Revenge of the Daleks

Regular visitors to the Buffet will have no doubt noted that it has been rather quiet of late.

I have been suffering a crisis of confidence in my abilities and the value of my blog, so much so that I had considered giving it up.

However, two things changed my mind.

The first was fellow bloggers Hilary Gilbert and Tarot Hunt of The Game Cupboard, who when they became aware of my problem, offered unstinting and unselfish encouragement and support, and were unflagging in their enthusiasm.

The second was more recent. Your blog is your own personal expression of your hobby. By publishing this online, you are exposing your efforts, opinions and views to a Worldwide audience. Not everyone who reads you blog will agree with you, but unlike forums, those who disagree will usually just not comment or follow your blog.

Not long ago, I had a disagreement with the owner of a particular blog, the result of which was that I decided to no longer follow that blog, as the owner’s beliefs were not compatible with my own. Since this event, it appears the owner of this particular blog has created an avatar of me, which was then killed horribly in a batrep and publicly criticised the free rules I had published here. I found out about this purely by chance, and to be honest, this kind of petty vindictiveness is the reason I no longer follow this blog.

However, this particular person has now decided to target friends of mine, by undermining and belittling them and their ideas not only on their own blog, but also on other blogs I frequent. For a community that prides itself on acceptance and generosity, this kind of behaviour represents the ‘ugly’ side of our wonderful hobby. Currently, I am observing from the sidelines, but should this continue, I am quite prepared to speak up and ‘name and shame’ this person.

This is the line – the shit stops here.

By me giving up, I’m letting people like this win. So, Carrion Crow’s Buffet will continue, providing whatever content I bloody well decide I want to. It will be varied, on occasion it will be weird, but hopefully it will be entertaining, amusing and worth reading.

Right, now I’ve got that off my chest, let’s see what I’ve managed to get done during my ‘fallow’ period. First up, my ‘father of the Daleks’ has received a few more licks of paint and now looks a bit more Davros-like;

 

Strictly speaking, Davros’ skirt colour should be dark grey, but the contrast between the dark grey and silver ‘globes’ wasn’t working, so I repainted it black instead. Still a way to go, as he’s looking a little bit Mekon colour-wise, but he’s still pretty cool.

And a brief shout out to Roger from Rantings from Under the Wargames Table, who defended my Davros from those who criticised it on The Miniatures Page, for which I thank him.

Next up,  a bit of colour on Aggedor, the Monster of Peladon;

Having just decided to paint the figure without referring to pictures online, I initially gave him an undercoat of GW Orc Brown (which is the yellow on the base). I then realised that this was the wrong colour, so had to repaint him with Revell Tan. A few patches of yellow are still showing through, but at least he’s the right colour now.

Next up, we have progressed a bit further with the protagonists of the next Doctor Who AAR – Tara Hunt, the Third Doctor and Abslom Daak;

One more painting session should see these finished and ready to be used, which is quite convenient, because their opponents are finished;

Yes, that’s right, five battleship-grey old-school Daleks, and one Engineer Dalek in the livery of the new series Skaro Daleks!

As the nodules/globes are the part that usually put people off, I used a technique that I read online somewhere (thought it was Germy’s site, but couldn’t find it on there), which is to have a big blob of paint and then use a plastic tube of the correct diameter to ‘paint’ the globes. An empty biro tube or cotton-bud stem is ideal and this not only works really well, it’s really quick.

I’m really pleased with how these came out, as to me, they look exactly how I think they should.

Of course, this means that all I need to do is finish off my Doctor and his companions and the next AAR can be played! Hooray!

However, as June is Forgotten Heroes month, this may delay it. But my characters (yes, I’m doing more than one) are relatively simple, so there is a possibility that the next instalment of my Doctor Who adventure will be here before you know it!

Join me next week, when I reveal who I’ve chosen as the subject of Forgotten Heroes month and remember, it’s still not too late to join in – go here for full details.