Monday 13 August 2018

"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...

24 comments:

  1. Great looking robot Simon, good to see the Boromites on the table even if they suffered a defeat in the second game, I guess a Boromite vehicle may cross your painting table shortly !

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    1. Thanks Dave, simply stuff on the Robot, and I've subsequently gone back to 'pick out' a couple of bolts with "Vallejo" Black so as to break up the monotony of the silver a bit more - plus the bolts are apparently black on the costume.

      I thoroughly enjoyed "BtGoA" and am already looking forward to my next outing using it. I do own a Boromite vehicle, but my next 250 points will focus more on bolstering my current forces, and attaching a couple of more specialist units to my army. The model count is nice and low too ;-)

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  2. I love that robot! I remember him from the tv very fondly and his appearance is clearly iconic. The mini and your paint job capture him brilliantly, great job. Cheesy eh? I included the skimmer as I love the model! Thanks for the game of Antares. I enjoyed our first exploration of the rules and enjoyed the game enormously. Your Boromites looked amazing by the way!

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    1. Thanks Undercoat, really looking forward to our next battle so we can get more familiar with the pinning rules etc - which clearly are crucial to the game. It certainly has encouraged me to pull out out some more Boromite minis and get the miners based ready for a month's work at some point in the near future.

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  3. Robot looks great. Another one of the paint table is a win in my book!

    Shouldn't of bought infantry to a tank battle!

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    1. Cheers Simon. "Another one of the paint table is a win in my book!
      " - absolutely :-) I think its the Attack Skimmer's double turn which makes it so dangerous, as it literally can decimate a unit within a round, or at the very least reduce a unit's effectiveness through pinning it.

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  4. Sorry to hear your Boromites let you down, though both yours and Undercoats figures look great on the table!

    I do love that Robot, one of my absolute fave stories, and a cracking model to boot, another one I wish I had of bought!

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Thanks Roger. The Robot is a nice mini - one of "Black Tree Design" better ones, imho. It was a great looking game, and I've no problem losing when the game plays as well as "BtGoA" seems to. Plus there were some great moments when my Boromites looked about to take the centre through gritty hand-to-hand combat, and then failed to cause any casualties; something which may well have turned the game upon its head.

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  5. Yes it is true "I am an enemy of the human race... so bring it!"
    Robot looks very good. (Almost good enough to eat and I am hungry!)

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    1. LOL Clint, I think you might break your teeth on this mini though :-)

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  6. The robot is one of the better monster designs of the early Doctor Who days. Nothing wrong with your painting but I think I'd like the figure a lot more if he was bigger... much bigger!

    In future BTGOA batreps could you explain how the rules work and give more detailed breakdowns of each turn? I know nothing about the rules of this game and very little about the factions. Also, as usual, could we have more wide angle shots of the game board, force set ups and a closer look at the opposition would be nice as well?

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    1. Size wise the Giant Robot is indeed a little underwhelming Bryan, but as you say, a nice design and a nice figure too, imho.

      I do hope to do some of my usual BatReps focusing upon “BtGoA” in the future, but this was never intended to be one, just a quick AAR of a game I played at the weekend, when we were much more interested in learning the rules than taking pics, notes etc for a BatRep. Tbh, I was pleased I took the photos I did as we were having such fun rolling the dice and having our heads buried within the rule-book looking up the different units stats etc.

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  7. The robot does look good - and can be used in almost any sci-fi setting, of course!

    From what I've read about the rules, Beyond...Antares does sound like a fun game to play. Pity I dislike most of the models so much...

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    1. Thanks Hugh. “BtGoA” is very similar to both “Bolt Action” and “Konflikt ‘47”, so as a fan of those games I was pretty confident I’d enjoy this sic-if version. I’ve got some Freeborn to show at some point, and obviously this quick AAR shows off the Algoryn, but there’s plenty of new minis just released for the game, including a new faction.

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  8. I'm glad to see the Boromite `pampers gang' on the tabletop, I'm not a fan of the figures so I was rooting for the other team, probably why they lost.
    I agree with Bryan that robot should be bigger even without a scale comparison shot with another figure.
    The `real life' version looks at least 8 feet tall
    http://news.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/doctor-who-experience-pictures/

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    1. Cheers Phil. One-on-one the Boromites definitely have the advantage over the Algoryn, but that obviously comes at a points-cost too. Having said that, the Skimmer was definitely a pain throughout the entire game, even when I pinned it enough to temporarily lose one of its Command Dice.

      The Giant Robot is indeed far from giant, and any costume covering Kilgarriff’s bulk is going to be large right from the off-set. Still its a nice sculpt which should see some tabletop action at some point :-)

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  9. Love the Robot Simon, another one that has sat in my painting queue for far too long.

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    1. Thanks Michael. I have gone back to it and simply picked out a couple of bolts with some "Vallejo" Black. But as robot's go, this was one straightforward to paint, and makes me wonder why it took me so long to finish him!?!

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  10. Robot is not one I'm familiar with and looks everso clunky in design. Bless those BBC costume designers. :)

    Great to see the Boromites taking to the field! How'd you like the Orders dice mechanic? From what I know, it's only a little different to Bolt Action, but a bit more indepth.

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    1. Cheers Dai. The robot costume was indeed clunky, but awesome too imho :-). I loved "BtGoA", and have really felt my motivation for more Boromites increased as a result - but there again I like "Konflikt '47" too, and that's the same rule-set too.

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  11. An iconic foe of the Doctor and Tom Baker's first 'baddie'. A nice figure, if, as people have said, a little small. If Warlord do a version, this could represent the bigger version and I believe that this character was released as an action figure waaaaaay back, which would be useful for the giant version - if you could pick one up relatively inexpensively. Hmmm, do Eaglemoss do this figure in their collection? Might have to check that....

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    1. Ha Ha. I have actually bought a second “Eaglemoss” mini for just that very reason, Jez - great minds clearly think alike. Despite having seen “Doctor Who” before, it was actually the novel of this story, bought at a car boot sale, which got me big into the TV series etc. And Tom Baker’s subsequent reading of the novel released a couple of years ago is well worth hunting down too :-)

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  12. Great robot with a definite retro sco-fi look to it and I woldn't be worried about not being is 100% to the original as no-one willbe looking that closely surely ?
    Great to know the Boromites have seen action, even if it was only a tester.

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    1. Thanks Joe. I've picked out a couple of nuts and bolts on the robot since posting this, but then decided to leave well enough alone. I thoroughly enjoyed "Beyond The Gates Of Antares", so it was no problem my Boromites didn't perform as well as I had hoped.

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