The Terran Federation

Background

The Terran Federation is the name of earth and pretty much all humans in the novel Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein. No it isn't the really crapy movie that really sucked. It is a book written in 1956, and if you saw the movie just forget everything that happened in it, cause none of it happened in the novel except a few general ideas. I'm pretty sure that you can still buy it so check out one of those online retailers or a book store. It is a little cheesy, but it isn't really noticeable. The only dead giveaway is the values that the people have. They have the same values that people had in the 50's about spanking, but in a weird form. For example one guy in the novel runs away from Camp Curie (basic training camp) and kills a baby; they court martial him. His punishment is death by hanging. This would never happen today, cause quite a few Americans are really wussy about punishment. I think that some people just deserve it, and should just be executed, but only for the worst possible crimes. (ex: murder, genocide; some really bad offenders of rape, and other bad crimes should get it.)

The novel is about Juan Rico a guy who just turns 18 and joins the MI, A.K.A. Mobile Infantry. He goes through basic training at camp curie. The unit that he is assigned to is Raczachs Roughnecks. They are one of the best outfits in the MI. After Lieutenant Raczack is killed in battle, Rico goes to OCS, Officers Cadet School. He passes OCS and is assigned to Blachie's Black Guards. He is a 3rd lieutenant well actually a cadet, but he is getting experience to become a actual officer. Rico drops, and is in command of a platoon of soldiers. He spreads his men to cover his assigned area. the put up listeners to listen for bug noise. The bug noise means that there are a lot of bugs tunneling in that area. When they hear this noise some of his men are killed by the bugs. Ricos sergeant (Bronski) goes down the hole and is almost captured. Rico goes after him. When he gets close to him some bugs attack. They kill the bugs. They continue down the hole and the reach the place where Bronski is unfortunately they find him dead. They see Chuna behind a brain bug. Rico and his men attack the bugs and kill all of them. Rico is incapacitated by a falling rock. He wakes up at a hospital. When his is better he goes the the roughnecks and becomes their lieutenant.

The Suites

Let's talk about the cool suites that they wear. The suites are called suites, but they are pretty much power armor as we call it now. I fairly sure that this is the first thing that has "powered armor" in it. The suites move by measuring how much you move, and then the sense this movement through hundreds of sensors that are in the suite. So if you pick up a egg with some practice you can actually not break it. These suites allow just one MI to cover a large area about 1 to 2 square miles. They have some cool weapons that range from a atomic missiles to bombs that tell any person around them that it's a 30 second bomb and it will count down from 30. They control their suits with motions using their jaw and other body parts. There suites have power packs that provide power for moving and all other functions. They get oxygen from oxygen that is stored in a tank. The suite is made of armor plating, muscles, computers, and weapons.

There weapons include Y-racks, A-racks, firepills, hand flamers, heavy flamers, and various bombs. Y-racks are homing missiles. A-racks are atomic bombs. The flamers are obviously flame throwers. There are a bunch of bombs and other grenades.

Similarities and Differences

A difference between the movie and the book was that in the movie the MIs went down in transports, and in the book they were shot out of a huge cannon in the ship. Yep that is right all MIs were shot out of a big cannon in the ship. One problem that I have with this is that a person can only handle like 9gs without dying or blacking out. Maybe the cannon just gradually accelerates them or it could just shoot 'em out at full speed. The suites that they wear probably allow the MIs to handle more gs. This is cool, but it's a bit cheesy at first; it'll grow on you.

In the movie Private Zim captures the brain bug. This is completely wrong Zim doesn't steal the bug a guy by the name of Chuna does. Zim isn't evan a private in the book. Zim becomes Rico's sergeant so Zim is promoted to captain.

The endings are fairly close The Roughnechs were called Rico's Roughnecks. This happened in different situations. In the book Rico graduates from OCS and he is transferred to the Roger Young (the ship that the Roughnecks are in). In the movie people just started dying. In the last chapter Ricos Father becomes one of his men. Yep this actually happens in the book but not in the movie.

I don't know why that in the movie they deleted the entire OCS chapter. That chapter was like 36 pages long and they still deleted it. Rico probably wouldn't have made lieutenant in the book if he didn't go to OCS.

The biggest and the worst thing in the movie that makes me hate it so much is the fact that the MI don't wear suites! Now how stupid is this! The whole idea of the MI is that they were mobile. They weren't mobile in that movie. Each MI covers at least 1 or 2 square miles, and in the movie they were bunched up into big clumps of guys.

Table of Organization

The MI has a whole bunch of different things for organization but I'm just gonna talk about the organization of platoons. There are 56 men in a platoon in squads of 9. Which means there are 6 squads, each has a sergeant that commands them. At the top is a lieutenant. There are a bunch more but I won't get into them. Table of Organization (TO) Lieutenant Sergeant Sergeant Sergeant Sergeant Sergeant Sergeant Sergeants are sometimes replaced with Section Leaders.

The Army Stats

The MI use 3 different types of suites. These include the command suite, marauder suite, and scout suite. Command suites are only for officers (ex: only lieutenants). Marauder suites are for every one that is not a officer. Most platoons will replace some of their marauder suites with scout suites. Command suites are faster than Marauder suites, but just as fast as scout suites. Marauder suites can carry more than scout suites, but the can carry the same as command suites. Scout suites are faster than marauder suites, but just as fast as command suites. The number in the parentheses is how many inches that they can jump (see jumping below)

Marred Suite
MP	CC	RC	POW	BOD	BRN	GUT	LIF	AR	Size
10(15)	7	7	5	5	5	7	2	5	M

Pont Value: 69
Availability: Unlimited. Placed in squads of 5 to 9.
Structure: Individual
Equipment: Hand Flamer, and 1 knife beam.
Options: Maruaders can have any weapons except the A-Missile.
Abilities: Special Movement, and Jumping.

Special Movement - Due to the fact that MI's move constantly if they move more than 10 inches they get a -3 to their RC.

Jumping - Suites can jump using both fake muscles and jets. They can jump a total of 20 inches, and up to 20 inches in the air.

Scout Suite
MP	CC	RC	POW	BOD	BRN	GUT	LIF	AR	Size
12(20)	7	7	4	4	5	7	2	4	M

Point Value: 61
Availability: 1 squad of 5 to 9 per squad of Marauder
Structure: Individual
Equipment: Hand Flamer, and 1 knife beam.
Options: Scouts can have any of the weapons except A-Missile, HE-Misslie, and the Incendiary Grenade.
Abilities: Special Movement, and Jumping.

Special Movement - Due to the fact that MI's move constantly if they move more than 10 inches they get a -3 to their RC.

Jumping - Suites can jump using both fake muscles and jets. They can jump a total of 20 inches, and up to 20 inches in the air.

Command Suites
MP	CC	RC	POW	BOD	BRN	GUT	LIF	AR	Size
12(20)	8	8	5	5	6	8	2	5	M

Point Value: 70
Availability: 1 per force
Structure: Individual
Equipment: Hand Flamer, and 1 knife beam.
Options: They can chose any of the following weapons that are below.
Abilities: Special Movement, "Get your ass over there!", "Waste 'em!", and Jumping.

Special Movement - Due to the fact that MI's move constantly if they move more than 10 inches they get a -3 to their RC.(free)

"Get your ass over there!" - This ability allows the commander to chose one other suite and give him 5 extra MP's that can only be used for moving.(+8PV)

"Waste 'em!" - This ability allows the commander to give up to 5 MP's to up to 2 other suites. The other suites can use these extra Mp's only for shooting.(+9PV)

Jumping - Suites can jump using both fake muscles and jets. They can jump a total of 20 inches, and up to 20 inches in the air.(free)

Superior Tactics - (+5 or +15 PV)A commander with this ability adds +1 to his Union Forces Initiative rolls for every 5 PV spent on the power (maximum of 15 PV, or +3). If a commander with this ability dies, all initiative rolls you make for the remainder of the game are modified by -1 for each 5 PV spent on this ability. (This is right from the Union Forcebook so don't sue me.)

Heroic Reputation - The commander with this ability can allow any model within 15" to reroll a failed guts check. The commander can only use this ability once per turn. As with the neo soviet officer's execution you can use this ability at anytime one of your units fails a guts check.

Psycho - Your commander is a psycho. Anytime he fails a guts check he will run right towards the enemy. He will have a -4 RC instead of the usual -3. He will try to engage in CC whenever possible. When he gets in CC his CC stat goes up to 10. He cannot attack anyone in RC for the rest of the game, and he does not have to pass any Morale Tests.(+30 PV)

The Weapons

The Mi's weapons are cool. There are absolutely no assault rifles. Why would you have an assault rifle when you can just shoot a missile and kill a bunch of guys. The MI have missiles, bombs, lasers, and flamers. I wondered what the MI's "main" weapon was. They don't really have one like the armies of today do. The MI has specialized weapons, and they are: hand flamer, heavy flamer, Fire Pills, an asortment of bombs, Y-rack, A-missile, HE-Missile, and some weapons that I made up to fill in some gaps ( These are marked with a (*) asterix).

Knife Beam
MPC	UPT	S	M	L	POW	AM	MODE	PV
4(6)	2	-	-	-	6	-2	melee	8

The Knife beam is used pretty much excluseivly for cutting holes in walls instead of actually using it in melee. This is why it costs 6 MP for using it in mell and only 4 for cutting holes in walls (the 4 is to cut a hole in a wall and the 6 is used to attack in CC).

When you use it in CC it is used as every other CC weapon is, but when you use it to cut open walls there are a few special rules. The building doesn't go down a level (stable to unstable, or unstable to destroyed). There is a 1" hole in the wall where the attacker is. You must be adjacent to the building to attack it. You can only use it twice per turn, but you can do standard CC attacks after that.

This weapon is standard equipment for all MI's, but you can remove if you want. When you remove it, decrease the point cost on the suites buy 8.

Hand Flamer
MPC	UPT	S	M	L	POW	AM	MODE	PV
4	1	Splash	Splash	Splash	4	-1	Splash	10

The Hand Flamer is standard equipment for all MI. The use it to toast bad guys that get too close. There is a special rule. It uses the same Flambe rule that the union Hellfire uses.

Heavy Flamer
MPC	UPT	S	M	L	POW	AM	MODE	PV
5	1	*	*	*	5	-1	**	16

This is the nasty flamer. You will need a 40k heavy flamer template to use this weapon. This weapon is a bit more nasty then the hand flamer, and it has a longer range. The heavy flamer uses flambe rule too.
* Use the heavy flamer template that came with 40k, if you don't have one make one.
**40k heavy flamer splash, and flambe.

Y-Rack
MPC	UPT	S	M	L	POW	AM	MODE	PV
5	1	-	-	-	6	-2	3" blast	32

The Y-Rack is a weapon that is sorta like a grenade launcher, but it is not. It shoots 2 bombs, 1 in each direction. It uses a special rule for this. Roll a D10 and add 5 to it. This is the number of inches that the weapon will fly to the side of the suite. When you use this weapon measure the distance that the bomb travels from the side of the suites miniature.

For example: one marauder suite with a Y-rack shoots it. You don't declare where it goes who who you're shooting it at. So the controlling player rolls 1 D10. He gets a 6, so he adds 5 to it, whick equals 11. So the controlling player measures 11 inches directly to the side of the miniature. He hits a group of mutated rad. He then rolls damage and armor tests as normal.

A-Missile
MPC	UPT	S	M	L	POW	AM	MODE	PV
5	1/GAME	20(+1)	45(0)	70(-2)	10(3)	-3(-1)	Special Indirect	200

The A-Missile is a "Atomic Missile." Yep, it is actually a very low yield atomic bomb that is in a missile. It has a blast radius of 15 inches, but only 5 of it is actually has a POW of 10. The other 10 inches has a POW of 3. This represents radiation that a nuke bomb has. Three is a special rule, and it is every turn that a model is in the "radiated" zone (the 10 inches area) it takes a hit with a POW of 3 and a AM of -1. You'll probably want to mark out the different zones with some dice or a string, or evan a 15" template made from poster board just find something to mark it with. This is a very nasty weapon, and I don't recommend that you use it much. In order to make it used less and less you can only buy them for command suites, whick means that you can only have one A-Missile per battle. You only shoot it once per game, but after each battle in a campaign game you can reload it.

HE-Missile
MPC	UPT	S	M	L	POW	AM	MODE	PV
6	1	20(+1)	40(-)	60(-1)	5	-2	Indirect 2"Blast	44

The HE-Missile is a A-Missile that has a High Explosive warhead instead of a Nuclear one. It also uses the same missile launcher that the A-Missile uses. It was designed to kill small groups of solders. It is very effective in it's role, but it can also kill medium and small sized vehicles without too many problems.

Frag Grenade
MPC	UPT	S	M	L	POW	AM	MODE	PV
5	1	8(+1)	15(-)	-(-)	4	0	Indirect Blast 2"	9

The Frag Grenade is a grenade that is designed to explode and spread fragments at very high velocities. It isn't a very efficient weapon. It spreads it damage around, whick is good, but it has little to no effect on armored targets. Please note this is the exact same weapon that the Union have, but it's range is extended because of the strength of the suite.

Gas Grenade
MPC	UPT	S	M	L	POW	AM	MODE	PV
5	1	8(+1)	15(-)	-(-)	3	-2	Indirect Blast 2"	12

This is a grenade that explodes and produces a thick cloud of gas. This gas only effects models who aren't in Power Armor, or aren't in a vehicle. The cloud of smoke will stay on the table for D10 divided by 2 turns. It will also move so after each turn (before initiative of the next turn) roll standard deviation(D10 divided by 2). This weapon is very effective against units that don't wear power armor. Please note that for the races that are coming up I'll change this rule to reflect their armor.

Incendiary Grenade
MPC	UPT	S	M	L	POW	AM	MODE	PV
5	1	8(+1)	15(-)	-(-)	4	-1	Indirect Blast 1" or 2" Flambe	17

The Incendiary Grenade doesn't explode. It just gets really really hot. It's temperature will reach anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That is hot enough to light just about everything on fire. It can light anything from trees to concrete on fire.

You roll to hit normally. When it hits you roll on the following table:

Light Table
Die Roll	Effect
1-3	Nothing happens
4-8	Fire Ignites
9-10	Fire Ignites and explodes**

*Fire Ignites - A 1" area catches fire where the grenade landed, and any model within 1" take a normal hit.
**Fire Ignites and explodes - A 2" area catches fire where the grenade landed. Models within range take damage normally (look below), and also take a hit as if a frag grenade hit them.

Whenever a Incendiary Grenade goes off all models within it's range (either 1" or 2" depending on what you rolled on the light table) take a hit using the above stats. They use the Flambe rule that is explained in the Union Forcebook. The Fire that the bomb creates will increase it's size every 2 turns by 1". Any models that enter the area effected by the fire (including any vehicle, because of it's intense heat) will take a hit using the stats above. If you stop in the middle of one then the unit that stopped there will take a hit the next time that it is activated.

These are all of the weapons, but I might add a few grenades.

Special Characters

I made a few special characters that are based on the book. I'm might make a few that arn't in the book that are just completely fake. I wanted to throw in a little special touch.

Lieutenant Juan Rico
MP	CC	RC	POW	BOD	BRN	GUT	LIF	AR	SIZE
12(20)	8	8	5	5	7	9	3	5	M

Point Value: 69
Availability: 1/force
Structure: Individual
Equipment: Hand Flamer, and 1 knife beam.
Options: Anything
Abilities: Special Movement, Jumping,

Special Movement - Due to the fact that MI's move constantly if they move more than 10 inches they get a -3 to their RC.(free)

"Get your ass over there!" - This ability allows Rico to chose one other suite and give him 5 extra MP's that can only be used for moving.(+8PV)

"Waste 'em!" - This ability allows Rico to give up to 5 MP's to up to 2 other suites. The other suites can use these extra Mp's only for shooting.(+9PV)

Jumping - Suites can jump using both fake muscles and jets. They can jump a total of 20 inches, and up to 20 inches in the air.(free)

Rico's Tactics - (+5 or +15 PV)Rico with this ability adds +1 to his Union Forces Initiative rolls for every 5 PV spent on the power (maximum of 15 PV, or +3). If Rico with this ability dies, all initiative rolls you make for the remainder of the game are modified by -1 for each 5 PV spent on this ability. (This is right from the Union Forcebook so don't sue me.)

Rico's Reputation - Rico with this ability can allow any model within 20" to reroll a failed guts check. Rico can only use this ability once per turn. As with the neo soviet officer's execution you can use this ability at anytime one of your units fails a guts check.(+7)

After Thoughts

I wish that I could have made them cheaper, but they are just so effective at killing that if you only have 5 of them then you can still kill a 1000 point neo army. You will need to be good at maneuvering you suites around so that you can kill stuff effectively. Always take the A-Missile in large games, and shoot it whenever there is a huge group of stuff that you want to kill easily.

I'm gonna make a sample 500, 750, and 1000 PV armys using Army Builder. I'll post them whenever I finish making them.

Anyway I hope that you enjoy the army as much as I did making and play testing it.