Rage Against The Machines

Matt and I have decided to start playing games with the purpose of providing motivation to get more things painted. Therefore thoughts turned to Terminator: Genisys for the first time in a while and I took the opportunity to bring out the big guns. Quite literally.

This is a really cheap and nasty Abrams tank that I picked up with the intent of adding some weight to my Resistance force. I'd got to the point of assembling, undercoating and dry brushing it before my interest waned, and it's been sat on my windowsill for several months until this latest game was arranged.

The model was £3, and it shows. The turret doesn't turn, the aerials are like broom handles, the tracks have no tread, and the guns were little more than plastic tubes. Perhaps most bizarrely, the stowage cage, which is attached to the turret, was actually pegged into the hull on the original model.

This needed trimming and filling, and attaching to the turret. The worst of the pintle guns was replaced with a 40k bolter as it looks more realistic (think about that for a moment) and I spruced up the drab colour scheme with some transfers lifted from my WW2 kits.

I also freehanded a DNA symbol as an identifier for aerial support (I'm not sure how relevant this would be in the grim near future, but the model needed something to live it up. My shaky painting neatly reflects the idea of it being scrawled by Resistance fighters not really focused on neatness.

All in all, I'm really happy with how its turned out, given it's cheap and nasty nature. All that was left was to roll it out against a shocked and unsuspecting Matt.

Unfortunately, Matt had a trick or two up his own mechanical sleeve...

I knew about the Hunter Killer VTOL, and I'd faced it before with only a smattering of rocket launchers to protect me.

However, this was a complete shock...

A Hunter Killer tank he'd bought of Amazon at short notice with exactly the same intentions as I'd had for the Abrams.

As it happened, in the game neither the Hunter Killers or the Abrams were the star of the show. My humble Resistance fighters, some armed only with assault rifles (which can't even kill terminators) were able to suppress and destroy enough machines to allow weight of numbers to win out.

We were both reminded that we really enjoy this game. It's simple to play and very cinematic (Kyke Reese bursting out of a warehouse to ambush some endoskeketons was a high point). Well definitely be getting some more games in soon.

Also, despite its size, the Abrams still only counts as one. However, it puts me back into the black again:

Painted: 205

Acquired: 204