Sci-Fi fun w' Mr. Winkie - Terminator Genysis

Terminator Genysis Boardgame - Mission 6

pa-pow-pow-pow!  Take some beatdown from Ahnold you mercurial creep!

This mission has our intrepid band of heroes traveling from the bottom right corner of the board to Waypoint C, all the way on the left [small room tile]. The challenge here is that Skynet controls the 6 doors that block the route, and the Team can only open one at a time - opening the next door closes the previous one.  The Team needs to stay close together so no one gets left behind.

This team has Ah-nold [played by Mr. Winkie] a walking wall of firepower and fist-pounding abilities, and "Alex" the techno-geek and hacker [yours truly]. Alex is essential in this Mission as he has a techno-"interact" box in which any dice placed may be changed to any value. So if you put a die with value '3' in there, but you need a '1' to open a door, you can change it to the '1' or whatever you need.  Without this ability, the team is dependent on rolling the exact number needed to crack the door code [1-6] or  is stuck. With 4 dice per player character [8 dice] that is still likely to happen but you end up hovering around the computer terminals trying to roll the right values.

The Team has three additional Resistance Soldiers.  They are pretty good, except that you need to use your dice to use them.  If the dice you place on their card is a 1-3, they get 1 Action; on a 4-6 they have 2 Actions [Move or Fire, basically]. With three of them, that means that 3/8 of our dice are needed just to move and fight them, and one dice is needed to open/close doors, so there's 4/8 dice left.  Allocating dice resources will be in important decision!  Remember, every turn Skynet has a chance to add a few reinforcing machines into the map, so there is an aspect of running against the clock.

Furthermore, while one can roll well and not end up with additional machine reinforcements, the Waypoints are triggered by entry into the Area where they are located - as there is no way to traverse the map without "triggering" Waypoints, some of those unpleasant surprises are going to happen no matter what. And as one doesn't know which value the Waypoints are usually [Alpha thru Hotel on one side, but a "?" on the other] one has to be prepared for something super nasty each time you enter a Waypoint's Area.

Hope that all makes sense!  It gives the game great replay value with every mission.

In this run of Mission 6, we have Ah-nold with the white ring, Alex with a red, and the three Resistance Soldiers in Blue, Yellow and Red, all at bottom right. Above are the lines of machine reinforcements that may enter when Ahnold [white line of machines] or Alex [red line] are done activating. Below are our character tiles with various Equipment and Weapon cards, and our Class Cards [which are enhanced personal abilities for Ahnold and Alex, such as additional wounds, moves, etc]. The game takes some time to set up, about 20-40 minutes or more, due to the many tiles, obstacle counters, player characters and ability cards, etc. It is not a quick casual game like OGRE 218!  But it is certainly a richer game.

We didn't make it far before some reinforcing machines entered right near our start point [the reddish 1-2 diespot tile at left], and both a T72 weapon platform [we call them "doggies"] and a T-800 exoskeleton enter and blast the red Resistance Soldier [two red skulls]. Fortunately, Alex is on overwatch and takes down the T-800 [three white POW!s].

Having held off the attack on the rear, the Team moves through the next couple of rooms and passes a couple of Waypoints relatively uneventfully. As we get to the end, a strong sense of foreboding comes upon me...things have just been too easy! While Alex hacks doors just off the right of the pic, Ahnold and two Resistance Soldiers prepare to trigger the last Waypoint. I insisted that everyone be loaded up and ready to fire before Mr. Winkie sent in Soldier Blue to see what Waypoint Delta is...

...and I was right!  It's a T-1000 and it quickly spears Blue with his sword-hand!  Having taken Blue down, the T-1000 advances on Yellow and Ahnold.  Alex then joins the fight and between everybody, we stun the T-1000 and push it back into the bottom-left room corner...

...then we dash past it when it was still hampered by damage. Waypoint C beckons, and we escape!

In this second run, we decided to try it alone without the additional 3 Resistance Soldiers. We got partway thru, when I forgot about the "one door at a time" being open, and left Ahnold behind!

Compounding the error, Mr. Winkie rolled for a T-800 to enter right behind Ahnold, who then rolled a perfect 3/3 Hits on his Attack Dice [three Red Skulls]. I rolled that!

Ahnold goes down!  And the door between us is closed!

On Alex's next activation,  he opens the door again, dashes over and performs 1st Aid, saving Ahnold.

In a masterful Feat of Arms, Alex blasts the T-800 to pieces with his plasma rifle.

We then move on through the power generator tile. We carefully trigger the next Waypoint, which is the T-1000! Glad we are in a large 2-tile Area and have a little tactical space - we might survive!

First, Ahnold advances and blasts it with his shotgun, knocking it back and stunning it.

Unfortunately, Mr. Winkie then rolls for two machines to enter right next to Ahnold! The HK and the T-800 are at point blank range.

Fortunately, Ahnold has some Overwatch on hand [we allow you to save up dice you haven't used for Combat]. He whirls around and blasts both machines to pieces!

We quickly re-route ourselves around the stunned T-1000, which only recovers one Hit, fortunately.

This makes it pretty easy to run into the last waypoint - it turns out to be the only beneficial Waypoint in the Mission, so we keep going into Area C ignoring it and ending the mission.

I'm still trying to find the right balance of overwatch activity. I hate "wasting" dice when there is no use for them, but too much saving of dice makes things a bit too easy. The best thing is to allow reinforcing machines - whether ambushing from a doorway, or just activating normally and catching up - to move and shoot first, then use our "saved" character dice to react to their advance.

Overall, this is an excellent game with quality components and solid rules that needs no tweaking, but you may want to do so just a bit.  There's plenty of replay value and the miniatures are excellent and flash-free.  Mr. Winkie will ask for this game before almost any one of them. Now that he's 11, he is getting better and better at thinking tactically altho he still gets easily distracted by shiny things.

Highly recommended game!