Terminator Genysis - Characters.

 

"Shit" Fields whispered as he stared in disbelief at Brandt's body as it fell like a puppet with all its strings cut. The microphone was ripped out of his grip as the radio pack fell with the corporals body, the cauterised side of his head a stark black contrast  to the dirty white skinned person he used to be.

"Get back into the fucking fight, we're dying here!" Waller screamed at Fields as he stood there dumbfounded.

Shaking himself, he steadied his breathing and brought his plasmarifle up to open fire when a series of explosions rocked the street under heavy firepower. One of the Aerial HK's came apart under sustained fire which blasted the Humans eardrums before the sonic boom of a jet engine was heard overhead.

The advancing T-800s switched their fire away from Fields and his survivors, taking aim down the through fare at a series of new arrivals. Their laser blasts scorching the front of an Abrams tank as it rolled forward. It's turret swung round and it fired an armour piercing shell through the tracked HK which was laying plasma fire down on a whole host of human reinforcements.

Sustained plasma fire rained from a heavy Plasmagun mounted on the cupola of the turret cutting down the Endoskeletons, as well drilled fighters spread out and blew the servos and motors out of crawlers.

Sparks flew and several men were cut down as the machines returned fire, but the initiative of the battle had clearly swung into the humans favour.

The tank ground to a halt near their position and the man ok the gun leapt down.

"Reese, take a team and push two hundred yards up the road, lay down heavy fire and wait for the order to withdraw. Perry take your platoon and start clearing us a path to the Glendale Galleria, we'll make that a secondary base in this area. Costello, get on that gun and give the metal motherfuckers hell!" Confident, concise orders rang out.

Several groups of fighters moved in different directions shouting "No fate but what we make!" 

The obvious commander moved over to Fields calling for a medic at the same time.

"Is everyone alright? We were heading north-west and saw the firefight start".

"Mostly, I have some wounded, command sent us to gather data on the new Terminator units, how did you already know? Who are you?" Fields asked as a medic dressed his arm which he only just realised was cut badly.

"I am John Connor, this is my Tech-Comm" the commander replied, dark hair falling over his eyes, he moved it away and Fields caught sight of the long jagged scar running down Connor's face.

Connor smiled as he overheard some of Fields men whispering 'hey man, that's John Connor, THE John Connor'.

"Sergeant Mack Fields, Hundred and Third, under Colonel Palmer" Fields replied pulling himself straight and saluting by instinct.

Even though Connor wasn't a high commander in the resistance at the moment it was rumoured that he would be the best leader it could have. Fighters and survivor's all over the western US gathered around their radio sets most nights and hoped to receive an update from the legendary John Connor. The man who seemed to know everything about defeating the machines and offered advice on surviving and taking the metal monstrosities out, freely giving the information.

"Good to know you Sergeant, you were doing a fine job there. We're going to be moving on in a few moments so gather your people and make ready, you'll come with us and any other survivors we find to Glendale" connor said, nodded and then moved off.

Fields nodded, pride swelling in his chest as he was praised by Connor, his feeling turned the disgust and then acceptance as he turned and watched the medics stripping Brandt's body of his uniform and equipment, anything which could be salvaged and reused was taken from the dead.

He gathered his men and told them the plan, moving them into Connor's command. He spied the two figures at the rear who weren't part of his platoon, he assumed the larger man with the dirty khaki jacket was an armed survivor under Connor's command, the man was certainly imposing, towering over everyone and heavily muscled, but he used a scrimmage net as a hood hiding his features. The other was a smaller Asian man, definitely part of Connor's command as he was wearing the uniform of the resistance and carried a plasmarifle. 

The pair just seemed...off somehow...

Fields paid no heed and moved on with the column, not noticing the slight red glow to the tall man's eye or the Asian fighter flexing it's hand to split it's fingers from a congealed metal shape...

*****

So as most of the UK is busy tonight celebrating, burning and blowing stuff up (it's Bonfire night), I am writing the third post of this section of painting up the Starter Box of Terminator Genysis, this one features the characters/leaders of the two factions:

The major character of the Future war, from left to right:

T-800 Infiltration Unit.

T-1000 Termination Unit.

Kyle Reese.

John Connor.

Both the T-800 and T-1000 miniatures are metal upgrades which River Horse/Warlord Games released at the same time as the core game, hoping to gain traction with the box.

I picked them up for a song in the "End of Run Sale" Warlord were having.

The T-800 I tried to make look dingy and worn, like the survivors of a nuclear apocalypse would look I imagine, a scavenged khaki coat over basic fatigues and a scrimmage net hood to cover the chiseled features of our favourite Action Actor.

The T-1000, is clearly based on the South Korean actor, Lee Byung-hun who played the machine in Terminator Genysis rather then Robert Patrick who played it in Terminator 2.

As the game is a future war setting, I gave the liquid metal monstrosity the same colours as the resistance fighters, as it tries to infiltrate its way to assassinate the leaders:

The leaders of the resistance together.

On the left is the model of Kyle Reese, bundled in the starter box sets. When I originally built the model he was about a head taller then the normal resistance fighters and his ankles were very thin to the point of breaking when removed from the box.

So out with the clippers and a spare pair of Special Forces legs from the Zombie Survivors sprues I mentioned in the Resistance post and Kyle was a suitable size to fit in with the humans he was born to lead.

On the right is my John Connor miniature, he's actually a stock build from the box with the running legs and a plasma rifle.

The model fit the idea of a fighting leader once I had built it, and the sale had already sold out of John Connor and Resistance Command boxes, so I missed out on that one.

I have another starter box worth of sprues to get through and I would like to try to add a few Dog Handlers and maybe some of the other special weapons.

But I'm calling the project done, as I wanted to clear at least one starter box this year as part of my Hobby Season.

With that said, I gain my second badge of the year:

I'm going to move on and finish other projects from the list for a while, but will come back to this, maybe as a series of battle reports as the game is really good to play.

I'll definitely need to dig into the box for some suitable MDF terrain to make LA with.

Until next time, have nice day...

Terminator Genysis - The Machines.

 

Hunkered down, the resistance fighters whispered to each other wondering what was happening. The machines were not advancing as usual, but any attempt to break away was met with discouraging fire to keep them pinned in place.

Fields vehemently argued and shut down the rumours that a collector unit was on its way and that they would all be sent to the incinerator camps. Skynet had a policy of wiping out any organised resistance rather then gathering them up after all.

He was looking at options for a break towards the LA River, hoping that they could keep cover from the aerial HK's when he was shouted by Emerson.

"I've got no idea what the hell that is, but it just appeared between those two HK units" the African-American soldier pointed through the dust billowing in lazy swirls.

Fields squinted and saw a pair of red shining lights, almost like unblinking eyes in the dark.

A second pair, then a third, all told they counted eleven pairs of red in the darkness. It was obviously some machine but what?

"Brandt, get your optics up here, we need that data!" Fields ordered, forget about command, he wanted to know what it was.

Brandt bellied forwards removing the cable from his radio set to use for the data transfer. He placed the infrared scanner Infront and coupled the cable to his plasma rifle, the blue screen flickering to life showing data from the scanning laser.

"Reinforced chassis, gyro-stabilized, fusion powered? Sir, is this the thing command wanted us to send them data about?" Brandt asked uneasily, "It's a damn monster, how the fuck are we meant to fight that?"

As he asked the new machines moved, in lockstep they took a step forwards. Firelight illuminated their skeletal appearance and glinted off of the polished hardened steel alloys. Each massive machine crunching forwards over rubble and bones of the slain. Huge Plasmaguns held steady by metallic arms glowed red as they powered up, outshining the unblinking stares of the grinning silvered skull faces above.

"Open fire!" Fields screamed and all the humans shook themselves out if the trance like state they were in and fired from their concealment.

Bullets sparked as they pinged off the armoured plates. Grenade launchers gave their throaty roar as their explosive payload dropped amongst the Terminators approaching.

Fields, Brandt and  Waller fired bright purple beans of plasma concentrating on one of the machines, which seemed to shrug the firepower off. Until a shot hit the spine above its waist and severed it in two. 

Fields and Brandt moved onto the next in the line as they machines opened fire chewing through the scant cover available and immediately causing casualties amongst the humans. Waller kept her eye on the fallen terminator watching with horror as it discarded it's broken gun and crawled onwards towards their position.

The radio burst into life causing everyone to jump but carry on fighting.

"Gamma patrol, if you can hear this, concentrate your fire on each T-800 in turn. I repeat concentrate your fire on each unit in turn, we are two minutes out, inbound on your position, over" the gruff voice rang out of the speaker.

Fields slid down to grab the microphone, "Who is this? How do you know what we're fighting? Godammit!" His last outburst in response to Brandt being thrown back by an explosion with half his head missing.

"This is John Connor, if you can hear this, you are the resistance!"

*****

The second post of Terminator Genysis deals with the forces of the AI Skynet, everybody's favourite genocidal cybernetic organisms, the Terminators!

The entire force together:

Painting was very simple as might be imagined.

A Leadbelcher base, Nuln Oil wash, then drybrushes of Leadbelcher and Stormhost Silver gave a nice bright metal, like the original T-800 in the first (and best*) Terminator movie:

Not the best photo of the sequence, but it gets my point across.

With upgrades in camera and special effects technology (to the detriment of using CGI constantly), the on screen Endoskeletons transformed into this:

Which is what the River Horse miniatures were based upon:

Granted they're not the most detailed miniatures ever produced, but they do the job. 

I didn't go crazy on the basing as I wanted them to be an easy project and one which wouldn't take up ages. Also the fact that the models are moulded attached to the bases limited your options unless you're willing to risk breaking the models ankles trying to remove them.

Just like in the first (and best*) Terminator movie, once an Endoskeleton has suffered catastrophic damage it has a chance of returning to the battle as a "Crawler".

You get one of these per two Endoskeletons on the sprue, however they don't come with bases, mine are attached to Two Pence coins as I wanted them to match the force overall:

Lastly, the optional extras:

On the left are a Flamethrower unit and a Rocket Launcher unit, both started as metal miniatures, but the ankles were so thin and weak they bent under the weight of the Endoskeleton and broke as I was assembling. A spare Endoskeleton sprue yielded two bodies to attach the metal arms onto.

The last Endoskeleton on the right is a Command Unit, I cut up a spare Crawler to give the open hand and repositioned the Heavy Plasma Rifle. I may go back eventually and add an uplink aerial to Skynet at some point to make him stand out on the field a little more:

That rounds out the forces of the Machines.

There are rules in the game for aerial and ground Hunter-Killers like seen in the future war segments of both The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. 

Produced by Pegasus Hobbies, they're just a tad too expensive if you can even find them in the UK. Most of the time I can find them for sale they're in the US, as they have to be shipped to the UK the international shipping costs are ridiculous. 

In the next post, we'll look at the movers and shakers of the future war, the character models!

Until next time, have nice day...

*Change my mind?

To my choice The Terminator is the best of the franchise with T2 a close second. Everyone says T2 is the better film, but I love the grotty, low budget style of the original. It has a real suspense/thriller feel and doesn't showboat with high tech special effects or a big budget. 

And the soundtrack *chef's kiss* pure eighties synths!

If you feel like you have a compelling argument as to why a different film in the franchise is better, leave a comment!

Terminator Genysis - The Human Resistance.

 

August 29th 1997, the survivors of the nuclear fire called it Judgement Day, they lived only to face a new nightmare.

The war against the Machines.

*****

The ruins of Los Angeles crumbled further with each passing day. The war had raged for decades and showed no sign of slowing down, if anything would be left of the once great city then Sergeant Fields thought. He dimly remembered the city before Judgement Day when he was a small child, huge buildings everywhere, roads filled with moving traffic, the general background noise of urban living.

He looked around, crumbling walls and shells of buildings provided much needed cover. Chunks of concrete held in place by rebar hung over the edges of what were once elevated highways and department stores.

"Sarge, I've got command on the horn" Corporal Brandt whispered.

Fields too the phone from the field radio, one from the old Marine Corps training base south of LA which they had rescued and patched up to get working again.

"This is Fields, Command go, over"

"Fields, this is X-Ray, word is that the machines have a new type of HK and we want to get a look at it with your squads optics. We know there are HK patrols in the area, so be careful, we'd rather you make it home without the data then loose you all. Make your patrol a sweep along route B and we'll see you when you get back, out".

"X-Ray, this is Fields, patrol through route B, orders received, out" and with that he handed the field phone back to Brandt and signalled for his squad to move out.

*****

Three hours later Fields cursed command with every profanity he could think of.

The patrol had come under heavy attack as they neared the halfway mark of their return journey.

Patrol route B led them up to the remains of Silver Lake, back across the LA River and over the ruined railyard there, before turning south and heading home to ruins south of Soto Street Junction.

An aerial HK had picked up their movement as they crossed the LA River and called in other machines.

Now a raging firefight was taking place with laser fire from plasma rifles streaking the gloom.

Explosions erupted throwing building chunks across the street and peppering the sheltering humans with dust.

Young Gordo, out on his first patrol lifted his M16 and opened fire. The flash of rounds blindingly bright in the gloomy darkness and the muzzle waving around as he struggled to control the weapon.

Fields punched him in the side of the helmet as he dropped into cover next to the youngster.

"You're on full auto moron. Switch to semi and pick your shots. You want to survive, you remember your fucking training" he screamed at Gordo before raising to snap a couple of shots off from his plasma rifle, incinerating a bulky T-600 advancing on them.

All along the line the resistance fighters hunkered down and then the advance of the machines simply stopped, T-600s stood, barrels of rotary cannons spinning but not firing, two Aerial HK's blew dust as they hovered in place, and a tracked HK ground to a halt crushing a wall beneath it's bulk as it came to a halt.

They formed a perimeter and waited.

"What's happening Sarge?" A trooper named Waller asked, brushing dirty blonde hair out of her face.

"No idea, everyone stay down, prepare to withdraw to the river as quick as possible" Fields ordered, watching the machines for any sign of movement...

*****

Four or Five years ago (where does the time go?) Warlord Games sold the Terminator Genysis box game on behalf of River Horse Games who held rights to the franchise*.

After less than a year the game had officially died in wargaming circles and Warlord were having a Warehouse Clearance sale, so I took advantage.

Ten days later this box was delivered by our friendly local postman:

Inside were four copies of the base game, normally £80 but at a clearance price of £10 per box!

Four extra of both the Resistance and Endoskeleton sprues.

A couple of metal upgrade blister packs.

And a selection of Zombie Survivor and Special Forces sprues from the "Day-Z" game as they were the same scale and I figured I could mix and match parts.

Now all four starter boxes were not for myself. I ordered two and the other two were for friends who wanted a copy (one was Chris who kept the Endoskeletons and sent me the spare resistance fighters) and they helped me to get free shipping on the order.

Each starter box came with Kyle Reese, Sixteen Resistance Fighters, Ten Endoskeletons, Five Crawlers, Rulebook, a set of polyhedral dice and a bunch of tokens and markers.

I'll go through the game and stuff in a future post of people are interested.

Why was the game "dead on arrival"?

Well, it was made by River Horse Games, had models produced by another company, was distributed by Warlord Games and had to make up for the money paid to get the license whilst being tied to a film name which doesn't do the series justice!

As I said before, originally they were charging £80 per box...and the quality of the miniatures is sub-par at best. Soft details, fixed poses, few options, moulded bases.

Why did I get stuck into it then?

Simple, two words:

This is one of my all-time favourite movies. The low budget, grotty, guerilla-filmed original entry of the series, when the Terminator was actually a threat and not a caricature of James Cameron's original fever dream idea.

The thought of playing out games in the future war after judgement day appealed greatly, and fortunately the ruleset is solid, giving a sense of dread and foreboding with the relentless advance of the machines and making you think about every action with the your human fighters.

The fact that it's actually easy to get started and difficult to master is a bonus as you can get playing with just a cursory read through of the rules and then add in the extra stuff as you go.

Also the rules are named after iconic lines from the film:

"Come with me if you want to live".

"On your feet Solider!".

"No fate but what we make".

And the best from T2: "Hasta la vista, baby!".

When I started the Hobby Season for 2022/23, I included Terminator Genysis on there and want to get a starter box finished at least as they've been sat gathering dust for the past few years.

Then when Dave over at MS Paints did a video on his YouTube channel about the game, I dug one of my copies off of the shelves and set to work.

With that all said, here are all of the resistance fighters from one starter box, minus a rocket launcher fighter, which I still have to finish:

I use a quick and dirty contrast paint scheme on the miniatures as they aren't the greatest in the world, but they're what I had to work with.

Black Templar for the body armour, boots and weapon casings.

Basilicanum Grey for the fatigues.

Leadbelcher for the metal parts.

I then added different details using a mixture of Guilliman Flesh, Snakebite Leather and Doombull for the skintones.

Iyanden Yellow for the blonde hair and then a few spot details throughout the models representing the rag-tag appearance this bunch of fighters should have.

These five form the backbone of the first half of this Tech-Comm. I decided that I was going to include a few more ballistic weapons and save the plasma rifles for the higher up ranks.

I bought a number of zombie survivor sprues at the same time as the Terminator boxes and mixed the weapons with the regular, less detailed, River Horse offerings.

One option which I HAD to include from the survivors though was the guy on the very left of the photo, hard to make out (or get a good photo of), but he's wielding a Bible, so I gave him a pistol in his off hand, and made sure to paint the kerchief around his neck white, almost to represent a Priests collar. The guy next to the priest with the red bandana I imagine hasn't been able to let go of the old gang culture of LA, so he's the only splash of colour throughout the force:

The specialist and heavy weapons section includes two Grenade Launchers on the right, and the guy on the left has a pilfered Heavy Plasma Rifle taken from a defeated Endoskeleton. There are no rules for this in the core book, but I'll use the stats from the Machine weapons, and just add a "cannot fire if moved" clause to the entry:

The three female fighters here show what can be achieve with even basic conversion work.

The woman on the right is the stock miniature, with a replacement M16. The other two have head swaps (the blonde) and a head, weapon and equipment added (the black woman).

All three of their bodies are in the same pose, but look different thanks to the minor conversion work:

Lastly, a selection of Resistance NCO miniatures. Like in professional militaries, the NCO are the driving force of the Tech-Comm, they can act and order the other fighters to perform actions.

The two on the right are armed with Resistance made Plasma Rifles, and the one on the left has an M4 with integral pistol and night sight.

The guy on the very right, has a pair of legs taken from a Special Forces kit and equipment bags added to cover the join (as I had no greenstuff available at the time):

That sums up the forces of the Human Resistance in the war against the Machines.

I'll deal with the Skynet forces in the second of this short three part series in due course.

Until next time, have nice day...

* a franchise which has sadly become a caricature of itself and been killed by Hollywood's inability to make a decent flick.