Friday 21 August 2015

Warlord Games Secure Rights to Doctor Who!

Wow, really wasn't expecting this. Warlord Games has secured the rights to produce a miniatures game based on Doctor Who. Yes really! Look here.

I always thought that 7TV was Crooked Dice's attempt at doing a v.2 of the existing DWMG. Of course Crooked Dice go to great lengths to make sure that character names do not breach copyright in 7TV and the Doctor Who emphasis has perhaps been reduced in recent years.

The existing DWMG is available for free so may not attract nasty lawyers looking to remove non-licensed competitors. That said, I'm glad I've already downloaded all of the freely available pdfs just in case (get them here)...

Of course Warlord produce first rate games. I really enjoy playing both Bolt Action and Hail Caesar so I'm confident that they will do a top job of the licence and produce a product that both gamers and fans of Doctor Who are happy with. However, two things are intriguing...

Firstly, despite the existence of the freely available Doctor Who Miniatures Game (DWMG), Warlord have chosen to use exactly the same name for their game. Hmm... Secondly, in the press blurb they state

As lifelong Doctor Who fans ourselves, we are extremely pleased to have the chance to bring this iconic series to the tabletop with a game system you all know and love as well as the official range of miniatures to complement it.

So, are we in fact witnessing a rewriting of the existing DWMG into a fancier more commercial package with re-worked rules and lots (hopefully lots and lots) of new miniatures? Or will it be a modification to the Bolt Action ruleset - I know some fans have done this already. Only time will tell, but I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what materialises...





8 comments:

  1. Seems John Lambshead is doing the writing...http://johnstoysoldiers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/dr-who-miniatures-game.html

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    1. It seems the Warlord Games version has nothing to do with the existing DWMG. It's all very intriguing!

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  2. Just read the announcement this morning. Great piece of news to wake up too. I too am keen to see what Warlord will do here.

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    1. I just hope they don't feel the need to clamp down on non-licensed figures etc. They are not GW so I don't think they will, there's plenty of room for all.

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  3. I think it's great news, I really love Warlords Terminator game so hopefully it's something along those lines.

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    1. I hope it's a very different game to the existing DWMG. It's great to have choices and I'm really looking forward to seeing the new range of figures. I think there's going to be a lot of pressure on Warlord from Doctor Who fans. I wonder if perhaps they made a mistake pre announcing it? Perhaps better to have waited until it's near release? Or is it in fact close to release?! Good luck to them though, I'm sure they'll pull another rabbit from the hat :-)

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  4. New miniatures will be good, no matter what the rules are like, right? Aw, who am I kidding - new rules could be awesome as well!

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    1. Whatever they come up with, I hope the rules are scenario driven. Doctor Who really lends itself to narrative driven games. The existing DWMG demonstrates that games with relatively small numbers of figures can be interesting and Doctor Who doesn't require lots of combat.

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