I've always been a Stormtrooper fan and started running Star Wars RPG campaigns back before WEG launched (I used Traveller). Once WEG launched, my personal "canon" Stormtroopers based upon the original movies slowly devolved. I've kept my personal version of Stormtroopers throughout the decades of Star Wars gaming, ignoring changes brought about by new games or when Star Wars novels beyond Splinter of the Mind's Eye started changing things.

Here are my original ideas and thoughts, just for fun:

THAT"S AN ION GUN!:

Stormtrooper heavy weapons early on included the T-21 and the DLT-19. These were both ruled to be repeaters by WEG. I wondered, why would the Stormtroopers be carrying two different squad support weapons around? The DLT-19 has a bipod and was based upon a realworld squad light machinegun. Makes sense to make it a repeater even if we never see it using autofire. The T-21 was radically different looking (big fat barrel) with no bipod and carried along side the DLT19. I made it a heavy ion gun in my games for two reasons - it had a fat barrel just like the Jawa ion gun (few other fat barreled weapons) and figured Stormies would want an ion weapon to stop droids and vehicles.

FOR THE LOVE OF THE FORCE THAT'S A CARBINE, NOT A RIFLE!

The E-11 was made a "rifle" by WEG and this has persisted. The E-11 is very small, can be shot one-handed by a skinny kid from Tatooine, is used in CQB fighting aboard ships/stations, and can even be holstered like a pistol. The E-11 was even based upon a real world submachinegun. I made it a carbine and stuck with it. I'm right and no one, not even George or Zahn, could convince be differently.

NO SPECIAL STORMTROOPER UNITS

WEG delved into the idea of several specialized Stormtrooper units such as Desert Stormtroopers and Snowtroopers. I've always considered them all the basic, elite Stormtrooper just with different field gear. The Desert Stormtroopers are seen with heavier weapons and a large backpack, only because they are in the field. They aren't onboard a spaceship/station pulling guard duty, they are on the surface of a planet, so they carry along gear and cooling equipment in backpacks, and several heavy weapons. Pauldrons are added to denote rank more easily when in the field. Modern non-elite military units even do this, why not the Stormtroopers? On Hoth we see troops decked out in cold weather gear, for example. When I was in the US Army I had a different uniform/gear for hot and cold environments. We also carried several different weapons, not just a M16 or M9 handgun, when out in the, "field".

STORMTROOPER ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP

Not necessarily contradicted by WEG, but I put some thought into this. Stormtroopers are elite units used both by the Imperial Navy and Imperial Army, but not within either. Stormtrooper officers are rare and limited to a rank of around Commander or lower (the guys in black uniforms who sometimes don Stormtrooper armor since they ARE Stormtroopers). Upper echelon officers, such as Generals or Admirals, are only found in the Army or Navy. Thus we have an Army General taking charge of Stormtroopers to invade Hoth. We also have Naval officers (non-Stormtroopers without armor) running around commanding Stormtroopers. Later, this idea was nicely supported by a, "history", of Jedi Generals leading Clone Troopers who apparently didn't have high level officers.

Regular Navy troops are the guys in black outfits with black helmets. Regular Army troops we only get two glimpses of: the General leading the Hoth invasion and the crewmen of the ATST that Chewbacca grabs on Endor.

On a tangent, but I recently stumbled upon a website making an interesting argument that the Imperial troops on Hoth were actually Imperial Army Troopers and not Stormtroopers. I don't agree, but some interesing points were made: The armor they wear appears to be an Army Trooper uniform colored white with goggles and a face shroud attached. The helmet is not the Stormtrooper one, but identical to the Army general leading them and the ATST crew from Endor (just colored white). Their breastplate matches the Army general leading them (the ATST crewmen, like modern tank crews, may not wear the heavy breastplate). The breastplate shows rank markings like the Imperial Army and Navy wears. We don't see these markings on Stormtroopers otherwise. My issue with not accepting this - Why would Darth Vader not use Stormtroopers to invade Hoth? They also in general look like Stormtroopers, even if they have a set of cold weather armor based partially upon the Imperial Army field uniform.

IMPERIAL PILOTS AREN'T STORMTROOPERS (since disregarded)

Yes their helmets look similar, but I orignally made my pilots not Stormtroopers. Stormtroopers were infantry, not pilots. The pilots/drivers of the Imperial Walkers were Army troops. Stormtroopers don't mess with vehicles, they are only grunts that ride in them. The ATAT's on Hoth were crewed by the Imperial Army with their Army general in one of them. The ATST drivers on Endor were obviously not Stormtroopers either. A knife was driven into my theory on this when we saw Clone Pilots with the same face as Clone Troopers piloting fighters with helmets which appeared to be the predecessors of future Imperial pilot helmets. I disregarded this and have come to accept fighter and some elite vehicle crews as divisions of the Stormtroopers attached to the Navy and Army.

STORMTROOPERS ARE ALL CLONES (since disregarded)

I had this going early on back before WEG. The Thrawn books contradicted this, but I was always one for movie-only canon, not EU. Later, Episode I made me rejoice when it turned out the original Stormtroopers were all clones. A short lived, "See, I was right!" When playing d20 Star Wars I even adjusted the abilities (Strength, Dex, etc) of my Stormtroopers to have them more similar to Jango Fett's. I've since completely dropped this. I first began to change my mind when considering we don't hear future Stormtroopers talking with the Clone voice of Jango. I speculated first that their are now many more clone types, but later dropped even this completely.

Just for fun, I hope I didn't bore anyone that actually read through all of this.

I never gave them this level of scrutiny before. I had always seen/used/understood/viewed/interpreted them having aspects some aspects of the Waffen-SS. They served beside the Army, but were never formally part of it, and the Fuhr*cough* EMPEROR Palpatine was their supreme commander, but outside the Army/Navy command structure. They weren't part of a 'political party', per se, but the were a symbol of the "New Order", they way SS members were symbols of some aryan ideal. Like the Waffen-SS (or at least like the SS is frequently protrayed), I see the stormtrooper as a well-supplied and well-trained elite conventional soldiers.

Aside: Theres a lot of ugly human history that I acknowledge I'm glossing over and, well, gentrifying. I hope I didn't to offend anyone by discussing them as a pop culture trope, as that was not my intent. I simply think that's how they were used in the Star Wars films. I'm also not explicitly stating or implying that anyone who's interested in playing as a stormtrooper has any particular interest in any views shared by any particlular leaders of western european world poweres during the first half of the twentieth century. A stormtrooper unit could be a cool campaign concept.

With that out of the way…

I liked that we didn't know what was under the mask, and that mystery is fine with me. I read by Yavin, 1/3 of the active ST's were clones that survived the Clone Wars, Dark Times, and whatever else you call the intrabellum years (Wookiepedia's stormtrooper page provides this reference). The remaining 2/3'rds were recruited humans, like Kyle Katarn, who was a "decorated stoormtrooper officer" before defecting.

Overall I prefered them as elite conventional forces (as compared to special forces, which I don't think they are.), and my players responded well and thought twice before taking them down. I wanted the players to feel some of the fear that was described in some EU sources, so I made them more dangerous than an average mook, thug, or trooper. I wanted the Star Wars version of the allied forces' "Oh $#!t, there's a whole company of SS over that hill" reaction. Now, in pt 5 of Band of Brothers (I think. I really want to say its a BoB scene I see in my head), Easy still won the field, but they knew they had to step it up to do it.

And it worked.

For a few sessions…

Stupid WotC with stupid character power… stupid… stupids…

Anyway, I strongly dislike using them in a "Blasterfodderlol" role, but after years of EU and Star Wars jokes, reinforced by Saga/RCR/OCR splat material, I think that's unfortunately what many players expect. I think there was a "Are EotE Stormtroopers too lethal" thread somewhere in the Beta forums that had some of this.

To sum up, a hostile, yet wise video store clerk once said "Alls they know is killing and white uniforms"

And I've always thought that was all they needed to know.

-WJL

And I never used the "Not-Z" word in the whole post.

Thanks Lethal.

No of course my love of Stormtroopers has nothing to do with a fascination with THOSE guys. I think it is more to do with them being an organized military unit with cool futuristic gadgets. I grew up on WW2 stories from my Ranger/Airborne/Glider Trooper grandfather (the guy I mention in my signature) fighting "those guys" and having nothing but disdain for them. Around the same time I saw Star Wars Episode IV at a movie theatre and later joined the Army after college. I guess somewhere in there is an explanation of my liking of Stormtroopers. They are still the bad guys in my games though, never the players.

Should I be expecting a psych bill for the brief time on the couch?

LethalDose said:

Survivors of the Clone Wars would be around 60 years old or more due to them having aged at double the rate. Even if you say some were only 20 years old at the end of the Clone Wars, 19 years later they appear 58. I had an NPC mercenary ready to be hired by a group of PCs in my last SAGA campaign before it ended. The PCs were advertising for mercenaries and I was going to have this old, grizzled, war veteran show up yearning for some action in his twilight. They weren't going to realize it at first, but would eventually figure out he was an original Clone warrior.

LethalDose said:

Same with me. Not commandos at all. More comparable to US Rangers. Elite when compared to the regulars and meant for larger scale actions, not small commando raids. Also comparable to "those guys".

I love stormtroopers and the image they have. Faceless, unrelenting soldiers. At least that was they seemed back in 77. At first I thought they were all clones. Of course I thought the Clone Wars were something different then too. Still do when I ignore the prequel trilogy.

The E-11 works well as multi-purpose weapon. With the stock extended it is more like a rifle. Stock folded, more like a carbine. With a scope, more like a sniper rifle. The heavy blaster pistol is almost basically an E-11 without the folding stock and scope. The E-11 in game would be the blaster rifle with a folding stock (when folded reduce encumberance by 1, reduce range by 1 band, and add Innate Talent Mod [Point Blank]) and a scope (as per telescopic optical sight pg 125 Beta).

Just some thoughts.

It's still a carbine in my opinion. Carbines aren't defined at all by whether they have a stock folded or not. Rifles are larger, longer, heavier then Carbines (I'm speaking non-Star Wars). Carbines tend to shoot a less powerful bullet. They are a gap between smaller submachineguns and larger rifles. Most so-called assault rifles are considered carbines. I know of no real world "rifle" that can fit in a holster at your hip. High powered rifles aren't shot one-handed. The carbines of the real world (the M4 for example) can be. The E-11 movie prop was made from this. It is a small submachinegun which typically are even smaller then real world carbines, let alone even larger rifles. Clone Troopers used the DC-15 series of weapons in Episodes 1-3. I don't think anyone is arguing against the DC-15A being the predecessor of the DLT-19 and the DC-15S is the predecessor of the E-11. The DC-15A is called a "rifle" and the DC-15S is it's smaller cousin, often called a "carbine".

I think a better argument could be made that the E-11 is a submachinegun then it is a rifle. Submachineguns don't seem to exist in Star Wars, so it has to be a carbine.

My version of the FFG E-11 is found here. It's on the second page in the middle.

I'm not arguing at all that fans and games aren't now calling the E-11 a "rifle". My argument is that way back in the days of WEG, when blasters first were split between "rifle" and "carbine", it was labeled wrong. I kinda wish that a game would have come along since that would have corrected the error (in my opinion of course).

Some interesting thoughts on the Boys in White.

Regarding the T-21 and DLT-19… it's kinda like why is there the M-16 and the AK-47 in the real world? Or even variations of the M-16? They all perform the same basic function, hurling a lot of lead the vicinity of your target in a short amount of time. The T-21 and DLT-19 probably fall under a similar notion, in that they are two very similar weapons with some minute amounts of difference between the two given their intended function. That said, the DLT-19 seems more like a marksman's weapon (better accuracy at longer ranges) where the T-21 is a squad support (i.e. autofire) weapon. Granted, those are things that aren't necessarily going to translate to an RPG unless you're willing to get into very minute details and differences about the weapons, something that FFG (wisely in my opinion) hasn't done, instead sticking to general categories.

About the E-11, we're on the same exact page. Ever since the days of WEG's D6 system, I've pegged the stormtroopers' standard issue weapon as being a blaster carbine. The folding stock and sight can be used on the E-11 in much the same way they could on a real-world carbine, providing an increased degree of accuracy and stability at the expense of making it less practical for close-quarters combat.

For "special" stormtgrooper units, given the wide variety of terrain types that can be encountered throught the SW 'verse, having troopers that are trained to operate in those environments isn't a far stretch. Heck, real-world military organizations do that all the time, up to and including various special forces units. Now I do agree that in terms of game stats, these specialized units don't really need to have their own individual character write-ups beyond noting "these guys use this type of armor and weapon when operating in this environment" and that maybe their training allows them to ignore a setback die under these types of environments (such as snowtroopers in cold environments, sandtroopers in hot/arid environments, or aqua troopers in underwater environments), but that's the extent of it. Otherwise, just give these guys the same Characteristics & Minion Skills as regular stormtroopers.

I would say that "special forces" level of stormtroopers (be they Storm Commandos or Royal Guard doing a tour as a stormtrooper to keep their fighting edge) should have better stats, but it's kinda like saying the an Army Ranger veteran with several year's worth of field experience should generally have better stats than a U.S. Army Private whose only had a couple months of field experience.

On the organization and leadership of the Stormtrooper Corps, they are typically considered separate, but with an exception made in their command structure that if a officer of sufficiently high rank in the Imperial Army or Imperial Navy (both of which really don't have a lot of support outside of established EU) gives that stormtrooper an order, the stormtrooper will likely obey it, as said high-ranking officer is a part of th Imperial chain of command.. unless there's a stormtrooper officer pretty much denouncing said officer as an Imperial traitor. I think trying to fit how our real-world militaries operate regarding chain of command is probably going to cause some fits, since George probably did intend for stormtroopers to simply be the bulk of Empire's armed forces, and the other Imperial troops that have been identifed as Imp Army or Imp Navy are ultimately the WEG simply trying to label everything for the sake of the RPG.

Maybe George intended for all the stormtroopers to be clones (Leia's remark about how Luke was a little short to be a stormtrooper anyone?), but the technical limits of the day forced him to rely on extras, who were of different heights and body shapes; he could probably narrow it down to a specific range, but even then those extras wouldn't all have the exact same height and build. Granted, Lucas also really disliked the cantina scene that everybody else loved and raved about, more for the fact that he felt so limited in what he could bring to the screen based on the resources (time and money mostly) that he had to work with, so take it for what you will.

One of the things I love about Timothy Zahn's writing is that he made the Empire more than just a faceless evil, giving us PoV characters like Palleon who the readers wind up rooting for as well as the renegade stormtroopers from Allegiance and Hand of One (and those guys frankly have the right feel to be a party of RPG characters).

I think it's been adopted by the EU (but I could be wrong or it could have been changed) that by the Rebellion Era, the Empire uses a mix of clones and freeborn recruits. Since Jango's dead, the Empire would probably have to turn to other donors for their clones, selecting the best of the freebirth stormtroopers to serve as genetic templates for future generations of clones. Things went pear-shaped when Palpatine snuffed it at the end of RotJ, as he probably kept the stormtrooper cloning facilities a tightly-held secret, thus forcing the various Imperial factions to rely almost entirely on freebirth recruits instead of clones (to say nothing of the issues that the EU has established with trying to grow clones too quickly).

I for one certainly wasn't bored, and while we may not see eye-to-eye exactly on a few points mentioned in your post, it's clear you've given these matters some thought.

I agree with nearly everything you said, but a couple points.

Donovan Morningfire said:

But you aren't finding M-16's and AK-47's in the same unit in an organized army. Stormtroopers are seen carrying three different heavy support weapons (T21, DLT19, RT97) in the same squad or platoon. These need to be differentiated somehow to give Stormtroopers carrying all 3 of them a reason. I could accept the DLT19 being only a heavy rifle used in the field while the T21 is a "machinegun". But, then we also have a RT97. Also, the DLT19 isn't carried in enough numbers to be considered the field heavy rifle. The E11 is the common weapon with only a few DLT19's, such as 2 per squad. I've thus made the T21 (perhaps 1 per squad as seen) an anti-droid/vehicle weapon, the DLT19 the support weapon or "machinegun", and the RT97 I've considered making a specialized sniper rifle since we rarely see it.

Donovan Morningfire said:

I've rarely read EU books. Too many I've found to be geared towards a younger audience and started them only to chuck them without reading much. I did love the original Thrawn trilogy of Zahn books when they first came out. Since I've neglected to read any of his stuff except Allegiance which I found not as thrilling. It may just be me. I really should try to read more of his books.

I'm currently enjoying Dark Lord, the Rise of Darth Vader, after a long hiatus from Star Wars novels. It's somewhat enjoyable and I've managed to get half-way through it so far.

Any suggestions on darker, more complex, "serious", Star Wars novels?

(if any of that sounded condescending to EU fans, I didn't mean it to be)

Donovan Morningfire said:

His DNA could have easily been nabbed from one of his countless clones. After a similar debate years ago at the WotC forums, I've come to accept that Stormtroopers are either no longer clones at all, or there are many clone stocks to choose from - Infantry 1, Infantry 2, Infantry 57, Pilot 3, Pilot 5, etc.

Not trying to start a debate, especially with real world weapons as that can get quite in depth. I can see the comparisons, but we are talking about imaginary weapons in a "technologically advanced" society. I realize that the E-11 was based on the Sterling and I can see where you are coming from though. Just threw out my point of view.

About your E-11 (nice job). My only concern is that optimizers are going to favor it over the heavy blaster pistol for the slightly better damage. Personally, I would allow it to be used one-handed, but still with the Ranged (Heavy) skill.

Another note. I could be off, but I seem to recall that most of the time when the E-11 was used one-handed (mostly by Luke and Han) it was more in a "Hail Mary" cover fire kind of way, but it is not like I ever analyzed it overly much. I seem to remember most stormtroopers using it in a two-handed format.

Just my thoughts.

While you are correct in that you generally wouldn't find an M-16 and AK-47 within the same unit, I think DM's point is valid. Most carbines use the same round as their big brother firearms. The M4 (carbine) uses the same round as an M-16 (assault rifle) as does the M249 SAW (light repeater). Damage would be similar in the carbine and rifle, if not the same, but the repeater should do more by vitrue of putting more rounds in the air. The difference between a blaster rifle and a heavy blaster rifle would be more about "caliber", much like the difference between a M-16 (5.56 mm NATO) and an H&K G3 (7.62mm Nato). The heavy blaster rifle would do slightly more because of its caliber. Also many sniper rifles would use that round or larger one. There would be a slight difference between a light repeater (T-21) and a heavy blaster rifle (DLT-19) much like there would be a difference between the SAW and the H&K G3.

But your idea as an ionization weapon works too. Its not like the Empire didn't have ion weapons so it fits. The DEMP carbine, rifle and pistol.

Sturn said:

Same here. I never understood the need for so many different types of ST, it never really made any sense and have always played it being the same ST but with different gear. Excluding Seatrooper and SpaceTroopers, always thought these were specialised enough to warrent existing.

I think this is where the "elite" comes in to play. These troopers are trained to operate in various environments and with various types of equipment. Much more so than the Army or Navy soldiers. I do think some units would be more focused and have slightly different skills just by virtue of their focus such as TIE pilots. Otherwise they would be mostly uniform. Storm commandos or novatroopers could be just explained as more skilled (more XP) troopers.

I thought the majority of the clones suffered from the accelerated age deal. Meaning that they would be dead 20 years later when the stormies took up. I'm sure some of them didn't get "aged", like Boba who was left to age naturally, but the majority of them did. Don't know, just remember reading that somewhere, or maybe it was on "the clone wars" series.

$hamrock said:

I think accelerated age was technically in the movies. I think Lama Su discussed how the clones were age accelerated to hit about 20 year in about a decade.

As for the negative long term effects of the age acceleration process, as the cloning article also states: "leading to a dramatic shortening of the clones' life expectancy." It cites Traviss' "RC: True Colors" for this tidbit. The 1/3 statistic I think came from "SW Insider #96".

/shrug Chose your favorite canon/interpretation.

-WJL

Rimmer1 said:

Probably a lot of it was WEG wanting to create new stat blocks to put into various supplements. New stat blocks means you're not reprinting the same material, and new stat blocks means less other material you have to write to hit your word count. And since WEG's D6 system didn't have things like feats or talents, that meant most of the new crunch was stat blocks, either weapon stats, ship stats, or NPC stats.

Sometimes, the writer is pressed for time and just needs to fill out their section as quickly as possible. Sometimes, the writer gets a directive from their employer to include "stat blocks for varying types of this NPC." And sometimes, the writer sees a piece of concept art that never made it into the films and thinks "hey, that looks cool! I'm gonna do a stat block based on that!" For WEG and the varying stormtrooper sub-units, it could very well be a mix of the three.

Varying stat blocks can be important to games such as d20 where you have different levels of opponents. Things like stormtroopers get statted out at various levels to show different threat levels. Other games that don't depend on levels do not need them differentiated as much, maybe just some different equipment to show them in different situations. But the basic stats generally don't vary much. Still though, stat blocks save time for many GMs so they are still pretty useful. Done enough of them in my time.

there was a video game (i can't recall it's name) but it was narrated my temuera morrison (actor who played jango/clones in the movies) and i recall him saying something about the clones being given lethal assaignments and rumours of them being killed off on the emperors orders and replaced with less experienced/less competent non-clones.

that has the nugget of a great element to bring into a campaign. i wish i could remember what game that was from.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Yes there was a ton of that in WEG. They got the early pencil sketches of stuff that made it in the movie (just slightly different) and decided it needed to be new stuff. Thus we get such things as the Victory Star Destroyer versus the Imperial Star Destroyer we see in the movies and the Z-95 Headhunter from the X-wing (I could be wrong on this one?). It isn't a bad thing in my opinion. We have Swoop Bikes in Star Wars, not just Speeder Bikes, because of early drafts of the Return of the Jedi scout speeder bike.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Yes there was a ton of that in WEG. They got the early pencil sketches of stuff that made it in the movie (just slightly different) and decided it needed to be new stuff. Thus we get such things as the Victory Star Destroyer versus the Imperial Star Destroyer we see in the movies and the Z-95 Headhunter from the X-wing (I could be wrong on this one?). It isn't a bad thing in my opinion. We have Swoop Bikes in Star Wars, not just Speeder Bikes, because of early drafts of the Return of the Jedi scout speeder bike.

I had posted this in another thread, but on the subjects of Stormtroopers being clones. I consider this to be completely true in my games. Well, at least from a certain point of view.

Here's how I work it in my games.

The original Stormtrooper legions, were the remnants of the grand army of the republic - all clones of Jango Fett. Due to Fett's death, the genetic material was lost so now new clones could be created - this leaves the Empire with a ever dwindling supply of elite shock troopers.

The Empire could search for a replacement donor, but In my mind they came up with a better solution. The stormtroopers still end up being 'clones' of a sort.

Enter the Carida Academy - A place where officers have trained for a long time - the perfect place to start building the Stormtrooper legions. So, the empire not wanting to deal with growing an army set up shop on Carida and started a new project. They take promising students - those with the skills, physical capabilites that are the highest, and start brainwashing them. This 'exam' creates the fanatically loyal soldiers that Stormtroopers signify. The Empire has perfected this technique, so it is very subtle - so very little chance of it being found out. The advantages is that the best students at Carida have the training and still maintain their independance, except where the Empire is concerned. The disadvantage is those who have strong wills, the 'cloning' process doesn't take hold and more than a few (Han Solo, Kyle Katarn) have resisted this process.

To me this makes the stormtroopers more fearsome - as they are regular, albeit highly trained individuals, that have their own motivations, hopes and dreams - but deep in the back of their mind, these are secondary to the 'loyalty' to the emperor due to a subtle and very effective and insidious indoctrination process.

Regarding they "well why didn't they just keep using Jango's DNA since they had it on file?" question regarding "Stormtroopers as clones" school of thought.

You ever make a photocopy of a photocopy? And with each successive photocopy, the quality of the image degrades, right?

Well, consider also that the Kaminoians had kept Jango Fett around long after creating the intial batch of Clone Troopers. If all they needed was just a one-time sample of genetic material, then frankly they could have taken the sample and sent Jango on his way. But what if for each batch, they needed a fresh genetic sample to ensure the ensuing Clone Troopers were up to genetic snuff? It'd explain why Jango pretty much made Kamino his base of operations for ten years. Maybe for a while the Kaminoains could get by, possibly even having a reserve of genetic samples to work from to create new batches of Clone Troopers. But given the seemingly high mortality rate we see in the Grand Army of the Republic, they'd need to create more clones and in a hurry. Running short on Jango samples, they decide to try using the info from a 1st generation copy, probably an ARC Trooper as they've been pegged as "pretty much raw Jango" and had the least amount of genetic tampering (pretty much just the increased aging). But the results were… less than satisfactory, particularly if the Kaminoians were the perfectionists that the EU paints them out to be.

Plus, you've got young, healthy, hardy Imperial males wanting to volunteer to join the "elite Stormtrooper Corps." What better way to solve your problem of dwindling and rapidly aging reserves than with physically fit specimens that want to sign up? Most military commanders will tell you that a soldier who is there fighting by choice is far more effective in the field than a conscript with no choice in the matter that doesn't want to be there. And if some of these freebirth recruits end up being the really stellar specimens, then you also solve the issue of new genetic templates that are both fresh and could at least merit a favorable comparison to Jango's.

Sturn said:

On the carbine/rifle classification: WEG game used the term carbine to refer to an older class of weapon, rather than it necessarily being an intermediary between sub-machine guns and rifles. Mechanically they worked just like rifles, except for the fact that they found it much harder to hit at long range. Higher tech weapons were meant to make them more accurate at longer range.

Apparently George Lucas always wanted Storm Troopers to be Clones. However, I have always preferred the Thrawn presentation (and in fact the Thrawn Trilogy is the only canon material aside from the original trilogy in my current Star Wars campaign). The Clones were something the Republic fought against (in my case, the ease of producing readily trained armies meant that warlords sprung up all over the galaxy and the Republic tried to restore order). This meant that the force the Stormtroopers developed out of were very expressly not going to be clones, as they were meant to be a symbol of the war against the clones.

I think the current official stance is that after the Clone Wars the Stormtroopers started accepting non-Clones and started cloning from different stock. This is to explain why apparent clones are different heights in the original trilogy.

borithan said:

You're right, my mistake. It became a repeater during d20 Star Wars, was a grenade launcher before that. Wookiepedia has it as a repeater also. Usually Wookieepedia tries to give reasons for all of the contradictions throughout EU, but apparently they couldn't find one for this one and left it as it's most recent incarnation.

Episode IV originally never showed the T21 or DLT19 firing. So Lucas' original intent of whether they were both repeaters or the T21 was a grenade/ion/repeater weapon can't be garnered from movie canon. The Episode IV remake however does show a blast coming from the T21 during the Mellinium Falcon escape scene in Mos Eisley. It isn't autofire (could have been firing single shot for some reason) and the blast coming from it looks identical (it's red) from what is coming from the E-11's. If you use this short scene as the holy grail (and don't consider that the new graphics guys possibly didn't worry about what weapon was firing what), then the T21 has to be a blaster and not an ion or grenade weapon. In my personal Star Wars universe, it was just cooler and made more sense to have E-11's, heavier DTL19's that were capable of autofire (bipods and all), and a T21 with a fat ion barrel for anti-vehicle and anti-droid use.

Another issue with the weapon is we see a Stormtrooper leader (an officer?) carrying the T21 when they stop Luke and Ben looking for the droids. While the officer could choose to carry any weapon he wanted, officers and NCO's from my Army days tended to never carry the large, support weapons. It would have made more sense for the officer to be carrying an E-11 then the largest **** weapon the Stormtroopers carry. He would have made Private THX1138 carry that thing. The only arguments I could come up with was he was a Rambo-leadfronmthefront-badass that just wanted the largest weapon possible. Or, it was an ion weapon, he saw the speeder and droids which matched the description he was given, and grabbed the ion gun ready to blast them if they tried to run….until he realized they weren't the droids they were looking for.

Honestly, I think the Rebels need more PR work these days than the Empire.

If the Stormtroopers are the Waffen SS, all shiny jackboots, goose stepping and Hitler Salutes, then the Rebels are the LRDG - beards, scruffy clothing, individualism and dune buggies festooned with machine guns.

In essence,

Rebels:-

Imperials:-