Doctor Who game report

Today is apparently one of the last days of sunshine we are going to have in the UK before normal weather service is resumed, so how better to spend it than sitting indoors pushing lead men around?

A good buddy of mine also works part time and has Mondays off, so we were able to take advantage of this coincidence (finally) and play a game of Doctor Who.

We modified a scenario from the main rulebook, which has Sea Devils attacking a UNIT base while the Master searches buildings for a vital component for his escape from earth. Our version had Cybermen attacking a village while the Master searches buildings for a vital component for his escape from earth...

I took the part of the good guys, controlling the 4th Doctor, K-9, Leela, the Brigadier, Sgt Benton and several UNIT soldiers. My friend took control of the Master, a Cyber-Leader and several Cybermen.

Here is a summery and some pictures:

The Cyberman assault begins!

The Master sneaks into a building which also happened to contain material the Doctor could use for inventions

Leela entered the house to confront the master but ended up being hypnotised by him!

Cyberman advancing on the right flank, soon to be shot!

The Cyberman left flank approaches the village

You can see UNIT forces deployed along the road with the intention of slowing the Cyberman advance and buying the Doctor time to deal with the Master or come up with a useful invention!

The Doctor stuns Leela with his sonic screwdriver!

 The above picture requires a bit of explanation. After hypnotising Leela and conducting a search of the building, which showed it did not contain the device he was after, the Master left and ran into the nearby woods.  Under his control, Leela attacked the Doctor with her poisoned blowpipe, fortunately missing. As she attacked an ally, she was entitled to make a check to break the hypnotism at the end of the turn. However, the Doctor was not taking any chances and stunned her with his sonic screwdriver. Fortunately she made the hypnotism roll and came back under the control of the good side. Unfortunately she failed every single stun recovery roll for the rest of the game except the last couple of turns! This kind of 'narrative' event which spontaneously happens in the game is absolutely fantastic and makes it a great experience.

Cybermen fall to concentrated fire from UNIT

The view from the UNIT battleline

Man down!

The left UNIT flank starts to buckle. Cybermen distruptors are brutal when they hit...

More dead Cybermen...

The casualties mount up.

Okay, this is how it went... I was so pleased with my defence of the village that I took a few pictures of the dead Cybermen. My buddy insisted I return the favour and photograph the UNIT casualties. The result? A load of picture of miniatures on their backs... Ah well...

The Master breaks cover from the forest and is confronted by K-9 and his nose laser!

The Master makes it to the church, where he will again search unsuccessfully.

UNIT starting to feel the pressure. Their fire was most effective when concentrated on a single foe. By this point he Cybermen were gaining ground and able to bring their superior weaponry to bear. Nasty...

Cyberman viewpoint along the road

Sgt Benton falls, the Brigadier fails a morale test and starts to run!

At this point the good side had about 4 figures left and the Cybermen had breached the village.

The stunned (quite literally) Leela looks on as the Doctor finally completes his invention. A quick d6 roll shows it to be a weapon designed to take out Cybermen with ease! Hurrah! Just a shame it is a little late...

A view of the village and UNIT corpses...

A Cyberman makes his ominous way along a hedgerow.

The Brigadier looks on, helpless in the face of the Cyberman advance.

"Delete! Delete!" The Brigadier falls!

The Doctor and companians make a last ditch effort to stop the Cybermen.

Regeneration time... the Doctor falls.

So, the good side didn't do too well at all. It all seemed to be going okay at the start and I rolled some excellent damage dice against the Cybermen, but when they got close enough to use their slightly shorter range weaponry they really started to take a toll on my forces.

The Doctor was fairly slow in creating an invention and by the time he did, most of the UNIT force was dead. The Master didn't have much luck with finding what he was after, but in the end it didn't matter too much! UNIT definitely should have tried to avoid the full on firefight with the Cybermen.

Final Victory Points: Bad Guys 12, Good Guys 1. But a very fun game!