterminate!" boxed set. These cards consisted of "Electrical Discharge", "Friend Or Foe", "Call For Help", "Poison Barbs" and "Conceal Identity".
THE DALEK GARRISON PROTECTS THEIR STELLAR CONVERTER
Following the scenario's general deployment rules, six Vortex Node markers were placed on the battlefield underneath a sewer grate, the stellar converter and a variety of debris. The Dalek garrison guarding the compound were then subsequently set up so as to be in contact with these important pieces of scenery. Finally, the Zygons were deployed on a random table edge and simply had to possess at least three Vortex Nodes and have "at least one character in base-to-base contact with" the stellar converter while the Dalek defenders had none to win the game.

Detecting the presence of several amphibious metamorphic humanoids approaching from the east, the Daleks took the initiative, and immediately ensured the sanctity of the stellar converter by re-positioning one Dalek guarding debris (2) and two Daleks by debris (4) back beside the terror weapon. Dalek Sec also trundled east towards the terrifying device. Further southwest, the Daleks by debris (3) moved southeast towards the fencing in order to cut off the Zygon Leader. All of the other Kaled Mark III travel machines remained stationary so as to use their disruptors at Full Blast...
THE DALEKS CHANGE FORMATION IN ORDER TO MAXIMISE THEIR FIREPOWER
Well aware of the scary amount of firepower about to be unleashed upon them, yet confident in their "Tough" trait's ability to ignore "shocked by Shooting attacks", the Zygon Elite by Tree (1) lumbered west towards debris (2). Close-by, one of the Zygons form the aliens' central group managed to reached debris (4), and activating the site's Spatial Disruption Vortex Node, moved south to put themselves in a gap in the fencing and shield the Zygon Leader. Their two Zygor-born brethren approached debris (4). Lastly, the Zygon Leader travelled west along the grassland using the wooden fencing as cover.

The Dalek by debris (2) raised his disruptor at the Zygon Elite before him. But then, because the Zygons played their "Friend Or Foe?" Adventure Card, it became "unsure whether their target is friend or foe", and was unable to "Shoot or Run this turn." Similarly, the Zygon in the gap in the fencing used "Conceal Identity" to allow it "to appear to be one of the enemy's." This resulted in the Daleks by debris (4) becoming utterly confused. However, the Daleks became even more alarmed when the two Zygons near debris (4) 'Shapeshifted' into two Silents, acquiring the "Hard To hit" trait which caused "all shots against" them to "count as inaccurate."
THE ZYGONS ATTACK AND IMMEDIATELY RECOVER A VORTEX NODE
Bewildered, but still deadly, the Dalek by debris (4) who hadn't moved opened fire upon the Silent-Zygons and shocked the heavily-disguised extraterrestrial. Another Dalek then fired upon the prone form and exterminated it! Sensing blood, the three Daleks by the stellar converter launched a salvo of firepower towards the Zygon Elite in the northeastern corner of the battlefield. All of their attacks were inaccurate on account of their long range, and resultantly, none of the blasts were able to overcome the Zygon's "Toughness".

Similarly, the Zygon Leader proved equally as resilient to the Dalek's firepower on the southern grassland. Whilst Dalek Sec, unable to fire upon any target himself, menacingly glided north of the disorientated Dalek by debris (2) to challenge the two members of the Zygon Elite.
ZYGON INGENUITY BEFUDDLES THE DALEKS AND CONJURES UP SPECIAL REINFORCEMENTS
Disappointingly, despite many of the Daleks overcoming the "Hindering" nature of their disruptors by standing still, and thereby firing their weapons at "Full Blast", the Zygon Faction's nefarious use of Adventure Cards and reliance upon their "Tough" trait, had seen the sucker-covered humanoids withstand the Skaro-based invaders' initial assault. And now, armed with their "Electrical Discharge" and "Poison Barbs", it would be the Zygon's turn to attack...

Dum Da Dum, Diddly Dum, Oo-ee-oos… 

38 comments:

  1. Looking good, Simon, but once again it would benefit from more wide angle shots.

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    1. Cheers Bryan. I fear these shots are about as wide as you're going to get though, as I like the close-up stuff. I do have a few more wide angle shots ready for the second part though.

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  2. extremely enjoyable. Wooweeee!! what a visual treat. And this is that new "Exterminate" game? hmmmmm, intriguing. And it play this well? hmmmmm ok I`m rather impressed. Amazingly graphic, hellishly exciting, and I want more please hehe.

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    1. Thanks Tarot. I think "Doctor Who: Exterminate!" plays very well myself, and even something as simply cobbled together like this game played out a treat; especially with the new Zygon traits and ability to transform into other races...

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    2. You`re killing us here; himself and I know the Exterminate game plays brilliantly, and we know (with expansions and new cards) it can only keep get better and better. But we knew from the very start, one day when we don`t feel quite such newbies to DW, we will want a much more rpg feel to our Who-verse games. Cubicle 7 just looks too perfect to ignore anymore, and after that last two hour chat on the phone we had with you, having heard you wax lyrical about it all, we now have no doubt, Cubicle 7`s Doctor Who Role Playing Game IS the way forward for us. We will cherry pick Warlord Games minis for the things we need, and pick and choose from our existing minis to create the bulk of our DW world. Anything else we will eclectically buy, convert or sculpt ourselves from scratch.

      To turn a Han Solo quote on its head: "Its all your fault, Simon" hehe.

      This is all good actually, as the Cubicle 7 rules book is MASSIVE, and just one or two expansions doubles or triples the sheer amount of reading material we need to absorb: and we now have all the DW series to watch on DVD first anyway (currently on series 5), and only THEN can we think of putting together a campaign for the lads here (in Ireland) to enjoy. This makes us happy as we got into DW same time as you got Exterminate (actually it was bBECAUSE of you and Jez we got into it), and as we and the whole world knows you are the Doctor Who and comic book guru, this means it doesn't feel like we are jumping in ahead if you, as we KNOW you have big plans for DW articles lines up (you`ve even said so), and so we will happily wait our turn after `da king` lol.

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    3. Spot on Hil.

      I`ll buy that. Well said.

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    4. Yep, absolutely. Just like we did with Dredd. Long back we really wanted to do Judge Dredd (especially given Hils association with the early days of 2000AD), but we got pipped to the post on it by other blog, so it didnt seem fair for us to do it as well, so I waited months and months, and was only prepared to do it once I reopened our blog.... in fact we STILL havent added Cursed Earth to our Gotham campaign, even though we said we would ^^. We`re saving that for - sooooon, then hit the world with a JD BANG! LOL.

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    5. Thanks ever so much Hils/Tarot. I know from "Warlord Games" that game cards for their figure packs will be available in due course, "ideally as both PDF downloads on our site and physical copies in boxes." So I'll certainly be sticking to "Doctor Who: Exterminate!" for the foreseeable, and hope to field the good Timelord himself in a battle once I've posted the finale to this Zygon battle. In addition I understand both the Sea Devils and Vashta Nerada releases are imminent, so that's a load more minis I need to collect and paint soon... So there's lots of "Doctor Who" loveliness coming to this blog soon enough :-)

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    6. Steve, I'm looking forward to your Gotham City/Judge Dredd mash-ups enormously, and am certainly hoping to get a couple more "Judge Dredd" BatReps posted myself using "Mutants And Death Ray Guns". I'm sure there's plenty of room for everyone to post what they want, and those who enjoy "2000 A.D." will simply reap the benefits of so much stuff related to their favourite British comic book characters :-)

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    7. oh absolutely, couldnt agree more. But we will sit back for now, watch, learn, and one day... ONE day, soon-ish ^^

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    8. I certainly think you'll find the "Cubicle 7" "Doctor WHo RPG" stuff packed full of useful ideas for scenarios, objective cards and 'fate' cards which will help mix up your games.

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  3. Ruddy marvellous mate.... really marvellous. OOoooooooooo I`m loving the finished Zygons, omg AND The Silence too, WOW thing! You kept that pretty... um... silent lol. oh man, I LOVE your Zygons and The Silence is just titillatingly more-ish (I blew the photo up to get a good look, and that was it, I fell in love with them).

    The game itself is exciting, and once again I would say it is a tick in the right box for this game. The rules are a bit of a winner all round, as you adequately display in this superb BatRep. As said already... more please.

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    1. Cheers Steve. I like to try and have a few surprises in my BatReps, and the transformation of a couple of Zygons into Silents really helped us grip the rules concerning the sucker-covered aliens. As you can hopefully tell from this BatRep the Zygons more than held their own against a seemingly overwhelming Dalek attack due to their tricks. The next instalment will cover what happened once that initial confusion is overcome...

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  4. This is a perfect example of a perfect use of a game, perfectly executed (or should that be exterminated).

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    1. Ha hah, thanks Dave :-) I do enjoy doing these BatReps despite them being time-consuming, so your appreciation is much... appreciated.

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  5. If you guys hadn`t already sealed my fate long ago now and turned me into a raving Who-ite, then this BatRep certainly would have achieved the same. Its remarkable Simon, and I enjoyed it immeasurably. This sure has rapidly turned into one of my all time favourite blogs.

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    1. Cheers Hils, glad you've become a fully-fledged "Whovian" :-)

      "one of my all time favourite blogs" - Not THE all time favourite blog yet then ;-)

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    2. Shhhhh!!! but that would make the others all jealous **grins**

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  6. Great BatRep Simon, left wanting more and really appreciate seeing different models in action and how they perform

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    1. Thanks Dave. I know a few Dalek Vs Cybermen BatReps are out there now, so I wanted to try and show what one of the other races were like. Hopefully you can see the Zygons have some impressive traits.

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    2. Indeed mate, they've certainly held their own so far look forward to seeing the conclussion

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  7. Hmmm quite interesting I suppose for one of those Batrep thingy's, not really my cup of tea though....

    Actually very good, but why aren't the Daleks just destroying everything like they should!!

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Cheers Roger. I'd be happy to help you with any advice if you want to post your long-promised AAR at some point ;-)

      The whole point of the game was to see just how 'good' the Zygon traits and Adventure Cards were, and I think this shows that initially, when they have a full deck of Adventure Cards they're pretty good. As to whether they can remain that way is yet to be revealed ;-)

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    2. I'd give up if I were you, it's never going to happen.

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    3. That's such a shame as I reckon "Mutants And Death Ray Guns" would be awesome to use with your "He-Man" minis :-)

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  8. Brilliant! And lovely figs! Have managed to resist temptation so far...largely due to the backlog of gangsters, pulp and darkest Africa figs and because I'm trying to save me pennies for the Dracula's America Weird West nickstarter! Not making it easy, though!

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    1. Thanks ever so much Gordon. I will keep trying to tempt you though ;-) Although I too am very much looking forward to Dracula's America Weird West nickstarter :-)

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  9. It all seems too close to call at this stage, but I'm backing the Daleks for once.

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  10. I initially thought this was going to be a walkover for the Daleks, but the race=specific adventure cards do seem to not only balance the factions out, but are also give the correct 'flavour' for the Zygons. I'll be interested to see how the rest of the conflict pans out.

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    1. Cheers Jez. I think the Adventure Cards and traits work very well for the Zygons. Hopefully the second part won;t disappoint.

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  11. A treat to read. I'm looking forward to team dalek kicking their opponents into touch in the next episode.

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    1. Thanks Phil. Time will undoubtedly tell whether the Daleks have indeed met their match... ;-)

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