Chortle!
IT IS EXACTLY THE SAME no wait
It is interesting that you mention Starship Troopers.
SST is, in my opinion, the finest ruleset crafted by mankind, an amazingly finely tuned system that works perfectly for what it is trying to accomplish (dynamic movement, fluid actions, poor tactics leads to unrecoverable disasters, etc).
Terminator Genisys, when I first read the rulebook last week, gave me the same feeling that I got in 2005 when I read the Starship Troopers rulebook. It reads as a very well designed, very well thought out, tight ruleset. There's almost no room for ambiguity in phrasing - in fact, the precision of the elements of the rules makes this one of the most tournament friendly rulesets I've experienced BUT it's very, very simple.
Well, let's get to the nitty gritty. The system uses a unified mechanic in that there's always a target number you must beat when performing a task. This target number is static for every model. However, the model's ability to reach that number is based on a polyhedral die, from
d4,
d6,
d8,
d10,
d12, and
d20. This die can be upgraded or downgraded in lieu of complicated dice modifiers. For instance, Aiming with Skill
d6 means you hit on
d8 instead. If it was Long Range to begin with, that's a 6+ target number. So your chances increase from 16.7% to 37.5% chance by the dice shifting up to the next in the chain. Downgrading below
d4 = reroll if it's a success; upgrading past
d20 = reroll if it's a failure.
This is taken from Stargrunt II, a fine and oft-honored ruleset from about 20 years ago. It's a fantastic way to allow for a huge spread of tasks and skills. And when I say it's a unified mechanic, I mean it's entirely unified. Any dice rolling in the game uses this system. You make a few rolls and you have learned half of the rules.
Models have a total of three stats, which sounds small, but even slight variances can cause huge difference in gameplay. These stats are Skill, Armor, and Resolution. Skill and Resolution, since they are a model's stats, are a dice type, Armor is the target number an enemy skill dice will need to roll against. So a Resistance dude has Skill
D6, Armor 4+, Resolution
D8.
So, what about actions and whatnot? Okay, here's the way it works. New turn. Whoever has Tactical Edge (roll-off or scenario based, etc) can decide who gets the first Impulse. When it's your Impulse, you roll the FATE die. This is a
d6 with 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, FATE. If you roll FATE, you get no activations - unless you have a Command model who can use a special No Fate But What We Make (I'll mention that later). So assuming you roll a number, you declare that many models who are not already marked DONE to activate and place an activation marker next to them. Activate them one at a time, and turn the marker over to a DONE side.
When a model is activated, it can normally Walk, or can Run. This is where the included templates come into play - range templates which I originally thought would be useless but are in fact genius (and are precision engineered). There's three templates in the game of varying length. There's Crawl/Close, Walk/Point Blank, and Run/Short Range. They are of a very specific length and specific width. When you move, you put the template down in front of the model and pick up the model and place it on the opposite end of the template. After Walking, a model can shoot, or after Walking or Running a model can close combat. (Advanced movement allows templates to be split, so a Run can be two Walks can be four Crawls, and any mix, because the templates are designed to be intermixed, with the model itself serving as a pivot point. SO if you imagine this... a model then Walk then move model then Walk and move model is precisely exactly the same length as a model doing Run then move model). The templates are also the exact width of the standard base, showing the entire movement corridor that the model takes.
Assuming your model is going to shoot... well...What's the thing that sucks most about most miniatures games? True line of sight. Gone. Terminator uses Volumetric sizing - a great mix between Warmachine and Starship Troopers. A "size" is roughly one meter, so infantry are Size 2. The bases are integral and form the model's volume. So the included templates I reference above are precisely the width of the lane of fire that your model generates as well - so if you target an enemy, and a friendly base is overlapping the template, you can't fire (this is basically from Bolt Action but MUCH more precise). If you are on a Size 2 hill and you are Size 2, you count as Size 4 and can therefore see over intervening Size 3 and lower. Speaking of which, terrain! So, ALL terrain is classified as basically Clear, Impenetrable, and Difficult. All can have Sizes. Clear size 0 is the ground. Clear size 2 could be a hill. Impenetrable size 1 is a barricade. Impenetrable size 0 is a magma pool. Terrain can be in areas, which can be Dense. So a ruined house is Dense Size 2. Can't move through Impenetrable unless it's a smaller Size than you (and no Run). Can't Run through Dense. Can't draw
LOS past Dense of your Size but can see out of and into Dense. It's all well laid out, the rulebook provides like a dozen examples, and leaves no room for ambiguity. [note: my ONLY complaint about the Terrain section is that the Rulebook specifically does not address multi-story intact buildings for urban combat, stating those rules will be covered in the future]
Okay so back to shooting. You check the range. Again, each of the range bands has the target number. Point Blank 4+, Short 5+. Anything over Short is Long 6+. Roll your
ROF against a single target, so a plasma rifle has
ROF 2 at Short and 1 at Long, so assuming target is within Short range you get 2 shots using your skill. If you hit, your target gets a cover save. Cover is always 4+. Now, this part is awesome. Soft cover - obscuring, like vegetation -
d4. Hard cover, that can stop bullets, including other models,
d6. Fortifications,
d8. You get the best of multiple. If another model is providing cover, and the cover save is made, it gets hit instead. BEST RULE EVER: at Long Range, _everyone_ gets Hard cover even if your dude is standing out in the open. The rules specifically state that because of undulations in terrain that is not modeled on the tabletop, Long Range itself provides hard cover. In the military, this is referred to as micro-terrain, stuff that is never modeled in our games but exists in reality.
[Close combat is similar to shooting, but your Close range band is a 3+ to hit. If you are within close combat range of an enemy model, you cannot shoot! Only close combat. So you have to watch your movement.]
Let's say your shot hits. You now roll the power against the models' armor. So, our human resistance guy from above has a plasma rifle, power
D8.
Human Skill
D6 Armor 4+ Resolution
D8 w/ Plasma Rifle
ROF 2/1 Range Long Power
D8
versus
T-800 Skill
D8 Armor 8+ Resolution
D20 w/ Plasma Gun
ROF 2 Range Long Power
D8
If your weapon Power roll get the target Armor, it's dead, gone removed.
If it's NOT - the model that was hit BUT NOT KILLED makes a Resolution Test. This is a 6+ test. If it rolls a 1, it retreats and is gone from the game, 2-5, it is REELING. (like lightly wounded or has taken some damage that knocks it down, on the ground)
What Reeling does is a whole host of crazy stuff. The model gets a DONE marker - or two DONE markers if it had none. (If a model has two or more DONE markers, it is Reeling)
This is important for two huge reasons - at the end of the turn, each model removes only one Done marker, so Reeling models will be "Done" on their next turn.
The second reason is very very important, but let's check something here first...
notice the Endo has, again, Armor 8 and Resolution
D20. As you can see, a human's Plasma Rifle has a 1 in 8 chance of getting the Endo's 8 Armor. Meanwhile the Endo will be wading through humans. We'll get to that in a minute. But since most of the time a hit on an Endo will not kill it, your big chance is to get it to be Reeling. Remember, you have a chance of the Endo rolling a 1 on it's Resolution and be "damaged enough to cause critical systems to fail", thereby retreating the Endo. A larger chance exists to reel the the Endo - making it not be able to activate next turn. Reeling stacks! If you hit and the model Reels a second time, it adds another DONE marker. And so on.
Back to the important second reason Reeling is essential:
as I mentioned above, when you are within Close range of an enemy model, you can't shoot, only close combat. WHOA NOW! If you are within close combat range of a Reeling enemy model (and no other enemy models), you can execute them. It's called Hasta La Vista, Baby, and you get to use your ranged weapon (so full
ROF) _and_ your Power is
d20, automatically.
You see what is happening here? It's SO hard for Resistance guys to kill Terminators but with volume of fire, they can make them Reeling, and then move in and execute them. Just like in the opening sequence of Terminator 2.
And this is Resistance equipped with Plasma Rifles! By default they have Assault Rifles which are Power
D6 - ZERO chance of killing an Endo at range - you HAVE to get the Endos reeling before you move in to finish them off while they are Reeling.
However - the one saving grace is that Heavy Weapons, those that are Power
D10 and above, degrade a Resolution dice by one step. So an Endoskeleton hit by a missile launcher (power
D20), if it survives, it's Resolution test is degraded from
D20 to
D12. Same with a Grenade Launcher (power
D10 against target and all models within Close range)
But yay, you've now killed an Endo! The Endo gets to roll a
D6 against 5+ and if it is successful, it's still alive and functional as a Crawler (which is not that good but still so very annoying)
... whew!
Well wait Doug, what about Command you mentioned earlier?
Ok, the Command stat is how the Resistance can operate effectively. For the Machines, with most of them being autonomous, there's really no commanders (though in the army list a small number of endos can be upgraded). However humans can take NCOs and Lts all over the place, most with Command 1 or Command 2. Command does the following:
if you roll a FATE, an unactivated model with Command can activate himself and any unactivated models within Command range (Point Blank) up to his Command stat
OR
if you activate an unactivated Command model with Command it can ativate any unactivated models within Command range up to his Command stat
as you can see, you can utilize Human command to activate 3 or 4 or mode models in a single Impulse and coordinate their attacks to Reel an Endo and then move in to execute it, or to attempt to Reel multiple Endos so they can't act this turn.
additionally!
at the end of the turn, Commanders can remove extra Done markers from models within Command range, up to his Command stat. This is effectively rallying soldiers who were normally, from Reeling, be unable to activate on the following turn.
Well, gee, humans are super squishy and will be dying left and right, but their Commanders can help them, certainly, but still, Machines are tough hombres!
Another rule also helps them: Machines have Mindless.
Endoskeletons never take cover saves.
They are moving slow and purposefully and not dodging around, so they do not ever benefit from cover.
Have you ever played a miniatures game where you don't have to worry about cover? Playing as the Machines is a wholly different experience from playing as Resistance. (going back to the
SST analogy, I have not encountered such a disparate playstyle between armies since the Arachnids vs Mobile Infantry in the
SST miniatures game) Your models are nigh invulnerable and are slowly marching forward laying down curtains of plasma death. Playing as Resistance, you are running around taking cover and getting out of
LOS and trying to activate multiple models to gang up on the Endos and take them down one by one.
It is actually terrifying to play as the Resistance.
Well I'm probably overlong here and I've given a good overview of the basic rules, so I hope you have an understanding. The rulebook doesn't end there, there's rules for
Time displacement agents
Vehicles (tanks, trucks, apcs, tracked/ground
HK, etc)
Transports (black hawks, apcs, etc)
VTOLs (helicopters/apaches, aerial
HK, etc)
Ambush fire
Aiming fire
Splitting/suppressive fire
Larger games (normal games are 2x3, Large games are 4' or larger, and introduces Extended range 7+ to hit)
Other special rules (multi wound stuff like vehicles, etc)
More weapons
Infiltrators and Terminator-sniffing Dogs
A 1-6 Scenario and 1-6 Setup matrix, providing 36 different game types...and rules where each player has their own mission rolled secretly
Scenarios from the films
a huge section on making terrain and how they made an entire post-apocalyptic terrain table from scratch, step by step
The rulebook is a masterpiece, honestly. Everything is well laid out and tons of examples and clearly worded.
The models are pretty great, too - though kind of weird at first because they are truescale. The Endos can very obviously fit inside people, so look "slight" compared to say Necrons.
Additionally the plastics are _really_ sharp, I took some pics compared to Bolt Action minis and will post them shortly.
OH and the models included in the wargame version are basically 500 point lists (very last page of the rulebook). 500 points is about the max for a 2x3 board, so it is literally a self-contained game. Expanding to 4x6 would go to 1000 or more points, so think of it like Bolt Action in terms of scale. Resistance would be like 30-40 figs plus some trucks and maybe a vehicle in 1000 points.
Anyway gonna go find those comparison pics and then get back to work
" - Rick Priestley "I've decided that I'd rather not have you as a member of TMP." - Editor, The Miniatures Page "I'd rather put my testicles through a mangle than spend any time gaming with you." - Richard, TooFatLardies "We need a Doug Craig in every store." - Warlord Games "Thank you for being here, Judge Doug!" - Adam Troke 
