Doctor Who And The Red City - Episode One

Prop Shop........The Red City!

The 'Red City' is a large Sci Fi city that I built 6 or 7 years ago. It is made up almost entirely of plastic components manufactured and sold by Games Workshop for their Warhammer 40k game. I was fortunate enough to acquire a pretty large amount of frames at a very low cost. I sat on these for some years until I eventually decided to bite the bullet and get creative. I spent several weeks gluing these buildings and walkways together and almost hospitalised myself with the fumes from the glue I was inhaling! 

My objective was to create a collection of scenery that was both flexible and at the same time capable of providing different levels to fight over. Its primary purpose was for 25mm scale sci fi skirmish games like Necromunda. 

One of the main features that drove the design of the city was the walkways. I wanted multiple level walkways that threaded through the structure of the city. This would hopefully enable more complex firefights and add more interest to the games. 

The whole collection breaks down into separate buildings that can be connected in a number of ways by the walkways. The lengths of the walkways can be extended, resulting in a number of options and configurations.  

Designed for 25mm scale figures, the walkways are not quite as wide as I would like for my 54mm collection, but  apart from my Daleks, most just about fit.

The whole collection just about fits into two very large 'really useful' boxes and has been stored in the garage for the last couple of years. A desire to see it again and to try it out in a Doctor Who themed toy soldier game resulted in me blowing the dust off the boxes and the photos you now see. 

I Counted Them All Out...... Doctor Who And The Red City

Anyone who has followed Doctor Who, will be aware that whole episodes and in some cases whole story arcs, are missing from the BBC archives. They were destroyed at a time when the tape was more valuable than the film upon them. Sadly, I fear that in this battle report, I am going to have to ask you to assume the same thing happened. The second episode and conclusion to this game must be assumed to have been lost....or did it ever even exist? 

I decided to give my Daleks and Cybermen an outing as well as my refurbished 1950's Spacemen. 

I decided on a scenario where the Cybermen allied with the Daleks, have converged on a deserted world to gain control of  an object which would enable them to obtain ultimate power. The Doctor and an Earth Force task group have also arrived at the same time. The Doctor aims to obtain the object and dispose of it where it can't be found by the Daleks or their allies. The Earth Force are there to delay the enemy and assist the Doctor. 

The Doctor landed near the centre of the abandoned city but the Tardis was subject to the effects of a scatter dice. The Earth Force set up artillery pieces to cover the main approaches through the city.

The Daleks and  Cybermen had landed in the industrial part of the city and were now advancing through the City. Their main objective was the object of power, but  a secondary objective was the Doctors death. The death of the Doctors assistant would also score well for the alliance of evil. 

The Doctor (and the Earth Force) would win the game if he could find the object and get it to the Tardis to remove it. 

The Earth Force opened fire on the advancing Daleks but to little effect. The Dalek return fire was however much more effective and the Earth Force took several casualties. 

The 2nd Earth Force artillery team had much more success and scored a direct hit on one of the Cybermen units, killing four in one blast!

The Doctor and his assistant were moving as fast as they could towards the building where the object was radiating its presence. 

A second round of fire and movement resulted in no more casualties on either side but the Doctor was still a good few turns away from the building where the object was radiating power.

It is at this point that the episode ended ....... or rather I was unable to find the time to finish the game. Family matters (common cold all round) took a toll on my free time and I needed to clear the table for the visit of a wargaming friend for a planned Fantasy battle. 

So please accept my profound apologies for a partially completed battle report, but I know how much we all just like to look at photos of each others toys so I thought you might forgive me this once. I hope that this article at least serves as a brief introduction to my 'Space collection '.  I plan to show theses and other figures in more detail at some point, as well as another planned game on an alien planet. Hopefully this time I will get to finish it and will be able to 'broadcast ' the entire story!  

Tara a bit!