Warlord - Judoon

Warlord Games
Released October 2016

Undoubtedly one of the highlights of Russell T Davies’ March 2007 television story “Smith And Jones” was its introduction of the Judoon upon an unsuspecting ‘Nu Who’ audience and the extra-terrestrials’ infuriatingly catchy single-syllable dialogue – "Blos So Folt Do No Cro Blo Cos So Ro"; a dialect which has already resulted in the creation of several Judoon Language Translators upon the World Wide Web.

Perhaps sensing the popularity of the race of “black armoured Rhinoceroid bipeds” within the wargaming community, as well as the potential for a “Doctor Who: Exterminate!” fan to field the “mercenary intergalactic police force affiliated to the Shadow Proclamation” on the tabletop, “Warlord Games” have now released a boxed pack of three 38mm scale metal Judoon figures as one of their first expansions for their miniatures game, and marvellously rendered they are too. Indeed, even though the “logical but stupid” single-cast aliens come supplied unpainted, their sculpts’ attention to minute detail, such as quarry scanners and incineration blasters, really makes them come alive in the hand the moment you take them out of the Gallifreyan-influenced translucent blue packaging.

For those interested in painting the Judoon, rather than simply owning the trio as collector pieces, matters could not be any easier either, as “Warlord Games” have already helpfully posted up a straightforward palette guide on their “Into The Time Vortex” website, and being predominantly black in colour should mean the vast majority of each miniature can be finished with a quick black prime and charcoal dry-brush. I certainly finished my first three models within just a few hours by using this technique and later just appropriately picked out the mercenaries’ collars, buckles, toe caps and equipment in either silver or red.

Slightly disconcerting however, is the fact that anyone who wishes to actually use the models specifically for “Doctor Who: Exterminate!” must first own a copy of the miniature game’s starter set, as the Judoon’s official Recruitment and Adventure cards are currently only available within that particular boxed product and cannot be found with the figures themselves. Fortunately, “Warlord Games” are slowly releasing such essential statistical data on their aforementioned “Into The Time Vortex” website as PDFs, and also apparently plan to sell physical copies of the cards at some point in the future. For now, though, the only way for a person to play “Judoon Rockets”, “Ricochet” or “You’re Under Arrest!” upon their opponent during a battle is for them to own the main game; albeit that's probably even more reason to pick up a copy… 

Fans of the intergalactic mercenaries will also need to buy at least two packs of the miniatures if they want to deploy a typical Judoon Faction for the game. This will allow them to ‘field’ a Leader, three (ordinary) Judoon and a couple of Judoon Enforcers. Unsurprisingly, this duplication of the same models has already led to much internet debate on the conversion possibilities of the sculpts, and having removed a few limbs and repositioned them myself, it seems perfectly doable in my eyes, even if a simple arm swap between two models requires some careful pinning.