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Review of Doctor Who: Exterminate! - The Miniatures Game add-ons: Judoon / The Silence / Zygons
Blurb from the publisher: 'Join The Doctor and his companions as the TARDIS plunges into the Time Vortex - a swirling ocean of seething energy whose distant shores lie at the ends of space and time itself! Encounter and defeat Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels and more in this tabletop miniatures game. Dare you venture into the Time Vortex?
Single-minded in their pursuit of the law, these black armoured Rhinoceroid bipeds serve as a mercenary intergalactic police force affiliated to the Shadow Proclamation.
Known for their strict adherence to the law and their brutish application of it, the Judoon have been harshly but accurately described by the Doctor as logical but stupid.
Judoon carry scanners to identify their quarries, translator devices to communicate during their enquiries and powerful energy weapons capable of incinerating their foes.
Known by the Doctor as Silents, these genetically engineered 7 foot tall mouthless creatures are confessional priests of the Church of the Silence. Anyone looking at a Silent will immediately forget them the moment they looked away, meaning sinners could make their confessions without remembering they had done so afterwards.
Silents are capable of obliterating enemies by absorbing electrical energy from the air and discharging it from their hands at a vastly more potent level. They are incredibly resilient creatures and strong enough to smash down reinforced barriers with their elongated hands.
Able to metamorphose into replicas of other living organisms and fire electrical charges from their hands that can stun or disintegrate those it touches, the Zygons were stranded on Earth centuries ago. The Zygons have a mission to take Earth as their new home after Zygor, their homeworld, was destroyed in The Time War.
The Doctor brokered a perfect peace between the Zygons and Humanity, wiping their memories of who was Zygon and who was Human. With millions of Zygons living on Earth in the guise of ordinary Humans it can only be hoped the fragile peace holds or there will be truth or consequences...'
What you get: The present review covers three out of the more than twenty miniature sets that have come out for the Doctor Who: Exterminate! The Miniatures Game / Into the Time Vortex game line.
Judoon - 3 miniatures - GBP 11,99
The Silence - 3 miniatures - GBP 11,99
Zygons - 2 miniatures - GBP 7,99
This is thus an 'artificial' review in that these products are not thematically linked to one another. The sets are sold separately and there is no prerequisite in buying one before buying the other. All miniatures are metal and fully assembled from the get-go. They only need to be painted. The sets only include the miniatures inside a hard plastic casing, along with the right number of plastic bases to affix them. There are no Recruitment or Adventure cards. All these are already included in the Doctor Who: Exterminate! The Miniatures Game.
The strong points: Finely sculpted metal miniatures straight from the universe of Doctor Who! One can't but marvel at the sculpts and the attention to detail they exhibit. Not two models are the same, turning their painting into even more of a pleasure. The line's target group is clearly not only gamers but collectors and painters as well, seeing how the cards are contained in the game's basic box and not here. It goes without saying that the miniatures can also be used elsewhere. The Silence would fit in any X-Files sort of game or diorama, the Judoon can cover anything from science fiction and science fantasy to the quirkiness of stuff like Spelljamer or Planescape (should you know what these are), while the Zygons would feel at home in any genre. You read that right; any. Were I to pick a favourite mini, I would go for the helmetless Judoon. His facial characteristics and his expression are one of a kind. Do not construe this however that the corporate/alien Silence or the more bestial Zygons are any less impressive.
The powers these aliens bring to the table are interesting, to say the least. The lesser incarnation of any of these three aliens are Agents, meaning that they can immediately play for any faction. It is almost in that capacity that the present boxes are structured; the Judoon and The Silence can be immediately added to another faction. The Zygons however cannot; there are only two minis in the box, while the card calls for three minis. In its improved version, each alien race brings one less mini to the table (two instead of three), loses the Agent trait, but also adds a Fate token. A solitary leader on the other hand can also take a wound, while he brings two Fate tokens to his faction's side. Not bad.
The weak points: I am not sure I understand why there are only two Zygons in the box instead of three. I wouldn't have minded even if the third sculpt was identical to one of the already existing ones. As things stand, if you wish to play the Zygons even as Agents, you need to buy a second box.
Obviously enough, the miniatures in each box are not enough to play a full faction of that particular entity. If I add up the characters that the recruitment cards require (and were there all three of them to be used simultaneously), you would need two boxes of the Judoon, two of The Silence and three of Zygons in order to be able to field such a faction if all three of its cards were used. Even more so, some of the existing scenarios request not three but four cards, while the game suggests that scenarios can be created with up to five recruitment cards. Using the leader of any of these factions by definition means that you cannot use characters outside these races in your faction, further increasing the number of boxes you need: that would be a total of three for the Judoon, three for The Silence and five for the Zygons, and all this provided that you go for a balanced approach with both the basic and the improved incarnation of the characters. It is unclear in the rules whether the following approach is allowed, but were one to stuff the playing field with the basic incarnation of each race only in a game with five Recruitment cards, he would need five boxes of Judoon and The Silence, and eight (!) boxes of Zygons. Ouch! Even more so, were would he find the extra cards to be kosher?
The irony of having these miniatures in metal, all of them organic beings on the Doctor Who universe, and have the Daleks and the Cybermen, two iconic beings of metal and machine, cast in plastic in the basic box is not lost.
Conclusion: Into The Time Vortex is an excellent line of minis, and these three products emphatically confirm it. They might be addressed more to the collector Doctor Who fan than the gamer, seeing how one will need to buy more than one box in order to use these as viable factions in the vein of the Daleks or the Cybermen. The bottom line however remains: a Doctor Who fan is sure to appreciate them.
For more info on the Judoon, The Silence and the Zygons, as well as the full range of the Into The Time Vortex game line and Warlord Games, visit the game's dedicated website at https://doctorwhotimevortex.com as well as the company's website at https://store.warlordgames.com.
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