Exterminate! EXTERMINATE!

Here they are, the on-ly tru-ly su-per-i-or be-ings in the gal-ax-y! The Daleks:

I couldn't let my Doctor continue for long without his arch nemeses. The problem with Daleks though is they are very definately recognisable as Daleks, you can't make "Pepper Pot Space Robots" and expect to get away with it. As a result there is only one source for 28mm Daleks out there: Black Tree Designs (formally Harlequin) who have the license for the pre-Eccleston years. Now I was not expecting perfection from these figures. They are after all really quite old sculpts, I was however expecting little more than the results when they arrived.

This is the back of the figures. Now this is after I spent some considerable time cleaning them up. There is a huge mold line up the front and the back row of nobbles were fused into long ovals. I ground out the nobbles with my dremel but short of carving out and resculpting the back section there was nothing to be done. After a good bit of grumbling I decided that I would just give them a fairly simple paint job rather than trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I suspect that the problem is mold degredation. Normally you would cast a new mold from tins taken from the master mold but I have a nasty feeling that it is the master mold that may be on the way out for these fellas. Still, they are Dalek shaped and that is the main thing.

On the positive side the eyestalks are ace! The plungers needed to be dremelled out to give them more of a plunger "dip" in the middle (could have said concave I suppose!). As far as painting I was in a quandry. There are many different shades of Dalek schemes, While I like the Eccleston/Tennant era bronze I was always more fond of the old school grey/black. I do have another three of these which are getting converted (two into the WW2 Ironside Daleks and one Bronze/brass one to represent the participants in Victory of the Daleks) to allow me to field all sorts of different era Daleks (how? With what rules? Under what circumstances? Who cares?! I'm geekin' out here). The paint scheme was created with an Adeptus Battlegrey and Boltgun Metal mix to give a metallic grey. The nobbles were painted a dark grey and given a gloss vanish. Any glowing blue bits were simply painted flat white and then glazed in blue ink. Oh and while we mention the nobbles there are 52 on each Dalek. That is 204 for the four. This was not a quick job.

To give the Daleks someone to O-bey, I painted the fourth Dalek as a black Dalek Supreme (mostly for variety). Essentially he is just highlighted black with a gloss varnish and nobbles painted in the same mix as his more basic comrades.

Well, there we go, not the greatest models on Earth but they are Daleks and thus cool! They are the right scale to fit in with Heresy's Dr Hugh and from the front aren't bad looking at all. Now if only someone would sculpt some cybermen worthy of the name! As a final thought, while Black Tree own the classic Doctor licence I can't understand why anyone hasn't gone for the new era license. With all the various companies and sculptors making tribute figures would it not be better to be able to make the Ood? The Sontarans? The Judoon? Heck, if everyone making tribute now was up for it I would apply for the license and retroactively commission the real figures. We could make quite the co-operative venture. Anyone interested drop me a line ;)

Check back on Saturday for my review of the Finecast Dark Elf Bolt Thrower kindly reserved by my FLGS (thanks Firestorm Games). I'll give it a fair and open review and I've got samples of Forgeworld and Privateer resin to compare against. Till then

TTFN