From: "C. HENDRIX" Subject: SST WARNING! LONG POST! STARSHIP TROOPERS 2nd EDITION UPDATE! GOOD STUFF! Yes, Virginia. THere is going to finally be a 2nd Edition SST! Of course it won't be published by AH, but it is being worked on again. Originally I got the ball rolling about 15 years ago and AH hooked me up with the right honorable Jim Stahler and we put a couple of years hard work into it. Just as we were getting ready to go into full playtest (some of the letters actually got mailed), AH cut about a third of their titles from their inventory and SST was one of the casualties. We were heartbroken. The idea was to republish the rules and either publish an expansion kit (like CROSS OF IRON for SL) or offer counters/scenarios in a packet deal (a la' WAR AT SEA II) to be called ON THE BOUNCE! We were going to incorporate all the extra stuff from the General 13.6 plus a few extra pieces I invented and a bunch more scenarios, with emphasis on Design Your Own expanding from an article in the Gen (I forget which issue) that would give the MI player Mission Cards and the Bugs world cards. It was a hoot! I carted the materials around for a decade and finally delivered them to Bruce Monnin who is publishing THE BOARDGAMER (see below) and will eventually publish all the materials as they are finally playtested. But he will probably have to do it in installments. Stay tuned. Last year AH came across a cache of SSTs that were missing rulebooks or play aids or something. THey reprinted the missing parts and released the batch. They were all original- no changes. The game is flawed in that the bugs have a lock (once you discover the trick), but Jim and I fixed that (and a few other things). The following is reprinted with permission from Bruce Monnin's THE BOARDGAMER (Vol.1, Number.3) as an update on the current status (and a fine example of the caliber of stuff he's publishing- a class act. Check it out below). ------------------- Subject: Web, SST Date: Tue, 11 Jun 96 01:32:00 UTC 0000 From: b.monnin@genie.com To: chendrix@manznet.com Chester, As for SST, some guys (Paul Bolduc, primarily) have done some playtesting and plan to do much more shortly. Paul has a review of what he has found so far appearing in the July BOARDGAMER. Here it is: A New STARSHIP TROOPERS - A Preview Rumors have been in the air that soon a movie may be made of Robert Heinlein's classic science fiction novel, STARSHIP TROOPERS. The Avalon Hill game based on the novel has been one of my favorites over the years-- even postally--but has languished on my shelf for lack of an opponent suicidal enough to challenge my "Bugs". Imagine my surprise at Avaloncon V last summer when I heard that the 1984 rulebook revision project was again afoot and that AH had reprinted SST, taking it off their "endangered games" list. I immediately volunteered to help playtest it and a month and a half later had a copy of the new rules and a set of expansion rules based on a few of the articles that have appeared in THE GENERAL over the years. In this article, I'd like to briefly describe the proposed changes. We'll take it one Scenario at a time, then the expansion. SCENARIO I. The only significant change here is that installations (and decoys) may no longer be stacked. This prevents the infamous tactic of piling all the installations on QQ1, ringing the site with strongpoints, and, once the first Terran arrives, keeping six Skinny Warriors on QQ1 thereafter ensuring victory. The other change of some relevance is that now critical installations, decoys, and strongpoints _can_ be placed in rough terrain unless the Scenario Special Rules (SSR) forbid it, whereas formerly they couldn't unless the SSR permit it. SCENARIO II. Again mostly clarifications. A change to the Terran Control Pad moves the LD box into the blacked out area next to the HE launcher box. The space vacated can now be used to record damage status and, in the expanded game, recruit and neodog ID numbers. The Arachnid now scores 4 and 8 victory points for HVY and WIA/KIA results on command units in this Scenario versus 3 and 6 in the 1st Edition. SCENARIO III. Troopers that land directly upon hostile units on drop may now initiate close combat. DAPs and DARs will not detonate if the hex contains any Terran unit (even KIA). SCENARIO IV. Many changes and most are to the Terran's advantage. A. Combat Engineers (CE) are now stunned on a STUN-WIA (also roll for SW&E loss on the appropriate column) result and eliminated on a KIA; formerly they were stunned on STUN-HVY (HVY also resulting in losing SW&E) and killed on WIA-KIA. This improves their chances of surviving a Bug beam attack in the open from 33.33% to 50% and in rocks from 50.00% to 66.67%. B. Any CE unit can complete demo emplacement and detonation begun by another; formerly only the emplacing unit could detonate the demo. C. Air Car internal capacity is increased from one CE (and gear), one special talent (ST), and any prisoners and captured brains to one CE, one captured brain, one WIA MI, plus unlimited STs and prisoners. In addition two functional MI can be transported externally. Air Cars now survive a LGHT combat result, again increasing their survivability against a Bug beam from 33.33% to 50.00%. They are only affected by Arachnid demos in the hexes they load and/or unload. D. Tunnel repair rules have been moved to Scenario V. E. Arachnid demo charges are controlled by the Master Brain, not the Combat Brains. Gives it something to do I guess. F. MI can "seal" breaches by detonating a DAR (not a DAP) in the hex for that expressed purpose. No unit in the hex is affected. G. One is subtracted from the Terran entry roll for every turn after Turn 4. Thus entry is guaranteed by Turn 8 (formerly there was only a 86.83% chance of entry by Turn 8). SCENARIO V. More bad news for the Bugs. A. Retrieval Boats now have up to five beacons each. This allows more flexibility in pick-up time, but only one beacon per boat or the boat itself can be active on any given turn. B. Beacons now land in the Terran Special Function (SF) Phase, the Boat lands and unloads in the following Terran SF Phase and lifts off in the next Terran SF Phase. Thus to evacuate by the end of Turn 15, the Beacon would land no later that T urn 13, the Boat no later than Turn 14, and the Boat would depart early in Turn 15. Formerly the beacon could have landed on Turn 14 with the Boat landing in the SF Phase of 15 and departing after the movement phase of Turn 15. This is good for the Aliens since the Terrans lose a movement phase before retrieval and the Boat is down long enough to perhaps get a shot at it. C. What to do if a Beacon is destroyed (by landing in RAD or off board) is detailed. D. Rules concerning capture of WIA/KIA MIs are clarified (who's got dibs in case of dispute). E. Tunnel repair has been moved here from Scenario IV. F. Tunnels cannot be dug through unexploded (or even exploded) Arachnid demo! The "protected breach" tactic is undone. Very bad for the Bugs! G. Arachnid Engineer movement must be reported if in range of an active LD. (I don't agree with this one.) H. The first Boat in Scenario 5A must land in the perimeter; Arachnid player scores 5 VPs for destroying a boat. SCENARIO VI. Good news at last for the Arachnids. A. CE NUC demos only destroy Queen/Brain cells in the same hex. They also collapses tunnels in adjacent hexes. Previously they destroyed everything underground in a two-hex radius. Thus formerly a NUC demo emplaced over the Queen in a circular hive took out all the Brains too, destroying the entire complex. B. Terrans can't fire nuke rockets into a hex containing or adjacent to any non-KIA Terran unit. The infamous "Nuke Overkill Shockwave Gambit" is thus now illegal. C. The Arachnid may "store" some of his demo points (DPs) in Combat Brain cells and then emplace them during play at the cost of 2 DPs (vs 1 DP during set up). They must be emplaced adjacent to the engineer but in a non-tunnel hex where no other demo is (or was). D. Terrans may use up to three blank counters as ST decoys. E. Arachnids may "hatch" additional workers and warriors to replace those eliminated from that cell (1 warrior or 1 worker per turn per cell) as long as the Queen lives. F. Terran victory conditions for this Scenario are clarified by adding "without the Arachnid gaining 40 VP". SCENARIO VII. And finally... A. Arachnid variable demo charges have been renumbered as Scales 1-3; costs are 3, 5, and 7 DPs respectively. A Scale 3 will AE/RAD its hex and attack adjacent hexes at 36 combat factors (CFs), hexes 2 away at 24 CFs, and hexes 3 away at 12 CFs. B. Emplaced CE NUC demo can be set off by Terran nuke rockets detonating in the same hex. C. Arachnid complexes must now have one "prisoner cell" connected to each Combat Brain. MI captured during the scenario are noted as being held in the capturing Combat Brain's prisoner cell and can be recovered by one-man carry. D. Escaped prisoners cannot capture or destroy Brains or engineers. They may be two-man or one-man carried. E. A Double Disrupted optional rule (Disr + Disr = Elim) analogous to the MI multiple damage rule (e.g., HVY + HVY = WIA) is introduced. F. Terran victory conditions for this scenario are modified to be either releasing and retrieving 5 of 10 prisoner units or killing all 10 combat brains. APPENDIX A. Will introduce rules for units not in the original game but suggested by Richard Hamblen back in THE GENERAL, 13, #6. These are recruits, neodogs, heavy weapons brigade, spaceships, and scrambler missiles. APPENDIX B. Will introduce rules for design-your-own, campaign games, solitaire, and postal play, again largely derived from articles in THE GENERAL. APPENDIX C. Will provide additional scenarios from back issues of THE GENERAL. These are the changes now envisioned, but these too are subject to change as the crucible of playtesting proves them workable or not, helping play balance or not, and worth the bother. As an example of a contemplated change, consider the question of how to play balance the basic Scenario 1, widely regarded as greatly favoring the Skinnies. Will the non-stacking rule for critical installations do the trick? How about lengthening the game to 15 turns? Perhaps introducing extended jump a scenario early would do it (or perhaps overdo it)? Maybe just reducing the VP value of the Waterworks? Is it worth the trouble--how many people play Scenario more than once or twice anyway? The answers to these and a myriad of other questions will come only after long hours of playtesting. Gentleman and Ladies, to your boards! Bruce ----------------------- The above was printed in THE BOARDGAMER, published by Bruce Monnin. THE BOARDGAMER is an amateur magazine (very well done!) dedicated to Avalon Hill games and is attempting to provide articles/info like you used to get in the GENERAL (strategy, variants, scenarios), and is also the official new home of the AREA system which they have reconstructed at great effort. For information- Bruce Monnin The Boardgamer 177 South Linclon Street Minster, OH 45865 b.monnin@genie.geis.com ---------------------- I recently heard from Mr. Paul Bolduc who is heading the 2nd Edition Task Force and sent him the following. I hope to hear more from him soon. --------------------- Seriously, I just would like to keep tabs on how SST is going. I read the report you filed in the BOARDGAMER and am muchly gratified to see this project finally seeing the light of day after having carried all those materials around with me for the last 15 years and not being able to do anything with them. The extra scenarios are all original creations and have not been playtested at all- they were just creations that seemed to go well together to try to exploit the new rules and to incorporate the extra pieces into the Programmed Instruction format. The eventual goal was to use the design your own scenario format and the mission/planet cards as a standard playing format rather than the set scenarios, but I never got around to designing a checklist format that would include all units and capabilities and ease setup of DYO scenarios. We tried a couple- they are incredibly hairy!- butthey were very tedious to set up. But once they were set up.......they are DEFINITELY the only way to go! Once you get your orders and select your forces, you are on pins and needles until you get some idea what the bugs are doing.....and how many of them there are! We found we needed to have a mandatory breach rule, but I don't remember how we suggested it go? Basically, I'd just like to see the e-mail/evaluations as they whiz on by. If you could do that, I'd be very grateful. This was my first project and still holds a very special place in my heart. I still remember having dreams of walking into a game shop and seeing a box on the shelf of MI leaping burning buildings with the title blazoned across the box- ON THE BOUNCE! AN EXPANSION SET FOR STARSHIP TROOPERS. At this point I'll still be happy to have just the materials show up in THE BOARDGAMER in a format that can be easily copied and distributed or at least serialized. ------------- And that's where we stand right now. I'm still waiting to hear back from Mr. Bolduc (with a little bit of envy, I admit!). But so far he seems to be doing an excellent job. STARSHIP TROOPERS is in excellent hands, gentlemen. Patience. Your Buddy, Chester