doctor who Archives - Page 7 of 19 - Felix's Gaming Pages

Doctor Who: A Big Hand For The Doctor

As part of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, there are going to be eleven short novels from famous authors covering (as you might have guessed) all eleven Doctors.

The series starts with the First Doctor and is set in 1900.

London, 1900. The First Doctor is missing both his hand and his granddaughter, Susan. Faced with the search for Susan, a strange beam of soporific light, and a host of marauding Soul Pirates intent on harvesting human limbs, the Doctor is promised a dangerous journey into a land he may never forget…

I don’t know the First Doctor very well, but I did enjoy this story. Reading the reviews though seems to indicate that not everyone did.

Get A Big Hand For The Doctor at Amazon.

Get A Big Hand For The Doctor at Apple Book Store.

Robot Mummy

Back in the 1990s Harlequin Miniatures produced a licensed range of 28mm metal miniatures and I bought back a few of the blisters, including the robot mummy.

Having had a look at what was actually in the box of miniatures I found I had four of them.

The next stage after cleaning the metal miniatures was to give them a white undercoat.

Then a basecoat of very light brown, or ivory.

Get the Pyramids of Mars on DVD from Amazon.

Devil in the Smoke

I finally got round to watching the Christmas episode of Doctor Who and I will say I did enjoy it. I really liked the fact it was set in a Victorian London and glad a fair bit of screentime was given to Madam Vastra, Jenny and Strax.

I was quite pleased to find that there is an ebook with a Madam Vastra story which is available for both Kindle and the Apple Book Store.

Madame Vastra, the fabled Lizard Woman of Paternoster Row, knew death in many shapes and forms. But perhaps one of the most bizarre of these was death by snow…

On a cold day in December, two young boys, tired of sweeping snow from the workhouse yard, decide to build a snowman – and are confronted with a strange and grisly mystery. In horrified fascination, they watch as their snowman begins to bleed…

The search for answers to this impossible event will plunge Harry into the most hazardous – and exhilarating – adventure of his life. He will encounter a hideous troll. He will dine with a mysterious parlour maid. And he will help the Great Detective, Madame Vastra, save the world from the terrifying Devil in the Smoke.

This is very much a must read if you enjoyed the Doctor Who Christmas special.

Get Devil in the Smoke at Amazon.co.uk for your Kindle (or Kindle App).

Get Devil in the Smoke on the Apple Book Store.

Victoriana Who

The recent Christmas special for Doctor Who got me thinking about some Victorian gaming scenarios with Alien twists.

We’ve already seen various episodes with the Doctor in Victorian London, often at Christmas and usually with snow. There has been “ghosts”, werewolves, Cybermen. There was of course the quasi-Victorian planet with flying fish and sharks too. This year we saw snowmen, a Silurian, Madam Vastra and a Sontaran. There is some talk of a spin off involving Madam Vastra and I hope there is, because I think it would work well, and there are quite a few connections to existing stories and canon. For example, there may well be steampunk influences with a Victorian Torchwood using alien influenced tech to find and defeat alien threats to the British Empire. if you watch Tooth and Claw you will hear the doctor talking about steam powered starships of the British Empire if the wolf gets its way. Tooth and Claw in itself would make a good scenario, Victorian British Infantry versus monks and a werewolf.

The real way to play games in the Doctor Who universe is to avoid using the Doctor and focus on the other characters in the story, use UNIT for example, or play out the scenarios prior to the involvement of the Time Lord.

2nd Doctor

The Second Doctor was the second incarnation of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. Though outwardly warm, bumbling, and somewhat clownish, this version of the Doctor had a darker, more cunning aspect to his personality — one which he usually kept hidden in order to better carry out his plans.

Back in the 1990s Harlequin Miniatures produced a licensed range of 28mm metal miniatures and one of the blisters I got was of the second Doctor.

Robot

The first episode with the fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) was Robot.

Mortally weakened by the Spider Queen on Metebelis 3, the Doctor is forced to regenerate. His recuperation is cut short as UNIT investigates a spate of robberies involving components for a top-secret disintegrator gun. The culprit is quickly identified as a highly sophisticated robot built by Professor Kettlewell, being ordered to act against its Prime Directive.

Just how is the robot being used to carry out the sinister agenda of the Scientific Reform Society? Can the Doctor rescue Sarah from the robot’s clutches and avert a nuclear war?

I really like this episode, lots of UNIT action (even if they do use an Action Man Scorpion Tank in one shot).

This is the metal miniature that was made by Harlequin Miniatures.

This is the “normal” size of the Robot when we first meet it.

Of course…

Spoiler Alert

One of the plot points in the story is that the Robot does get bigger… that’s the reason the novelisation is called Doctor Who and the Giant Robot! I wish I had bought one of the 7″ Action Figures of the Robot as that would be perfect for the big version. If I see one, I might get one, but I don’t think they make it anymore, which is a pity.

The 7th Doctor

I always liked the Tom Baker era of the classic Doctor Who, but Sylvester McCoy I also felt was pretty good and some of my favourite Doctor Who stories are from that era, Remembrance of the Daleks, the Curse of Fenric and Silver Nemesis. All good scenarios for gaming too.

I do have a 7th Doctor miniature from the Harlequin Miniatures that will go nicely with the Ace miniature I have.

The Seventh Doctor was the seventh incarnation of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. Originally an eccentric, light-hearted buffoon, this incarnation’s jolly persona eventually darkened into that of a mysterious, cunning manipulator to properly combat the return of Fenric.

Ace

Ace is a 16-year-old who first appears in the 1987 serial Dragonfire, where she is working as a waitress in the frozen food retail complex of Iceworld on the planet Svartos. She had been a troubled teen on Earth, having been expelled from school for blowing up the art room as a “creative statement”. Gifted in chemistry (despite failing it for her A-levels), she was in her room experimenting with the extraction of nitroglycerin from gelignite when a time storm swept her up and transported her to Iceworld, and far in her future. There, she meets the Doctor and his companion Mel. When Mel leaves the Doctor at the conclusion of the serial, he offers to take Ace with him in the TARDIS, and she happily accepts

Back in the 1990s Harlequin Miniatures produced a licensed range of 28mm metal miniatures and I bought some blisters. One of these was Ace.

The Brigadier

Here is another of the metal miniatures from Harlequin Miniatures. This is Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was one of the founders of UNIT and commander of its UK operations. From his second incarnation onwards, notwithstanding some early tension between the two at the start of his third incarnation, the Doctor long considered the Brigadier one of his most trusted human allies and closest friends, having encountered him in all of his incarnations, with the exceptions of his ninth and eleventh.

Davros

The designer and creator of the Daleks was Davros.

This is another of 1990s Harlequin Miniatures’ licensed range of 28mm metal miniatures.

Davros first appeared on our TV screens in Genesis of the Daleks and I remember that dark and quite philosophical episode well.

This is the adventure that goes right back to the roots of the Daleks, from their humble beginnings to the point where they become the Doctor’s most fearsome foes. Across the six episodes, we find that the Doctor has been sent to the planet Skaro, where he discovers the evil genius Davros, who is about to fully unleash his deadliest creations into the universe. Accompanied by Harry and Sarry, The Doctor also finds himself stuck in the middle of an ongoing war between the Thals and The Kaleds, in a story packed with danger and adventure.