Warlord Games - The Return Of Doctor Mysterio

Warlord Games
Released January 2017

Of all the “Doctor Who” Christmas specials to choose from, “Warlord Games” decision to produce a two-figure collectible boxed set based upon “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” during the initial few months of its “Doctor Who: Exterminate!” miniature range’s release, doubtless had many a wargamer scratching their heads in mild bemusement. Admittedly, the “jolly detour to superhero goofiness” was apparently the sixth most watched show on Christmas Day in 2016, and, as the “first new episode in twelve months”, Steven Moffat’s adventure attracted an incredible amount of publicity and interest. But with hindsight, there surely could have been a few better alternatives to have gone with, not least of which may have been “The Next Doctor”; whose Cybershades and Miss Hartigan would have very nicely tied into the Nottingham-based company’s release of some plastic Cybermen just a few months later…

Selection quibbles aside though, as not everyone eats the Orange Chocolate Crunch first, these “beautifully sculpted pewter figures” really are a wonderful pair of models, and are packed full of intricate detail that can, at first, be easily missed. Indeed, in many ways, the ‘bare metal’ photographs of the duo as shown upon the range’s official “Into The Time Vortex” website, really don’t do their meticulous designs justice and it isn’t until one looks at the professionally painted versions that you can see the subtle niceties of Doctor Sim’s facial scar or the angular-markings on the Ghost’s face-plate.

Painting these two pieces is also great fun, as both poses, admittedly somewhat sedentary in nature, allow the brush-tip full accessibility to the entire casting. As a result, Aleksandar Jovanovic’s dastardly extra-terrestrial can quite quickly be brought up to table-top standard with a mixture of different greys and black washes for his jacket and trousers, whilst “the mysterious superhero” can have all of his ‘ribbed’ body armour efficiently ‘highlighted’ with just a dark blue dry-brush. Simple stuff for even the most inexperienced of hobbyists.

Naturally though, for those with both a steadier hand than I, as well as a talent for detail, there’s still the opportunity to emphasise Sim’s coldly ruthless stare with some deft touches upon the figure’s incredibly well-sculpted face, or to ‘draw in’ all of the cross-hatchings upon the Ghosts’ leggings; the latter of which is astonishingly evident on the “Warlord Games” publicity paint-job. 

Unfortunately, gamers wishing to utilise either the New York branch leader of the Harmony Shoal corporation or the masked vigilante in their “Doctor Who: Exterminate!” battles, won’t yet be able to do so, as “Warlord Games” have yet to actually produce either Recruitment Cards or Adventure Cards for them. However, the company has already ‘leaked’ online the Ghost’s statistics for their skirmish game and armed with traits such as “Wounds (4)”, “One man Army”, “Melee (3)”, “Fly” and “Fearless”, the character looks set to be an indomitable force for truth and justice (and probably the American way) once the cards are released as a PDF…