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:
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:
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.
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 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.
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