"We Intend To Make This Planet Uninhabitable For Humans Beings. "

"We shall return to our base and wait in hibernation until the radiation has faded."

These six 28mm scale metal miniatures are manufactured by “Black Tree Design", and consist of Code DW308 Silurian and Code DW315 Silurian Attacking from their "Doctor Who" miniatures range. "Depicted as prehistoric and scientifically advanced sentient humanoids who predate the dawn of man", these "reptile-like humanoids" first appeared in Malcolm Hulke's January 1970 BBC Television story "Doctor Who And The Silurians".

All of the "three-eyed land-dwellers" were primed with "Vallejo" Heavy Brown, heavily washed with "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade and dry-brushed with (more) "Vallejo" Heavy Brown. They were then treated to some strategically-placed spots of "Citadel" Biel-Tan Green in and around their heads, necks and hands, before being given a second, lighter dry-brush of (even more) "Vallejo" Heavy Brown.

"Our leader is dead. I killed him. I am the leader now."

Their claws, which were somewhat difficult to 'pick out' at times due to some occasional miscasting in these areas, were given a coat of "Vallejo" White and subsequently washed with Strong Tone Quickshade by "The Army Painter". Lastly, their 'third eye' was spotted with "Vallejo" Heavy Red and later shaded with either a little "Citadel" Bloodletter or Carroburg Crimson, depending on which was closest to hand at the time.

Temporarily stepping away from my painting queue I have also managed to play a couple of games of "Doctor Who: Exterminate!" by "Warlord Games" at the LVL Up Gaming Store in Bournemouth. This independent venue has an impressively sized underground 'dungeon' packed with tables, scenery, rule-sets and enough snacks to sate even the hungriest of wargamers. In addition its street-level shop shelves are absolutely bursting with an incredibly diverse range of manufacturers, genres and miniatures, ranging from a mouth-watering array of "Games Workshop" products, through to "Heroclix", "Dungeons & Dragons", "Kings Of War" and "Infinity" models.

The Cyber-Leader and Dalek Commander meet head-on, as some Cybermats engage the sucker arm of a drone.

Game-wise I twice managed to watch my three Recruitment Card-strong Cyberman faction fall to the might of a Dalek force whilst playing repeatedly the scenario "A Meeting Of Metal". The Skaro mutants really are the master of the long-range Full Blast, which allows them to hurl eight unmodified dice at that foes per Shooting Phase in any turn where a drone doesn't move beforehand. This firepower is incredibly difficult to overcome without some cunning forethought and even a small 'screen' of Cybermats couldn't save my brave cyborg warriors from being badly whittled down in numbers before they could reach their well-armoured opponents.

Interestingly a number of the game's Adventure Cards came to the fore during these battles with the Dalek "Upgrade: No Mercy!" proving particularly potent as it allows "all fully operative Daleks" an incredibly destructive "additional Shooting sub-phase at the beginning of the Upkeep Phase." Admittedly, with hindsight I feel the card's term "fully operative" probably means only Daleks that aren't Shocked or carrying any Under Fire tokens, which would lessened its impact upon our scraps somewhat. For the Cybermen, I found "Request Reinforcements" to be quite useful to bring on another base of Cybermats when one had been destroyed. These fast-moving hunters arguably seemed little more than an annoyance to my opponent, but at least momentarily kept the Dalek disruptors away from my silver giants.