"You Are An Enemy Of The Human Race. I Must Destroy You."

"Please do not resist. I do not wish to cause you unnecessary pain."

This 28mm metal figure of Professor Jeremiah P. Kettlewell's experimental prototype robot K1 is produced by “Black Tree Design", and can be purchased as Code DW411 - Robot from the company's "Doctor Who" miniatures range. The National Institute for Advanced Scientific Research's automaton was made from a "living metal" and made its debut in the December 1974 BBC Television story "Robot". 

The figure was initially undercoated with two layers of “Citadel” Abaddon Black and subsequently painted using Ironbreaker. The humanoid-shaped machine was then washed with "Citadel" Nuln Oil before being dry-brushed with (more) Ironbreaker. At this point I found myself in something of a quandary as actor Michael Kilgarriff's burdensome costume does have some red markings visible on it, especially those banding the robot's brain pan.

My Boromites launch a brave attack upon the Algoryn forces who are cowering behind some sandstone buildings

Unfortunately, having spent some time trying to delicately 'draw in' the prototype's detail, I settled upon simply colouring the (giant) robot's hard-to-reach head segments with a combination of "Vallejo" Heavy Red and "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson, then left its shoulder stripes for potentially another day. As a last touch though I did go back and darkened some of the experimental machine's joints with a second application of "Citadel" Nuln Oil.

Having taken fifteen months to finally complete my 500-point Boromite Scouting Force, I was rather pleased to get the extra-terrestrial miners on the tabletop over the past weekend, and see what "Warlord Games" rule-set for "Beyond The Gates Of Antares" was really like. My initial thoughts were rather positive as I played a very simple firefight between one of my Gang Fighter Squads and an Algoryn Infantry Unit using a version of the Nottingham-based company's free Quick Start Rules. 

The 'thin red line' remains despite some noble assaults by my Boromite Overseer and my mass compactors

Despite being five models apiece I believe my Boromites were somewhat more expensive than my opponent's group, and this advantage tellingly told in the straightforward firefight to come, as the red-armoured villains were mercilessly obliterated. However, things were to prove decidedly different in our main contest when we fought across a 3' x 3' desert moon with our full forces. In particular, my foe's cheesy choice to deploy an Algoryn Avenger Attack Skimmer to what I had thought was a friendly foot-soldier only fight gave me plenty to worry about, most notably the vehicle unit's Multiple Order Dice (MOD) which permitted it to both move and fire twice per turn...

In addition the dice gods were definitely not favouring my rocky monsters' thirst for close combat action, as my leader's formidable tractor maul failed to drill through the armour of my weakling opponents as expected. Indeed, even the scything ability of my Gang Fighters' mass compactors only finally chopped down the frustratingly resilient Algoryn Command Squad after the battle was already effectively lost. Still, the Algoryn Prosperate's steadfastness before the might of the Boromites shall not go unpunished for long, and a rematch is already well and truly planned for the near future...