Rage Against The Machines

Matt and I found time recently to play a couple of slightly larger game of Terminator: Genysis and, I have to say, it’s a much better game than I have it credit for.

Both of our previous games were tutorials which feature just a couple of Endoskeletons and ultimately the machines were stopped by a couple of lucky shots. However our most recent games were using the last tutorial mission and had 16 Resistance against 10 Termunators, and those machines were relentless and frightening and both times humanity was in a panicked struggle for survival.

This has prompted me to paint the Resistance models that came in the starter I picked up cheaply at last year’s Salute.

I’ve gone quick and dirty with painting these as their not the greatest miniatures in the world (serviceable, but not brilliant), and I’m not a fan painting in bulk.

There are four poses in the set and there is a degree of interchangeability with optional weapons. However this is limited, for example, the female fighter can only have a plasma rifle or a shotgun (something that non of the other models can have), and so I’ve tried to bring in some variation with different skin tones, hair colours and other features like bandannas.

I was a bit confused that with single pose models in uniform there was only one of the sculpts with a helmet on. Uniforms bring uniform isn’t really an issue, but hairstyles being the same becomes noticeable. I think these would be more desireable for other games if they were all in helmets.

I’ve gone with a simple dark grey with a wash, I didn’t even bother highlighting (don’t tell the paint police), and most of the weapons are black. I’ve allowed myself the luxury of doing the plasma rifles silver both to easily differentiate them from the assault rifles, but also they are supposed to be machine-tech and so silver makes some kind of narrative sense.

The basing, like on my Endoskeletons is just bare sand with some tufts added. As well as being quick, it means my models will be easily told apart from Matt’s (who’s done great bases) should we decide to merge our forces for a bigger game.

My initial aim is to get both of my forces up to 500 points. For the machines this just means making one of them a command unit and purchasing a reroll, however for the Resistance I will need to get creative with some cheap vehicles and my much-unloved Wargames Factory Apocalypse Survivors, as well as a few other surprising sources.

Watch this space. I’ll be back.