Starship Troopers

Science fiction wargame based directly on Robert A. Heinlein's classic novel Starship Troopers.Scenarios are set in the Terran/Arachnid war which forms the background of the novel.One player takes the Terran side and deploys his MI (Mobile Infantry) units directly on the board, nearly always by the Initial Drop Procedure.The other player, as the Arachnid Player, uses an Alien Control Pad sheet to record the placement of his underground central Hive cell complex and the attached tunnels radiating outward. Tunnels are used to move the Warrior units, along with Worker units mixed in as expendable decoys, to locations where they can pop up to the surface through a breach hole and attack the Terran units. Completely unseen, and only paper recorded, Engineer units are used to create the breachs and, later, to extend the tunnels.The 'third side' of the war is the Skinnys. In early scenarios they are fighting on the side of the Arachnids. In later scenarios, after succesful negotiations with Earth, they switch over to the Terran side. They're only effective fighters within the confines of their small city terrain on the board (and not very effective at that).The game is set up in a 'Programmed Instruction' system of scenarios to slowly introduce the game concepts. Scenarios range from Scenario I, which starts players off with a basic MI raid on a Skinny city (just like the book. 'Torres died on the way up') to Scenario VII, The Battle of Klendathu: the final Terran assault on the Arachnid Homeworld.Avalon Hill Complexity rating - 5 - BoardGameGeek