[SG] Rules for aliens

G'day guys,

Got my first SG group yesterday (basically they're the "greys" (aliens with
oversized heads, big eyes and puny bodies)). So now I was just wondering if
any of you creative types knew where I could get some alien rules to go with
them.

Cheers

Beth

Well, I don't know of any pre-existing rules for 'Greys' outside of a
few RPGs, but I give it a few shots:

1)Questionable Morale These guys always seem to be sneaking around, and bug
out as soon as anybody shows up. Maybe something like what many wargames use
to simulate American morale in early WW2: run away pretty easily, and regroup
even faster. Penalty on confidence tests, bonus to rally tests.

2)Weirdo Tech Always pulling something out of their kit. Paralysis ray,
vehicular immobilizer, matter transmuter, anal probe, whatever. They always
seem to have some sort of PSB device at their beck & call. For each squad,
roll

from a list of special powers. You'd need to have some useless ones on there
too, like Crop Circle Maker, Bovine Rectum & Tongue Remover, Redneck Detector,
you get the idea. These may have no combat effects, but would be important for
victory conditions ('Remove anuses, tongues & 1 eyeball from 75% of all
livestock in enemy's area. 1 action to mutilate one
animal.').

3)Hangers-On
More groupies than they can shake a stick at. UFO loonies, 'abductees',

clueless FBI agents (hey, we've got minis for those 2!), various secretive
military groups trying to capture the Greys, kill them, capture people who see
them, kill people who see them, capture themselves, you get the idea.
Thankfully, this is StarGrunt, and you can shoot most of these people.
Especially if you're a lonely, backwaters, dirtball colony garrison.

I could think of more, but there's flashing lights outside, and the power is
flicker

[quoted original message omitted]

Quoth Noah Doyle:
> Paralysis ray, vehicular

Hmm.."I paralyze your APC driver, immobilize his APC, transmute his AR to
styrofoam and insert an anal probe. Roll a range die."

=)

> At 09:46 AM 10/2/98 +1000, you wrote:

Beth,

Well as a veteran player of X-COM (computer game; published in UK as UFO
Interceptor or some such several years ago) I can tell you that the "little
grey bastards" are one of my favorite enemies. Should you wish to borrow a
page or two from that game, here's a few tips:

First of all, they are fast. They can pop out from cover, plug one of your
squad and disappear around the corner before you know what hit you.

Second, their reactions are good. If you miss your shot, he won't.

They always seem to carry around heavy plasma rifles that are at least as big
as they are as well as powerful energy grenades, stun bomb launchers
and the occasional shoulder-fired, guided-missile-from-hell.  (Can trace
a flight path 'round corners and over almost any obstacle. Up to nine
in-flight way points.  Takes out half a city block when it goes off.)

They are also reasonably tough despite the fact that the are running around in
the buff. A hit from a rifle usually just gets their attention. Use something
with a bit more "oomph" to it. Like a heavy rocket launcher.

They make a very satisfying high-pitched squeal when the die.  Very
handy for when you are firing blind in the general direction of one of their
snipers. If you hit one and they don't squeal, they're just stunned...

Their leaders have PSI powers (possibly gadget-enhanced) that allow them
to
either take control of the weak-willed members of you squad or reduce
their confidence level to "sheer blithering panic" which most often results in
them firing at random at everything but the "little grey bastard" in question
(trees, rocks, the ground, their nearest buddy...)

They REALLY like to play hide-and-seek in the woods or abandoned farm
houses at night. They definitely see a lot better in the dark that we do.
And no night-vision gear in X-COM... :(

Being small and sneaky, they are also good at hiding in places you are SURE
you already checked. Always look in the corner behind that door! And don't
rely on motion sensors, they can find a corner and remain still for quite a
while.

Beware their engineers; either they are really lousy shots, or they have a
unerring tendency to fire straight into that power core you were hoping to
capture, taking themselves (and you) with it.

When terrorizing civilians, they will bring along automated anti-grav
weapons platforms. These are featureless disks about 6 feet across and
armed with a rapid-firing light (for a vehicle) plasma cannon.  Although
these weapons platforms are slow moving, and awkward in close quarters, and
can hover anywhere from 3 to 30 feet in the air, making them nasty in urban
settings. (Nothing more discouraging than having one of these hover out from
around the corner at a third story height and strafe the alley your fireteam
is moving down) They are well armored and tend to
self-destruct
when damaged, taking out a rather sizable (20' radius, perhaps?) chunk of the
landscape with them. If you manage to down one of their terror ships, you can
count on several of these weapons being on board.

Hope this helps!

Yeah XCOM - thats what I thought too.
(AKA UFO - enemy unseen)

Jeff did a good summary, so I won't. But I endorse his analysis.

> At 09:00 02/10/98 +0100, you wrote:
I hate to be finicky but it's UFO: Enemy *Unknown*. My favourite video game of
all time that is.

> Jeff did a good summary, so I won't.
XCOM/UFO is actually a pretty good training tool for 'reall' turn based
strategy games. I practiced a lot of small unit tactics using that thing
-
the AI can be quite tricky at higher levels. Pity about the (software)bugs.

                        TTFN
                                Jon

> The combat engine in that game is pretty much ripped off/licensed from
Not exactly ripped off - UFO/XCOM was done by the same people who did
Laser Squad. I believe these days they are called Mythos Games (heck, they
might have been called that even then).

                        TTFN
                                Jon

> On Fri, 2 Oct 1998, Jonathan White wrote:

> XCOM/UFO is actually a pretty good training tool for 'reall' turn

The combat engine in that game is pretty much ripped off/licensed from
an
old (but very good!) game called Laser Squad -- it just has isometric
view and height levels tacked on.

Though one thing that always bothered me is that how come they had forgotten
how to make hand grenades with grip safety. I always went: take
grenade, set timer, prime, oops -- not enough action points to throw,
boom!