Thursday 14 December 2017

Doctor Who: Exterminate! Report: The Daleks Verses The Fisher King

THE FISHER KING WITH TWO GHOSTS ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY THE DALEKS
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 "A Meeting Of Metal". However, in order to allow both sides to get to grips with the Fisher King faction's unique Special Traits, 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 'tweaks' regarding General Deployment and Winning The Game' were necessary so the battle could be accommodated upon a 2' x 2' gaming mat instead of the recommended 3' x 3' table...

“The story so far… The Daleks, Cybermen and Zygons have decided to try and establish their dominance over the Universe once and for all, by conquering numerous planets, moons, stars, and galaxies in an effort to be declared the undisputed master of all space and time. Determined to thwart their plans however, is the Shadow Proclamation; whose mercenary police force, the Judoon, have begun retaking space-time in the name of galactic justice..."
THE UNIVERSE - THE FISHER KING LAUNCHES AN ATTACK DEEP WITHIN THE DALEK EMPIRE
"The campaign so far... Having witnessed the Daleks and Shadow Proclamation creep ever closer to a destructive confrontation, the Fisher King has decided to launch a surprise attack against Skaro's mutants in an attempt to expand his own territory. Landing upon one of the Dalek Empire's occupied worlds, the alien warlord has dispatched his (Judoon) Ghosts to collect a number of rare crystals imbued with Vortex Energy, which will allow him to harness the very power of the Time Vortex and dominate the planet. But the Dalek Emperor isn't about to give up the planet's valuable resources without a fight, and orders Dalek Sec to intercept the ruler of Tivoli and his incorporeal minions..."

The Dalek Faction consisted of three Recruitment Cards, thus started with a Patrol Leader (Dalek Sec), a Dalek Patrol which generated three Daleks, 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 Daleks received five Adventure Cards "to use during their game." These were "Escape Plan", "Upgrade: No Mercy!", "Upgrade: Destroy The Deviant!", "Upgrade: Maximum Extermination" and "Strategist".
THE TABLETOP - A DALEK OCCUPIED PLANET
The Fisher King began with just himself on account of the "One Man Army" trait, which means he "can be the only Recruitment Card you take." However, in addition to generating two Fate Tokens, the conqueror of Tivoli was also allowed to field two Ghosts within 6" of him because of the "Ghosts" Adventure Card. As with the Daleks, the Fisher King received five Adventure Cards, the rest of which were "Lucky Hit!", "Additional Sensory Input", "To Arms!" and "Spatial Distortion."

Having deployed on opposing table corners, and placed six Vortex Node markers on the battlefield, the Fisher King immediately played his Adventure Card "Spatial Distortion", which when discarded "just after deployment", allowed him to "move any two Vortex Nodes up to 4" from their original position." As a result, Vortex Nodes (3) and (5) suddenly tumbled north-east towards the alien tyrant's starting position.
DALEK SEC LEADS A PARTY OF KALED MARK THREE TRAVEL MACHINES
Realising that his towering opponent had already gained a distinct advantage over him, Dalek Sec immediately glided north towards Vortex Node (4) along with three drones. The remaining Kaled travel machines moved west, past the grey container, and captured Vortex Node (6). Davros' creations discovered that the "great resource" would not only provide the Daleks with three Victory Points, but because the node was a temporal anomaly, it would also grant them an opportunity to "immediately resolve a free Shooting action." Unfortunately for Skaro's mutants however, no target was within sight.

Waving his incorporeal minions forwards, one of the Fisher King's Ghosts moved straight through the blue container by Vortex Node (1), whilst its spectral companion and the alien tyrant travelled south.
THE DALEKS MOVE FORWARD AS ONE OF THE FISHER KING'S GHOSTS REACHES ITS GOAL
As there was to be no Shooting on this occasion, the Daleks started to fan out even more, with two drones heading north towards the piping and sight of Vortex Node (2), Dalek Sec and a drone moving west towards Vortex Node (4), and the remaining two Kaled travelling machines gliding west along the southern edge of Vat Omega.

In response, the Ghost which had phased through the blue container collected Vortex Node (1) and gained a single Victory Point. Whereas its counterpart reached the previously displaced Vortex Node (3) and attained three Victory Points. In addition this particular node was a Spatial Disruption, which permitted the axe-carrying spectre to travel further south towards Pylon Beta and ever closer to Vortex Node (5).
THE DALEKS PREPARE TO HOVER OVER SOME HEAVY PIPING
With their battle computer calculating that the Kaleds were slowly losing the 'race' for the Vortex Nodes, the two Daleks south of Vat Omega moved further west towards Vortex Node (5) and obtained a good view of the fast approaching Ghost. To the north-east, the two golden-armoured drones attempted to hover over the heavy piping before them, but only one of them succeeded. Dalek Sec attempted a similar manoeuvre in order to capture Vortex Node (4). He also failed. The final drone glided up alongside the leader of the Cult of Skaro, and trained his blaster upon one of the Fisher King's incorporeal minions.

The Ghost by the blue container moved further east towards Vat Alpha, whilst the Fisher King clomped south and stood in front of a 'wall' of radioactive barrels. The alien tyrant's other Ghost reached Vortex Node (5) and was awarded with one Victory Point. It was also given the opportunity to have a free shot at one of the nearby Daleks, but could not as "Ghosts cannot used Ranged Weapons".
THE FISHER KING CONTINUES TO CAPTURE VORTEX NODES AS THE DALEKS STRUGGLE
Eager to finally put the invading spectres in their place, the Dalek in the south-west corner which was closest to the apparition that had just taken Vortex node (5) fired his energy weapon, and as a result of three hits, exterminated his prey. The drone beside him then targeted the more distant Fisher King, resulting in the weapon receiving a -1 penalty due to the ruler of Tivoli being twice its effective range. The Dalek was unable to penetrate the towering alien's six defensive dice.

To the east, Dalek Sec and the drone alongside him also fired at the alien tyrant. But the Fisher King benefited from some additional cover, courtesy of the heavy piping near him, and none of the shots struck home. Ordinarily though, the "One Man Army" would still have been 'weakened' by some Under Fire Tokens. However, because he was also "Fearless", the Fisher King ignored "the effects of [any] Under Fire markers" as well.    

Dum Da Dum, Diddly Dum, Oo-ee-oos… 

24 comments:

  1. Those painted miniatures look really cool on the tabletop, better even than when you showed them off as finished paint jobs - and they did look good then.

    Good stuff.

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    1. Many thanks Roy. I think the gloss close-up lets the photos down somewhat from time to time. but on the tabletop, they're nowhere near as shiny.

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  2. Interesting. I've had a long-term interest in Doctor Who gaming, though it isn't really a show about conflict. Scooby Doo has the same issues: how do you game it faithfully using "traditional" wargames mechanics?

    I'll be most interested to hear your thoughts on these rules from Warlord, once you've played a game or two...

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    1. Cheers Hugh. I've played numerous games of "Doctor Who: Exterminate!", some of which I've previously posted up, but never yet using the Doctor and his crew. I do plan to though at some point, as I hope to use this campaign to showboat all the different races as and when I can.

      I definitely recommend the game as a tabletop conflict though which is set in the world of Doctor Who, as opposed to a game which imitates the TV show; albeit a lot of the Adventure Cards do give it a good TV show flavour imho.

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  3. I have to concur with Colgar6, how can a game of Doctor Who justify itself as being true to the theme if its a glorified endless fight through kill modes of sci-fi battle hell. Surely that endless fight stuff is better suited to Warammer 40K?

    BUT that aside, the battle report was wonderful Simon, and highly enjoyable to read.

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    1. Thanks Tarot. This particular scenario is more about collecting Vortex Nodes than killing tbh, which is why whenever the Doctor is used, his faction has special victory conditions - which usually consist of only scoring for collecting Nodes etc, not killing anyone - indeed, in many he won't score any VPs for deaths, and has to keep his companions alive, so there's lots of running, temporarily KO'ing oppponents and sneaking about :-)

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  4. Yeeeey!!! I`ve been starved of a good batrep, and this one certainly delivers on the action. Top notch Simon. I could read this stuff `til the stars fall asleep in the night sky, more more MORE.

    The photos look strikingly nice and display extremely well painted minis throughout. Yes, I am a happy chappie, as I go mad for a good old batrep.

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    1. Cheers Steve. Much appreciated praise indeed :-) Many more coming as the Winter nights draw in and I start playing far more games.

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  5. Maybe the Doctor faction plays differently than to the more aggressive factions such as the Daleks and Cybermen??? You'll have to tell us, Blax, if there is such rpg rules in the game to simulate the Doctor and Companions racing against the clock to beat the odds, solve the problem, flick the switch and save the day? And if not, tell WG to pester the rules creator to make some add-on rules to cover such ;)

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    1. Ha Hah! You're perfectly correct, Roy, that there are indeed different rules for the Doctor and his companions. I'll try and cover some of them when he finally gets involved in my campaign - He was going to be in this one, but I put up the final decision to the "Dr Who" Facebook fans and they wanted Daleks vs Fisher King (as opposed to Dr. 10).

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  6. I did enjoy that, Simon, and I'm looking forward to part 2.

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    1. Thank you, Bryan. The next part should be posted up very soon :-)

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  7. Great so far. Nice to see your lovingly painted figures in use :)

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    1. Thanks Simon. I'm hoping to give plenty of miniatures an airing over the next few weeks - been doing far more painting than gaming recently, and want to change that before the end of the year.

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  8. Very entertaining action report, the whole srtup, terrain, figures and scenario look excellent and strangely the thoughful comments and your replkies were also enlightning.
    Hard to say who I'd like to won this one as it seems to be on a knofe edfe, but the Fisher KIng (not Robin Willliams as I first thought) seems to be 'favourite' atm imo.

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    1. Cheers Joe. I'm very glad you enjoyed the posting. It is a bit on a knife's edge currently, and its going to be interesting to see, imho, whether the Daleks' weight of numbers and Full Blasts can overcome the beast which is the Fisher King.

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  9. Great stuff Simon :-) Or not-so-great, because I'd previously convinced myself that "Doctor Who: Exterminate!" wasn't my cup of tea......... now, I'm not so sure.
    Glad to hear there's more batreps coming down the pipeline for our enjoyment!

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    1. Thanks Greg, LOL :-) I do have several "Doctor Who: Exterminate!" BatReps coming, which is actually going to be a problem to squeeze in with all the newly painted minis as well ;-)

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  10. [From: Undercoat] - "Great batrep and a lovely way to relax and drink a cuppa! Great models and great board, and this sounded fun to play and I love your write ups. I think Dr Who often mixes lits of styles and think there have been some great action episodes in the past so gaming in the Whoverse would work. Besides Daleks just want to make war so are the perfect wargames army. Your opening skirmish has left me wanting more you tease! Let's see what the Fisher King can do!"

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    1. Cheers Undercoat. Still plenty to play for in the game, but I've a suspicion the Daleks superior numbers will make the difference; unless the Fisher King can produce a few more ghosts that is :-)

      I see "Blogger" is continuing to play up with the comments for some reason too!?!

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  11. Nice AAR, misread as victrix nodes but that's what comes of doing everything on your phone! Good to see you figures in their natural environment, they look great!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks very much Iain. I'm hoping to get a few more BatReps in over the Winter Holidays, and actually use some of the minis I've recently finished painting :-)

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