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I am eagerly awaiting for the starship troopers miniatures I ordered off eBay to arrive so while I'm waiting I could use some help/advice on the game and how to get started any advice will be appreciated

I bought the book for reference and possible use after the game had folded.

Reviews were pretty positive.

My idea was to use the rules with other SF models, of which I have plenty, but I haven't tried it yet, due to life circumstances.

rules were excellent, company support... wasnt.

I still have the starter box gathering dust

I've got a ton of their models and they range from amazing to meh.

The light infantry? Kickass.

MI? Pretty good.

Chickenhawks? ehhhhh. On the bright side you can get them for like 5 bucks on ebay.

I really want to try the rules but nobody in my area plays it

The rules are back in action with the Judge Dredd game.

I loved the game, but when it self imploded, it took a bunch of my love for it with it.

Plays amazing, on subject. Possibly one of Andy Chambers best works.

If your a bug player, stock up on bugs and use them with reckless abandon. You can never have too many tunnels. Take advantage of the variety of bugs, a few shooters in amongst the other warriors goes a long way.

MI, use that firepower, and keep moving around. If you sit in one spot too long, you get wacked fast. Dont be afrade to drop the rounds in with flyers, and use heavy weapons whenever you can.

Hope you like the game. I honestly did.

doomguy wrote:
I am eagerly awaiting for the starship troopers miniatures I ordered off eBay to arrive so while I'm waiting I could use some help/advice on the game and how to get started any advice will be appreciated

It is my #1 favorite miniatures game of all time and you honestly don't need anything past the rulebook in the box set (I personally didn't like the army books).

The MI will seem overpowered at first, until you come to grips with how to play the bugs. Bug holes are very important and clever use is one of the best dynamics in all of wargaming ever (no hyperbole here!). When you have two experienced players, the game is much like a chess match with the MI constantly on the bounce and the Arachnid player slowly attempting to outwit and outmaneouver the MI until they make a mistake or are forced into a corner.

Read the rules, let them digest, play a few small games. Two 5-man squads vs 4 5-bug Warrior units or so. Buy lots more bugs, lots more warriors. After a few small games, play bigger ones and remember these few pointers:

MI: Ready action and Special move are your Jesus. Remember you can shoot during a Special move. Keep that Ready actioin so when you React, you can Special Move (jump) away from the assaulting Bugs and shoot back at 'em. When in doubt, have a Javelin-equipped MI fire a Nuke and take out their Brain Bug (which causes the Arachnids to basically miss their next turn).

Bugs: bug holes bug holes bug holes. Strategically position them and have units waiting to pop out so that when they cause reactions the MI have no place to go and th en you swarm them and pop open their powered armor like a can of Coca Cola. Hoppers are the best things ever and a fly by will slice off several MI heads.

You're in for a treat. I played it for years and ran demos and tournaments as an official Mongoose Infantryman. It was and always will be the best game I have ever played.

It's actually a really nice game system, that was stymied by not getting anything like the support it deserved. Problem was everyone wanted to be the MI, the bugs had a few good miniatures (and were actually really fun to play), but for some utterly incomprehensible reason, they copied the Skinnies design from the TV animation (for those who hadn't seen that: they look awful)

And, wargaming history fans, an interesting tit-bit is that it features the game mechanic that 4th edition 40k was initially meant to be - developed primarily by Andy Chambers, rumour has it that they were well into playtesting when the upper management got cold feet because it represented too much of an update and alteration over the previous version, and would have invalidated all of the 2nd edition codecies (and therefore sales of those books - which you have to think was the consideration). This was when GW was on the cusp of entering its 'ultra-conservative' phase of not really trying anything new, and is why we are still playing essentially version 3.4 of 40k today (imagine 40k with a fluid reaction mechanic, and without a dozen stop-start special rules and buckets of dice rolls involved. The mind boggles!..)

Andy then took the rules to Mongoose, and they formed the basis of the Starship Troopers game instead, where that game system would ultimately be buried - although you could say that a lot of other games took inspiration from it, and it was one of the first games that started the movement away from the classic I go - you go formula, and the resulting evolution of many modern game systems.

Good game, I do get the box out and we play a game from time to time, still a blast to play.

However, the usual cack handed way that Mongoose handled it as made me wary of committing any monies to them again.So Dredd lwhose ruleset is loosly the same, ooks good, except when you consider it is their second attempt - Gangs of Mega City One anyone, no they were bad mnis.

As Pacific said it does make you wonder if GW had the "sphericals" at the time, what 40k could have been now if Andy C was still designing for them

SST the game rules kicked and still kicks 40k game rules in the nuts.

GW is lucky Mongoose doesn't understand the rule system that they bought from Andy Chambers. Once Mongoose figures out what they've got and build their own Sci-Fi world GW is in for trouble. Oh, wait Mongoose still has to produce product consistently...oh never mind...

SST games were and still are for me always fun. Hmm...maybe I should put on a SST game at Historicon this year.

Thnx for the replies guys .jehen-reznor,if you still have that set and wouldn't mind parting with it,I'm sure a deal can be arranged

 Pacific wrote:
And, wargaming history fans, an interesting tit-bit is that it features the game mechanic that 4th edition 40k was initially meant to be - developed primarily by Andy Chambers, rumour has it that they were well into playtesting when the upper management got cold feet because it represented too much of an update and alteration over the previous version, and would have invalidated all of the 2nd edition codecies (and therefore sales of those books - which you have to think was the consideration). This was when GW was on the cusp of entering its 'ultra-conservative' phase of not really trying anything new, and is why we are still playing essentially version 3.4 of 40k today (imagine 40k with a fluid reaction mechanic, and without a dozen stop-start special rules and buckets of dice rolls involved. The mind boggles!..)

It was actually the 3rd edition Codexes that would be invalidated, not the 2nd edition ones. The 2nd edition Codexes were already invalidated by 3rd edition-- the 3rd edition 40k rulebook had mini-army lists for every faction to "get you by" until Codexes came out-- and GW thought the customer base would rebel if they all had to spend a fair amount of time waiting to even have a Codex at all again. I personally wish they had gone for it because I hated 40k 4th edition and quit the game anyway during that time, whereas I love the SST rules and think they would be awesome in 40k-- imagine Crisis Suits behaving like MI in SST-- but c'est la vie.

And also,any painting advice for the MI and bugs? I've got my scheme for the bugs down,but what am I gonna do with the MI? I was thinking muted green possible but I'm still not sure

You can go for some kind of modern-ish colours -- green, tan, DP, etc -- or you can go for an alien world colour scheme.

Great game! Still have a load of painted figs and do games with it. Time to time. Only rule you should change from the original book is the reactions. Only allow 1 reaction per unit per opposing player turn . It makes it more deadly and tense. You can use subsitutes for many of the mi units in the book. But load up on bugs. You will need a lot. Grab any thing you see on eBay. Great game! Check my gallery for pics of my stuff in action. Good luck trooper .

 Kingsley wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
And, wargaming history fans, an interesting tit-bit is that it features the game mechanic that 4th edition 40k was initially meant to be - developed primarily by Andy Chambers, rumour has it that they were well into playtesting when the upper management got cold feet because it represented too much of an update and alteration over the previous version, and would have invalidated all of the 2nd edition codecies (and therefore sales of those books - which you have to think was the consideration). This was when GW was on the cusp of entering its 'ultra-conservative' phase of not really trying anything new, and is why we are still playing essentially version 3.4 of 40k today (imagine 40k with a fluid reaction mechanic, and without a dozen stop-start special rules and buckets of dice rolls involved. The mind boggles!..)

It was actually the 3rd edition Codexes that would be invalidated, not the 2nd edition ones. The 2nd edition Codexes were already invalidated by 3rd edition-- the 3rd edition 40k rulebook had mini-army lists for every faction to "get you by" until Codexes came out-- and GW thought the customer base would rebel if they all had to spend a fair amount of time waiting to even have a Codex at all again. I personally wish they had gone for it because I hated 40k 4th edition and quit the game anyway during that time, whereas I love the SST rules and think they would be awesome in 40k-- imagine Crisis Suits behaving like MI in SST-- but c'est la vie.

Ah yes, sorry I meant 3rd edition! But yes, I agree with you (although I stopped playing 40k when 3rd edition came, for a time).

Wish I could find somebody to play it with. Have tons of MI stuff but no bugs, and everyone around here is so entrenched in 40k I'll probably never get to try it

If you have two armies you can always set up a game for someone.

 Pacific wrote:
It's actually a really nice game system, that was stymied by not getting anything like the support it deserved. Problem was everyone wanted to be the MI, the bugs had a few good miniatures (and were actually really fun to play), but for some utterly incomprehensible reason, they copied the Skinnies design from the TV animation (for those who hadn't seen that: they look awful)

And, wargaming history fans, an interesting tit-bit is that it features the game mechanic that 4th edition 40k was initially meant to be - developed primarily by Andy Chambers, rumour has it that they were well into playtesting when the upper management got cold feet because it represented too much of an update and alteration over the previous version, and would have invalidated all of the 2nd edition codecies (and therefore sales of those books - which you have to think was the consideration). This was when GW was on the cusp of entering its 'ultra-conservative' phase of not really trying anything new, and is why we are still playing essentially version 3.4 of 40k today (imagine 40k with a fluid reaction mechanic, and without a dozen stop-start special rules and buckets of dice rolls involved. The mind boggles!..)

Andy then took the rules to Mongoose, and they formed the basis of the Starship Troopers game instead, where that game system would ultimately be buried - although you could say that a lot of other games took inspiration from it, and it was one of the first games that started the movement away from the classic I go - you go formula, and the resulting evolution of many modern game systems.

Indeed - a huge problem facing the game was its very nature, defined by the starship troopers universe. you've got MI. and you've got Bugs. and a few skinnies. and really, thats it. the scope for expansion was extremely limited. and Mongoose as a company had their issues, if you ask me. they would never had been able to support it. Now, if Andy had taken it to Matt Wilson back in the day, and it became PPs sci-fi line, you'd have something interesting going on. but thats just hope/theory.

Starship troopers did also have a sequel, of sorts which was where i was very much interested in, considering the limitations of the ST universe above. it was a game called Battlefield Evolution, and used the same basic mechanics, but was a near-future wargame in our current world, with our tech. you had the US marines, EU, Chinese PDF, and a kind of arab terrorist movement as well in the game. Again, it had no support from its parent company but it was something that had huge promise. IIRC i also saw rules for WW2 versions of battlefield evoluition with finns v russians and things like that.