Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers is a board wargame by Avalon Hill based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein. It was originally released in 1976 and designed by Randall C. Reed. Twenty years later, Avalon Hill redesigned and re-released a "movie" version (entitled Starship Troopers: Prepare for Battle!) in 1997 to coincide with the movie's release. The game is a hexagon-based wargame for two players. The player who takes the side of Arachnids has a sheet of paper with a copy of the map-board on which he plots out his bug-hive and tunnel system. The Mobile Infantry player sends in his soldiers and tries to dig them out. A third faction, the Skinnies, starts out playing on the bug side, but switches to the human side during later scenarios. Publication The game was designed by Randall C. Reed who was the head of The Avalon Hill research and development staff in the late 1970s, and was one of the first new Avalon Hill employees after the Charles S. Roberts era. He later left Avalon Hill to work with wargames for the U.S. Marine Corps. Scenarios The game is set up as a series of seven scenarios that recreate the battles described in the novel; the first scenario uses the basic rules, and then each succeeding scenario adds a new layer of rules, gradually increasing the complexity of the game as players advance through the scenarios: