# 5150: Star Army tags: #game/wargame/5150-star-army ![[5150 - Star Army (2nd Tour) (cover).jpg|600]] ![[5150 - Star Army (Original) (cover).jpg|600]] Star Army is the **[[5150 - Wargames]]** line on the ground, and it's where Two Hour Wargames' whole pitch is at its most honest: you set up your infantry, and then you find out what they actually do the moment the shooting starts. It's the squad-to-company infantry skirmish wargame of the 5150 universe — the ground core that the rest of the line's military side spins off from — and it plays solo, cooperatively, or head-to-head, which for a wargame is a surprisingly unusual offer. ## Setting The 5150 universe's planetary ground war is fought by the armies of its factions — the human **Gaea Prime Star Army** at the center, with its elite **Star Marines** and the synthetic **Symons** alongside, arrayed against the other powers and races of the galaxy (Basic, **Grath**, **Hishen**, **Razor**, **Xeog**, **Zhuh-Zhuh**, and the rest of the alien docs). It's a military game built as a toolbox: you pick your **Lists** (faction rosters), organize **Squads** into **Platoons** and **Companies**, and put leaders on top with a chain of command that matters when things go wrong. The fiction is mostly the frame; the point is the fight, and whether your force holds. ## Mechanics Star Army runs on the same **THW Reaction System** as [[Chain Reaction]]: the **taken-versus-Rep** roll — 2d6 against a figure's **Reputation**, each die equal to or under passing — and the Reaction Tests that fire when the enemy comes into sight, takes fire, or a man goes down. The twist the whole line is built on is that troops react on their own: leaders don't micromanage, they steady the ranks, and a squad's cohesion is its own kind of currency. - **Figures** are **Stars** (the plot-armored few with Rep advantages and special-attribute potential) and **Grunts** (the masses), equipped with **Exo-Armor** and the tactical armor and weapons tables. - **Force organization** runs Squad → Platoon → Company, with cohesion tests, chain of command, and leaders who can assume command when the ranked one falls. - **PEFs** — the **Possible Enemy Forces** — drive solo and same-side play the same way they do across THW: the enemy doesn't start on the table, it starts as uncertainty and resolves when it comes into sight. That's what makes playing it alone (or together against the game) feel like an opponent is actually there. - **Missions and campaign** rules let you generate forces and scenarios from the tables, so no two games are alike and a campaign strings them together. ## Editions - **5150: Star Army** (2011) — the original ground core, written by **Ed Teixeira**. *In the library.* - **5150: Star Army – 2nd Tour** (revised; the book first shipped internally as "5150: Star Army – Final Version," then was re-released under the 2nd Tour name) — the tightened core of the standalone game. The **v1** and **v2** copies are the same rules; only the book's name changed ("Final Version" → "2nd Tour") plus a couple of editorial trims, so **do not read "(v2)" as a new edition**. *In the library (v1 and v2).* - **Total War: Star Army** — the Star Army title in the **Total War** combined-arms re-issue, and the current working edition of the ground-infantry game: revised beyond the earlier standalone cores and run together with the rest of the wargame line. *In the library.* ## Supplements *All in the library.* **Alien docs** - **The Kurgen** (2012, Hafer & Teixeira) — the mercenary Kurgen race as a Star Army force, with random events (snipers, mines, artillery strikes), reinforcements, and insertion tables. - **The Infected** (2010) — the infected alien threat, played as a Black-Ops-flavored bug hunt. - **The Spugs** (2011) — the bug-hive Spugs' army: crew Reps, vehicle types (APCs, medium and heavy tanks), campaign morale, and investment levels. - **The Harook** (2012) — the Harook soldier race: grenade/assault rifles, rocket launchers, hard body armor, and squad organization. - **The Lhurgg** (2013, Hafer & Teixeira) — the Lhurgg ride in herds (4–21 strong) behind a leader and a mutant packing a heavy machine gun. - **Alien Info** (2011) — the 5150 aliens reference: the fifty-three catalogued Xenoforms and what counts as a Basic/humanoid. **Campaign & rules** - **Citizen Soldier** — the rise-in-the-ranks campaign: sign on as a Private and earn Gaea Prime citizenship over ten years of service, across a dozen units and three alien races. - **Cestus V** — the planet campaign module: lawless Cestus V, re-settled after a Bug invasion, now facing the Hishen Empire, as you climb the ranks. - **More Than a Grunt** (2024, Cunningham & Teixeira) — NPC backgrounds & relationships: who an NPC is (race, homeworld, profession, family), personality and motivation tables, social interaction, and even romance, marriage, and kids. - **Pukers and Hoppers** (2014) — two new bug types for Star Army: Pukers that spit plasma-like debris at long range and fast, low-flying Hopper scouts. **[[5150 - Star Marine]]** is a **separate, self-contained** game in the line (individual space-marine careers), not a Star Army supplement. ## References - [5150 – Two Hour Wargames](https://www.twohourwargames.com/) - [5150 – Sci-Fi Games — Rebel Minis Press](https://rebelminispress.com/collections/sci-fi-games)