Dude, please don't start doing this again. I'm assuming you are AluminumWolf returned or just channeling his old behavior somehow.

Looking at ErikB's registry date and AluminumWolf's last posts before banning adds some evidence to my speculation. AluminumWolf gets banned it appears for posting pictures constantly in threads, most being pics of soldiers, Nazis, etc (seems familiar). Less then 2 weeks later ErikB registers. Now we see the posts above. Please don't ruin threads with this behavior (again, if you are AluminumWolf).

Sturn said:

I was joking in my previous post! I don't want it to be true!!!

Also, I'm torn because I want to praise the quote from Madine…

-WJL

Well, for what it is worth, if you want to be a Solder in the Star Wars universe, you don't want to be a brainwashed Stormtrooper with a higher skill in armour polishing and ideaological purity than fieldcraft. You want to be a free thinking Rebel Commando with a Tactical Beard.

He's baaaaaaccck!

mouthymerc said:

Well, if it is AluminumWolf under a new handle and he's back to his old antics (including the ones that got him booted last time), then maybe said antics will finally get this forum an active moderator, or at least one that's listed rather than the "Without Moderator" tag.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Didn't think much of it till Sturn mentioned it and I was reminded of his posts in the Jedi thread. I think it may have been Sturn who called him the new AluminumWolf in that thread. But I think the reality is that it is the old AluminumWolf. Honestly, though, most of his posts just made me chuckle.

mouthymerc said:

But they tend to derail the thread. We were speaking of peep's versions/thoughts of Stormtroopers here. Now the conversation has been muddled by semi-catatonic postings and responses to them.

Meh, I just ignore them for the most part. Like I said, for the most part I just get a chuckle out of him. I mean come on, he wants flying Jedi who can throw star destroyers around. But I understand how you feel. The one thing I liked about the WotC boards was that you could block people and not see their posts. Too bad you can not do that here.

mouthymerc said:

Heaven forfend that someone makes a roleplaying game that lets me play out my favourite aspect of the Star Wars universe, amirite?*

Now, admittedly, this is a trifle hipocritical after going off on a rant about how the wargaming community spends far too much time glorifying Nazis, and the moral failing that liking Stormtroopers shows**. There probably isn't much difference between a desire to make Stormtroopers uber and to make Jedi uber, other than personal aesthetics.

But it does make me very sad that at one time, one of the ways you knew Vader was the bad guy was because he came in to Leia's cell with the torture droid and said 'And now, Your Highness, we will discuss the location of your hidden Rebel base', and these days, that is something Jack Bauer or Sam Fisher or another Good Guy might do.

*I mean, maybe not the actual bit with the Star Destroyer, but I really liked The Force Unleashed, and the Lightsaber choreography was something I thought was pretty cool about the prequels.

**But seriously, Nazis. In history academia there is a school of thought that pretty much says 'Because you cannot verify them, all sources must be treated as equally accurate. Except holocaust deniers, because seriously, **** those Nazi assholes.'

ErikB said:

They did. WotC's Star Wars Saga RPG. They even put out a Campaign Guide for The Force Unleashed. If or when FFG does something like that it will be way down the road.

ErikB said:

No one wants "uber" stormtroopers as far as I can see. What I do see is some discussion of what stormtroopers are to people. What makes them different from other military units and the inspirations for them.

ErikB said:

Welcome to the age of the anti-hero.

>>>>They did. WotC's Star Wars Saga RPG. They even put out a Campaign Guide for The Force Unleashed. If or when FFG does something like that it will be way down the road.<<<<

The TFU campaign book isn't really about playing characters 'like Starkiller'. It is about playing in The Dark Times period. And, like every bottom up system, people seem to agree that Saga system works best at the bottom.

Plus, a lot of the ranting is about moving it forwards a bit.

>>>>No one wants "uber" stormtroopers as far as I can see. What I do see is some discussion of what stormtroopers are to people. What makes them different from other military units and the inspirations for them.<<<<

Well, the inspirations are the depictions of Nazi soldiers in war movies, and, yknow Ming the Merciless' guards…

Ah Flash Gordon, gotta love it. Remember seeing it in theater. If the uberness of the Saga jedi doesn't do it for you then I think you are going to be disappointed here. I don't get the impression that FFG is going in for that type of jedi. May have to adapt M&M for it.

>>>>Ah Flash Gordon, gotta love it.<<<<

I think this is the first time Stormtroopers appeared on screen:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I0lo42gcgM#t=12m25s

There are a lot of Star Wars appropriate genres where the mooks need to be pretty inept.

I think someone playing a Jedi will want to be able to recreate this scene:-

And they should! It shows they are paying attention to the kind of movie they are in.

If you make the goon squad too good, you are going to end up with something more like

And I don't think anyone really comes in to a Star Wars game hoping their character will get their teeth knocked in by a stormtroopers rifle butt.

--

In general,

Man, look at this totally sweet clip of some Japanese sword dudes sparing with lightsabers drawn over the top. There is some fantastic blade work there, although some of the half swording moves would require that a Jedi have a gauntlet that can catch a saber blade in their off hand.

My stormtroopers are the common foot soldiers of the empire. Elite units do exist. The black helmeted guys are non-infantry personelle of the empire (including security guards).

I like your carbine idea for the standard ST blaster.

Sturn said:

Incidentally, a British army section consists of eight men in two fireteams of four.

Each fireteam consists of an NCO with an assault rifle with underbarrel grenade launcher, a dude with a MINIMI SAW like the US army uses, another dude with the SAW version of the british assault rifle, and a dude with an assault rifle. So they carry two different SAWs. Now, this is really because they had already bought the SAW version of the british assault rifle when they decided they wanted the belt fed MINIMI, and since they had them they may as well use them (and while, being magazine fed, they were never very good for laying down suppressive fire they do have a longer barrel and a bipod which makes them quite good for long range shooting). But that seems a little inelegant to use in a fantasy setting.

And on the whole the NCO has the grenade launcher since they feel that given that he will be deciding what to shoot with it he may as well cut out the middle man and do it himself.

ErikB how come some of your posts come off as very intelligent (the one above) and others are somewhat rambling or just a bunch of images you found? Honestly asking. Someone else using your login? Wake up middle of the night insomnia postings? I can be rambling myself (see below), but it just seems like there is both an ErikA and ErikB making your posts.

Good point on some real-world units having more then one type of machinegun per squad. I experienced this also in my US Army days with the SAW and the M60. As a squad leader I also carried an M203 (grenade launcher). BUT, we also had anti-vehicle weapons (AT-4) on the squad level. Stormtroopers don't have such. In a world full of cheap speeders and droids, it makes way too much sense to arm the Stormtroopers with an ion weapon. They are descendants of a war against droids and they didn't see a need to have ion weapons in their TOE?

It could be argued that Stormtroopers don't need anti-droid weapons since blasters will do (even though ion weapons will do better). It could also be argued that Stormtroopers don't need anti-vehicle weapons since that is what their ATST/ATAT/TIE support is for (even though we see them on the ground without such support). In your universe, if this works for you, it is fine. But, no modern Army since WW2 has chosen not to give anti-vehicle weapns to their infantry even when support (tanks, aircraft, artillery) was available. So in mine, I'm giving them an ion weapon instead of two repeaters.

Imagine receiving a……..

WARNING ORDER

TO: COMMANDER > COMPANY A > 3RD STORMTROOPER BATTALION > 345TH LEGION

FROM: (DELETED)

ORDERS: LOCATE AN UNKNOWN MODEL ASTROMECH DROID BELIEVED TO BE UPON THE WORLD OF TATOOINE. CONFIRM IT IS THE DROID YOU ARE LOOKING FOR BEFORE DESTROYING IT COMPLETELY.

FOR-YOUR-EYES-ONLY: TARGET CONTAINS TOP SECRET INFORMATION OF UTMOST VALUE. ALLOW NO ONE TO COPY OR VIEW THIS MATERIAL. DESTROY ANY ENTITIES COMING IN CONTACT WITH THE DROID.

INTEL: THE ASTROMECH DROID WAS ACCOMPANIED LAST BY A PROTOCOL DROID. THEY FLED IN AN ESCAPE POD WHICH ESTIMATES COMPUTE CRASHED SOMEWHERE IN SECTOR A3 OF THE DUNE SEA.

SUPPORT: DUE TO SECRECY OF MISSION, NO AIR SUPPORT WILL BE GIVEN OTHER THEN TRANSPORTATION SHUTTLES.

END OF ORDER

"Ok boys, it's a search-confirm-destroy mission. Assemble in the docking bay with all gear by 02:15 hours. Squad leaders, make sure we have ion support, we're going to need it."

Stormtroopers are meant to be elite. It is just that the films shows them being thrown against the heroes, and the heroes always win in a film. Oh, and I guess the Ewoks has their "small furry creatures" save to fall back on. Against anyone else we see in the films they are actually quite competent. The "standard troopers" of the empire are just concripts, and we generally don't see them in the films.

I personally think that the standard Imperial troopers would be most like the conscript armies of WW2: ie just normal guys, with a resulting wide variety in ability. The Rebels… well, I quite like the LRDG comparison myself, even if I don't think they necessarily operate like them, but because it isn't necessarily their military skills that determine the best rebel soldier, but their independence, out-of-box thinking, and ability to read that a situation is beyond them and they should skedaddle out of their. Oh, and the beards…

I don't think there is any real equivalent of Stormtroopers in the modern world… they are just too unrelenting. They are an entirely film style creation.

Sturn said:

Well, firstly I am a fairly hardcore Rebel, so a lot of what I post, especially as it relates to Imperial Swine can probably be characterised as '**** the Horde'.

Secondly, my idea of what is appropriate inspirational material for Star Wars leans more towards Commando: War Stories in pictures comics than Ospreys Belt Buckles of the Waffen SS July 17th-August 1st 1944. Volume 4 of 27.

I am going to post some pictures now, because I think it is the best way of explaining why I mean. Commando is a British boys own war comic. These covers are fairly representitive.

Note that the Brit/Rebel is ruggedly handsome with steely determination in his eyes, and the Nazi/Imperial is ugly, scared and about to die for the Fuhrer.

I grew up watching Star Wars and reading Commando comics.

Thirdly, I don't see anything wrong with wanting to play someone as cool as Clint Eastwoods Man With No Name or Samurai Jack (or Boba Fett and Mace Windu). Or the commandos in the above pictures.

So I dunno, when it comes to Star Wars I value boyish enthusiasm over boring sensibility. No one puts posters of tax accountants on their walls when they are a kid. It is Lamborghinis and footballers and X-Wing fighters. If you watch Top Gear, Richard Hammonds enthusiasm for Lambos is, yknow, an example.

But seriously, **** the horde. **** those guys.

Ok, well you started your "Rebels are cool" thread so lets stick to discussing stormtroopers here from now on.

Judging by the evidence in the movies, which we must as the EU has now been junked, we can clearly see that Stormtroopers are the faceless, disposable drone soldiers of an evil dictator. Barely trained, and equipped by the lowest bidder (who STILL embezzels 30% of the contracts value), they rely on over whelming numbers and human wave tactics to secure what paltry victories they do achieve.

:0)

I like the idea of stormtroopers being elite. The movies certainly support this idea. The stormtroopers attack on the Jawa's sand crawler and Obi Wan's statement "only stormtroopers are so precise" shows this. As does the boarding of the Tantive IV and the assault on echo base. Typically, the rebels are running from the stormtroopers, with the notable exception of the first Death Star where Tarkin and Vadar expressly let Han, Luke, and Leia escape and the battle of Endor, where the Ewoks annoyed the stormtroopers to death.

cparadis said:

That is just because the Rebels are always heavily outnumbered. It is the same in The Lord of the Rings - the Free Peoples are on the defensive because while Elves are better fighters than Orcs, the thing with Orcs is there there are thousands of the buggers!

Just for fun. Why were the stormtroopers in Star Wars such bad shots? and The Biggest Star Wars Plot Hole, Explained by Science. Besides the main characters who are wearing plot armor, stormtroopers were a threat. And when they are translated to a game, they still need to be threatening and intimidating. You can play them like keystone cops if that is your interest, but most players want to be challenged, or at least have the appearance of being challenged. And they should have character as the faceless minions of the empire as much as any other actual named NPC. That way when they show up they either inspire the characters to take them out or run away, depending on the circumstances.

ErikB said: