(Lead) Mountain Musings - "Doctor Who" March 2019

Silurian WIPs - A Silurian, A Silurian Attacking and Scibus

With the Ninth Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge coming to an end in a few weeks time I thought I'd dedicate this month's themed attempt to diminish my ever-increasing logjam of metal, plastic and resin models to finally pigmenting a whole horde of "Black Tree Design" "Doctor Who" miniatures which have been building up in one of my drawers. However, rather than simply paint a number of figures from across the company's impressive range, I thought I'd try and assemble some sort of tabletop worthy force to use with either "Doctor Who: Exterminate!" by "Warlord Games", or perhaps much more likely, "Mutants and Death Ray Guns" by "Ganesha Games".

As a result I have scoured my backlog and subsequently started priming a surprisingly large number of Silurians and Silurians Attacking to use as the bulk of a "Homo Reptilia" invasion force. These sculpts are all based on the reptile-like humanoids as they were first seen in the Jon Pertwee 1970 serial "Doctor Who and the Silurians", and should prove pretty straightforward to complete once their "Vallejo" Heavy Brown "heavy duty canvas material" costumes have all been dry-brushed.

"Warriors Of The Deep" WIPs - The Myrka and Sauvix the Sea Devil Commander

Sadly, one of my few disappointments with this range is that there are no unique models to represent either the Old Silurian (Okdel), Young Silurian (Morka) and Silurian Scientist (K'to) from the television adventure, and whilst I have clearly at some point attempted to correct this omission by realigning the arms of one figure, I don't think it'll stand out particularly well on the battlefield. Fortunately though, I have found a sculpt of Scibus, "a Silurian companion of Icthar", to use as the prehistoric race's leader instead.

Admittedly, this redesigned Silurian is distinctively different to the rest of his brethren owing to him not appearing in the BBC Science Fiction programme until the 1984 story "Warriors Of The Deep", starring Peter Davison. But that individuality makes him perfect in my mind to act as the three-eyed land-dwellers' commander, and opens up the possibility of the "Eocenes" utilising a few more figures taken from the Fifth Doctor's era.

"Black Tree Design" WIPs - Aggedor, a Sharaz Jek Android and an Auton

Perhaps the most notable of these additional units will be a wicked looking model of a Myrka, which I have removed from its old "Games Workshop" rectangular stand and attached to a more aesthetically pleasing oval base. In addition, rather than simply paint up a load more Sea Devils which despite their diminutive size are still strikingly similar to the "Warlord Games" sculpts I have previously done, I plan to progress a few of the Silurians' cousin-species which are donned in their underwater people's stunning battle armour.

Of course, that doesn't mean I have completely turned my back upon working on a few other "Doctor Who" miniatures this month which I have delightfully discovered during my rummaging around. Indeed, sticking with the Third/Fifth Doctors' tenures I hope to 'polish off' at least a handful of Autons, an Aggedor and a squad of Sharaz Jek's well-armed androids...