Stormtroopers CBT Armor or Battledress?
- Thread starter Infojunky
- Start date
Yea, I think Combat Armor is what they would be equipped with.
For a weapon, I'd say a combo weapon. A Laser Rifle that is designed so it can manually be switched to a Stunner. See A New Hope, very early, when the Stormtroopers take down Leia. Right before she's shot the Squad Leader says, "There's one, set for Stun..." and then Leia kills him. The next guy in line is seen to turn a switch and the visual effect is different from the standard Blaster effect.
For a weapon, I'd say a combo weapon. A Laser Rifle that is designed so it can manually be switched to a Stunner. See A New Hope, very early, when the Stormtroopers take down Leia. Right before she's shot the Squad Leader says, "There's one, set for Stun..." and then Leia kills him. The next guy in line is seen to turn a switch and the visual effect is different from the standard Blaster effect.
Definitely in combat armor. The silly goombas ran from a smuggler and a wookie? If they had battledress on they coulda ripped the wookies arms out of his sockets!
And also by the way Han and Luke struggled to lift the objects in the trash compactor. Clearly not enhanced strength.
And also by the way Han and Luke struggled to lift the objects in the trash compactor. Clearly not enhanced strength.
Ironically most of the original Star Wars weapons were modelled around WWII weapons, probably not what you were looking for. Hey, I'm just saying! 
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Stormtrooper Kit:
The T-21 light repeating blaster was a standard-issue, rapid-fire weapon produced by BlasTech Industries. It saw use in the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War and beyond. (Lewis Gun)
E-11 blaster rifle. (Sterling L2A3 SMG)
RT-97C heavy blaster rifle (MG34)
Model 44 blaster pistol was a blaster pistol manufactured by Merr-Sonn Munitions, Inc prior to the Galactic Civil War. This model was similar to the Power 5 heavy blaster pistol. The Model 44 was a low-powered blaster, featuring a shorter barrel than the Power 5. This weapon was carried by Imperial officers aboard the first Death Star. (Mauser C-96, the same as for Han’s DL-44)
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Stormtrooper Kit:
The T-21 light repeating blaster was a standard-issue, rapid-fire weapon produced by BlasTech Industries. It saw use in the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War and beyond. (Lewis Gun)
E-11 blaster rifle. (Sterling L2A3 SMG)
RT-97C heavy blaster rifle (MG34)
Model 44 blaster pistol was a blaster pistol manufactured by Merr-Sonn Munitions, Inc prior to the Galactic Civil War. This model was similar to the Power 5 heavy blaster pistol. The Model 44 was a low-powered blaster, featuring a shorter barrel than the Power 5. This weapon was carried by Imperial officers aboard the first Death Star. (Mauser C-96, the same as for Han’s DL-44)
Dave Chase
Mongoose
And most of the helmets that were not storm trooper style were modeled from medievel knights.
Dave Chase
Dave Chase
Depends. The obvious question is, what do your players have access to?
Stormtrooper armour appears enviromentally sealed(ish) given the respirator, which is good as it allows you to deploy goons to wherever they're needed. What you don't want is for the goons to slaughter your party easily in the first battle. TL12 Combat Armour stops 14 damage. Even allowing for a couple of points of 'bonus' damage from effect, that means most shots with a 3D6 weapon (i.e. most small arms) will bounce off, and it will take several shots to drop even the most generic of goons.
Compare the films and Clone Wars series, where the armour helps against shrapnel and physical blows (a bit) but never stops a blaster bolt that I can think of.
I'd be tempted to call them Hostile Environment Vacc Suits, instead.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Neither. :wink:
The armour had a re-breather, what looked like a sealed under suit etc and so I would call that a skin suit type.
In terms of the armour it was clearly a ceramic/polymer designed to resist energy fire. It could turn a blaster hit into a wound though the heat effect clearly put down even the survivors. However against kinetic attacks it was all but useless (see small hairy tree dwellers with bows and rocks tied to sticks :lol: ).
Skin suit. Armour 10 Vs Energy, Armour 4 Vs Kinetic/blast.
The armour had a re-breather, what looked like a sealed under suit etc and so I would call that a skin suit type.
In terms of the armour it was clearly a ceramic/polymer designed to resist energy fire. It could turn a blaster hit into a wound though the heat effect clearly put down even the survivors. However against kinetic attacks it was all but useless (see small hairy tree dwellers with bows and rocks tied to sticks :lol: ).
Skin suit. Armour 10 Vs Energy, Armour 4 Vs Kinetic/blast.
2330ADUSA1
Mongoose
I like the look of the Halo Armor the best, makes it seem more like what Battle Armor should look like.
Nuclear Fridge Magnet
Mongoose
White armour in a temperate-climate forest. :shock:
I'm not so surprised that the cute little ewoks could kill them so easily. Given the stormtroopers' camouflage level the ewoks would have had a hard time missing them. And let's not get onto the 200 mph-plus speeder bikes flying around at head height... :roll:
I'm not so surprised that the cute little ewoks could kill them so easily. Given the stormtroopers' camouflage level the ewoks would have had a hard time missing them. And let's not get onto the 200 mph-plus speeder bikes flying around at head height... :roll:
Combat Armor.
I agree with the stun setting (and so does any version of SW RPGs), but NOT with Laser RIFLE. It's a carbine. I think too many have gotten this wrong, including the forementioned SW RPGs which call it the "E11 Blaster RIFLE". The darn thing is a Blaster/Laser Carbine, not a rifle:
-Very small, short, especially with stock folded.
-It's shot one-handed sometimes.
-I don't recall it ever being shot from the shoulder, always from the hip.
-It's modeled on the British Sten gun, a submachinegun (typically even smaller then a carbine, let alone a rifle).
-It is holstered like a pistol, not slung like a rifle. http://www.manicminer.plus.com/holster.jpg
Greylond said:
I agree with the stun setting (and so does any version of SW RPGs), but NOT with Laser RIFLE. It's a carbine. I think too many have gotten this wrong, including the forementioned SW RPGs which call it the "E11 Blaster RIFLE". The darn thing is a Blaster/Laser Carbine, not a rifle:
-Very small, short, especially with stock folded.
-It's shot one-handed sometimes.
-I don't recall it ever being shot from the shoulder, always from the hip.
-It's modeled on the British Sten gun, a submachinegun (typically even smaller then a carbine, let alone a rifle).
-It is holstered like a pistol, not slung like a rifle. http://www.manicminer.plus.com/holster.jpg
F33D said:
The Stormtroopers were suffering from Movie-Hero-Syndrome. They were shooting at Movie Heroes while being shot at by Movie Heroes. So, you get Stormtroopers in elite armor dropping like flies while failing to drop any heroes at all even though their targets are unarmored and, "no one is more precise", then the Stormtroopers. Plot eliminated the actual effectiveness of their armor and reduced the marksmanship skills of the elite shocktroopers of the Empire.
Nuclear Fridge Magnet
Mongoose
Sturn said:
Yeah, Movie-Hero-Syndrome is something they don't cover in training. Likewise the dreaded Plot Device. :roll:
Pops up in the Clone Wars as well - clonetrooper blastes have the same option.
Thing is, this is important for an RPG as well. Traveller is by default very balanced - which is to say there is no difference between an NPC and PC of similar skill levels. This means that if a group of 'Rebels' in jumpsuits and fishbowls with pistols face an equivalent number of 'Stormtroopers' in Combat Armour with Carbines, then you'll be lucky if any of them last long enough to even try and surrender.
Which is fine, IF the players aren't going to be one of the above fishbowl-clad characters. Take combat armour and carbines and it'll be very easy to wipe out the party by accident!
GamingGlen
Banded Mongoose
Good, then the trigger-happy D&D-gotlotsofhitpoints-influenced players won't be so eager to jump into battle and actually give the military troops some respect (at least until the PCs get bigger guns).
Depends what the 'feel' of the game is supposed to be. The problem is that stormtroopers are really portrayed as the ultimate disposable goons in most Star Wars media (Clone Wars is a good exception) and people may say it doesn't feel right if they're not - especially if they're playing rebels or jedi.
In any 'normal' game, I agree. Picking a fight with a professional military unit should result in unpleasant, blaster-bolt riddled death, but it is (for example) canonical in the universe that most small arms - even pistol calibre weapons - punch through stormtrooper armour easily enough. You see it happen, time and again.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
The huge problem with this is that Star Wars is pure fantasy and anything based on it ends up being the same.
The whole armour/weapon seesaw goes onward. Time and again weapons have forced a change in armour tech or armour tech has forced a change in weapons.
If blasters punch through storm trooper armour then why use the armour. You can do a fine line in faceless troopers with black bodysuits and blank face masks or gas masks. Slowing down the troopers with a useless suit of highly visible white armour that provides no protection is a huge waste of resources.
The advent of weapons that make armour useless led to plate being dropped from use for centuries. New technology led to armour returning but in the case of blasters and storm troopers. The white armour is clearly useless, obsolete and pointless so why use it.
If you are playing a Star wars game then yes it is part of the whole genre that a few Hero's in normal clothing (or a princess in a bikini) can gun down scores of armoured troopers.
As has been mentioned Traveller is a very different game, it isn't high fantasy/heroic. A trooper is as tough as a character in terms of taking a hit. A trooper in flak is as good at taking auto rifle fire as a character in flak is which is why fire fights tend to be equal numbers or so if weapons and armour are equal.
As a side note within the films the troopers are not consistent. After all in "A New Hope" we are told that only storm troopers are so precise with their fire so it was not raiders that took out the sand crawler. Then later the troopers couldn't hit the broad side of a sand crawler when firing at the heroes.
The whole armour/weapon seesaw goes onward. Time and again weapons have forced a change in armour tech or armour tech has forced a change in weapons.
If blasters punch through storm trooper armour then why use the armour. You can do a fine line in faceless troopers with black bodysuits and blank face masks or gas masks. Slowing down the troopers with a useless suit of highly visible white armour that provides no protection is a huge waste of resources.
The advent of weapons that make armour useless led to plate being dropped from use for centuries. New technology led to armour returning but in the case of blasters and storm troopers. The white armour is clearly useless, obsolete and pointless so why use it.
If you are playing a Star wars game then yes it is part of the whole genre that a few Hero's in normal clothing (or a princess in a bikini) can gun down scores of armoured troopers.
As has been mentioned Traveller is a very different game, it isn't high fantasy/heroic. A trooper is as tough as a character in terms of taking a hit. A trooper in flak is as good at taking auto rifle fire as a character in flak is which is why fire fights tend to be equal numbers or so if weapons and armour are equal.
As a side note within the films the troopers are not consistent. After all in "A New Hope" we are told that only storm troopers are so precise with their fire so it was not raiders that took out the sand crawler. Then later the troopers couldn't hit the broad side of a sand crawler when firing at the heroes.
Captain Jonah said:
Again, because of plot. Dead heroes are rare in Star Wars, so stormtroopers are forced to miss. Also, having Ben mowed down by a squad of stormtroopers is not near as climatic as his duel with Darth. Only anti-heroes can kill heroes in scifi epics.
So, in an RPG a GM is left with choosing from what the stormtroopers are supposed to be vs. what we see when fighting heroes and being forced by plot to miss. It's choice as a GM, how they were described (elite, armored, no one as precise), to what was on the screen (goons that nearly always missed and fell like flies). I prefer them as described in my games and typically have had to beef them up a bit in whatever rules system I used (WEG, d20, and now Edge).
It's interesting to note that when the stormtroopers were made the good guys (Clone Troopers), they suddenly hit more often since they were no longer firing at heroes.
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