My Starship Troopers by Mongoose Collection's Final Days

2024-09-05 28mm-SF / Starship Troopers / Showcase /

Background

Mongoose published Starship Troopers while I was in college, so I came to the game through vulture sales when I was finally making adult money. I never managed to win any auctions for the much needed warriors, stuck forever with the 20 from my starter box. I filled it out with the signature models, including the single worst model I ever assembled. I painted my oodles of MI that were more readily available and the overpriced bugs I could stomach, but was forever frustrated with the lack of arachnid core models to work with because paying a hundred bucks for a box of 20 is absurd.

I've grown increasingly unhappy with 28mm for anything other than small warband skirmishes. Starship Troopers in 28mm feels unwieldy even on a massive 6x8 table. The plasma bug is ginormous. It feels like a scene with the camera zoomed too far in, and the focal length squished. Still, I broke out the models every couple of years because it's such an interesting and engaging game, full of strategic decisions and shifts in state, both a superb game and a cinematic experience. And I hadn't reached the point I could really do it in a different scale yet...

Goonhammer published an excellent pair of articles on the history of the game I encourage anyone to read if you Would Like to Know More? (there, it's out of my system, won't happen again). The rules still exist in some form with the abortive Battlefield Evolution, though they're genericized to modern combat. They lack the best parts of SST, but still a great system. Interestingly, BF:Evo was expanded with a number of WWII setting books by a fellow named Agis Neugebauer who went on to make his own system largely based on same mechanics called Victory Decision, which he adapted to the Gear Krieg setting for Dream Pod 9, and the last book he wrote for it was Victory Decision: Future Combat which just straight up has Heavy Gear Jaegers and hovertanks in it.

Brief shoutout to an obscure and somewhat rare sourcebook by Exploding Goat Games for BF:Evo called Apocalypse Z that reskins the swarm mechanics from SST for zombies, which works beautifully.

The Arachnid Empire

Warriors

20 of these guys was never going to be enough, and I've mostly made do. These were my first and last attempts at 'Dipping'. Messy, finicky, dark, if not for the prospect of painting a hundred of the buggers, I'd never have considered it. Tides and shallows all over. Just a sloppy mess.

I also tried to vary the legs, get as many different poses out of the models as possible. Some of them, I should not have. There's a few that topple over on any kind of slope.

They make a unique nails-on-chalkboard screech when you push the model along a smooth table, a rather fitting shriek of plastic, as well as a tinkle of talon tips tapping. Fitting sound effects is not something I've ever in all my years encountered out of any other model.

Honorable mention to the one I tried to dip a second time because I was unhappy with his initial coloration. We call him 'crispy'.

Hoppers

I almost have more of these than Warriors. Seemingly over produced, it's the only model you can still somewhat regularly find for MSRP. Much less posable than the Warrior. And another victim of my dipping plan. They had flight stands, but this was before I knew about Hawk Widgets, so they can be divided into the ones I glued and which snapped off, and the ones that didn't fit very well and mostly fell off the stands.

Blister Bugs

Shooty bugs never really interested me all that much. Just something gamey feeling about it vs the plasma or tanker acid spit. I only ever bought 3 of them.

Plasma Bug

A monstrously huge model, the size of one of those ridiculous GW centerpieces. A bother to store, and it never sits right. It's more than half a pound of plastic in a space 7 inches wide, 10 inches long, and 6 inches tall. Thankfully largely stationary in play. I've actually got the parts for an entire second one still in bags.

Tanker Bug

The star of most games, you can practically hear the music crescendo when it burrows up or crashes into the walls. Why yes, mine is missing a leg (I still have it actually). The joint there is really narrow for what is effectively a big lever. I've had problems and breakage with all the legs of the large bugs. This one I should have left the legs loose, so it could be modeled clambering over things. C'est la vie.

Burrower

The one bug I never got around to painting. I bought the model from Rebel Minis, and it was a really terrible casting, full of bubbles, flash, and ill fitting pieces though that's probably on Mongoose more than Rebel. Not on the same level as the next model down, but still a right pain in the ass to assemble.

The Brain Bug

There really is nothing more to say about the model that haven't already in my rant. But it's a fun addition to a force, high risk high reward, and enables a ton of key plays. I always regretted not bringing one, or holding it back. It came with a pack of 6 chariot bugs that are supposed to carry it around, but they don't in any way interconnect. I mean that literally, you're just supposed to plop it on the mass of them. But they're also ablative, to be removed as the brain is damaged, so the intent was to keep it loose, which is just awkward enough I've never bothered with it on the table.

The Mobile Infantry

Power Suit Troopers

The power suit troopers all come from the Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, an early CGI kids show that aired on the SciFi channel in '99. Decent plastic sprues, mostly gluing plates and weapons onto a standard 5 piece body. Left to right, the standard Morita rifle, the Javelin missile launcher, the Hel infantry flamer, and the Triple-Thud grenade launcher. In proper lighting they look decent, but in anything other than the ideal they look dark and muddy to me.

I also never affixed and then completely lost the clear yellow visors meant to go over their faces. I tried gluing a couple in at first and they fogged awfully. I never did the rest and then just plain misplaced them somewhere. They were teeny pieces.

Power Suit Officers

It felt obvious to me, but I don't recall seeing anyone else do it, so maybe I'm pulling this from my ass. But the pauldrons and helmet had these ridges in bars and chevrons that were a cinch to pick out for denoting rank. I kinda had to make up what they meant, so in descending rank from left to right; Captain, Lieutenant, NCO, Sergeant, Corporal, and the above privates all had no no sections colored. I think I got the taser staves and batons from a different kit?

Power Suit Pathfinders

Cyber doggies, with laser eyes, sonic bark, and a bomb in their chest. I'm only making up one of those. I know these were actually in the book, but still wild they made it to the game. Also loved the wide variety of breeds. I only painted half the dogs because they're 1:1 with the pathfinder marines, and I ran out of plastic bodies for them. The Pathfinder kit was actually some metal upgrade bits you added to the plastic power suit troopers.

I've only fielded these guys the once. They were from the last expansion book, and suffered from clear power creep.

SICON Officer (Neil Patrick Harris)

It's got no face. Where you'd expect one is a jumble of ridges. Mostly you want the hat to hide the Clayface-but-poorly-executed visage. I don't know if mine was a bad cast, or its a bad mold. I suspect it's simply overshadowed by other much worse models.

M9 'Chickenhawk' Marauder

A glass cannon of a unit, mine seem to explode instead of weather hits. I bought a bulk carton of them, so have 5 complete ones (one got parted out for various kit bashes) I built most of mine based on a picture of the model in the book before realizing it's not entirely a valid configuration. The optional missile pack attachment point on the roof is rather unsightly and if I had the pieces or desire to fix them, I'd slap one on all of them just to make them look better.

The Unfinished - M8 'Ape' Marauder, Exosuits

The Ape marauder I never finished building because I mostly just don't really like the model. The huge flat panel on the back I believe was meant to accommodate an add-on heavy mortar, but the stock model looks like it needs a big decal, a mech tramp stamp if you will. The exosuits I was excited to find over at Rebel Minis, they're the game's true to the book version of Mobile Infantry. The models are multipart metal and come from some apparently worn the fuck out spin molds because they'd require extensive rehab. Also just a lot of the parts feel like the master elements were half assed. I was too disappointed in them to ever bother assembly.

The Last Hurrah

One last game to check the rules are still as engaging as I remember them. I invited Doc Tree over to play a game, selected the forces and ran through the basics again. He chose the MI. You really can't tell, but the table actually has so much height variance the Plasma bub is almost in cover from the MI. ... I really need to fix the bright sheen on this cloth.

I elected to tunnel most of my stuff. I technically rolled a direct hit and then a squad wipe with my first plasma shot, which I thought would make for a boring game so we rerolled it and instead I clipped two troopers. Tunnels advanced. The MI lobbed explosives into the Plasma bug and nearest tunnel entrance though didn't down either.

This was the first rule we played wrong, either the MI and plasma bug should have had LoS to each other and thus both direct fire opportunity, or artillery mode at each other, but I misread it and had the bugs scattering while the MI landed basically guaranteed hits. The plasma bug should have been bullying the marauders.

Hoppers screened and died trying to take hits for the team, and then I moved two of my tunnel markers too close together so Tree dropped the nuke from orbit and blew a hole into the crust of the planet, frying or crushing 14 warriors and driving the rest out prematurely. They were subsequently cut down by small arms fire.

Second mistake, the nuke should have scattered. Still the same possible outcome, so a relatively minor one, and besides the real mistake was putting that many models that close together.

The Plasma bug finally landed a good hit obliterating one marauder, while the tanker popped up and started kicking and spitting. Scattered one squad, but took some hot dice from infantry flamers and started losing hits rapidly. Meanwhile the steady rocket fire finally did in the Plasma bug.

The tanker went down the same time as the last of the hoppers and warriors, leaving the poor brain bug to retreat as best it could. MI victory, with only about a third of their forces lost.

The Future